Yes, but it was clear that he could not speak coherently, let alone defending himself. My not guilty decision was based solely on the presentation by the DA who failed to show that the defendant was actually selling weed - such connection was made by the cop who arrested him and found money on him. OTOH, if she did manage to demonstrate that, I would have had very hard time, because I do not think selling weed (or sex) should be a criminal offence. One way out of such a situation is "jury nullification" i.e. jury refusing to pass a gulty veridict in cases involving unjust laws, regardless of what evidence says, but I did not how other jurors would perceive that.
>
>I have been pretty impressed with the juries that have been selected in my
>judge's court, where educated and intelligent (not the same thing) people
>are not excluded, and where the jurors pretty much do a conscientious job. I
>can think og one exception with the jury as a whole, and then there was the
>male juror who tried to pick up my last year's co-clerk (a very attractive
>woman) . . . .
Not long ago I heard a horror story from a friend. The case involved a driver making an illegal turn and smashing into an unmarked police car. He was charged with assaulting a police officer among other things - a clearly bullshit charge, since the poor schmuck had no way of knowing whose car he was smashing into. However, the jurors we quite eager to go with these charges, and quite angry at my friend who refused. So they finally settled on "reckless driving" or something of that sort - again not a reasonable charge under the circumstances, but my friend was too tired to resist. But the whole thing gave him a big hangover.
wojtek