Of course it does. Have you ever been called to jury duty? The masses are asses.
Half the pool couldn't pass a saliva test.
I’m going to break my “compose a post in under 60 seconds rule” but I’ve been on a jury three times, serving as foreman twice. All three times there were people who had zero concept of what they were there to do. As I mentioned in a previous post, some wanted to punish and some wanted to reward based entirely on emotions, not on the evidence presented. I know I probably sound like a broken record, but my primary job as foreman was to help everyone understand what they were there to do, and I think we made informed decisions based on the information and instructions we were given. Other jurors were instrumental to this eventual success, but it was definitely a learning experience.
In retrospect, most the “problems” were due to decent people who simply didn’t understand that they needed to make a decision based on the evidence presented, even if that meant finding in favor of somebody they didn’t “like.” The rest simply weren’t able to grasp the evidence provided and needed to have it explained in a way that made it understandable. The key, in my experiences at least, isn’t to bully someone into voting a certain way (which is tempting), but to make sure everyone understands their role and responsibility, is able to critically and objectively analyze the evidence provided, make reasonable inferences when necessary, and reach a conclusion/decision within the parameters and instructions given by the judge.
Of course, I wasn’t in that room while they deliberated, but my experience leads me to believe that the Spanier jury probably had some strong personalities on it, and the jury foreman was either unable or unwilling to put in the requisite work and do what he was chosen/elected to do. I also know that how things are supposed to work in theory isn’t how they often work in practice, so there could have been (were?) mitigating circumstances I’m not aware of that impacted how this case turned out. For example, the fact that Spanier’s defense chose not to present a defense tells me that they thought the prosecution so completely failed to make its case that there was no way 12 reasonable people could possibly find him guilty based on the evidence provided.
Maybe they misjudged the jury, or maybe the jury was a bunch of dumbasses. Or maybe something more nefarious happened. Regardless, in the end, Spanier’s life has been turned upside down and Penn State’s reputation further tarnished by 12 people who are basically accountable to nobody.