[speaker001:] well uh down here in we've got um trials by uh jury in criminal cases and the sentencing can be done by the jury normally although the judge can sometimes do it how do y'all do it up there
[speaker002:] um we usually do it uh the jury comes to the verdict and then the judge does the sentencing um I think the jury can recommend something but in you know in some cases like uh murder in the first degree but I the ultimate decision is the is the decision of the judge once the verdict has been reached the jury's dismissed and there's a separate hearing for sentencing
[speaker001:] we've got a lot of these uh in federal court they have a uniform sentencing guidelines that pretty well leave it up to the uh judge to assess the punishment in a certain range
[speaker002:] um-hum well I think it's curious that the sentences that are handed down are usually not served I think that's a big problem with the criminal justice system but
[speaker001:] right here in the Dallas area if you are sentenced to ten years or less to incarceration in in the uh penitentiary you will never make it to the penitentiary and you'll serve about a year in the county jail and then be released because of the jail overcrowding
[speaker002:] yeah well I I understand the jail overcrowding issue but I I think in in in that case as as as in so many all they ever do is discuss the problems and they never do anything to solve them I think that's why this country's in the shape it's in now but I I don't really believe that a jury should do the sentencing I think
[speaker001:] well the judge has a better idea of what is probable ranges for that particular type of offense where a jury is just doing it for one time
[speaker002:] yeah I just don't believe that jurors have the the knowledge the scope and the knowledge to to handle the sentencing whereas the judge does
[speaker001:] well you know in in civil cases they can have uh as few as ten of the jurors agree on a verdict but criminal normally requires unanimous they might make a change on that and that might make for fewer mistrials
[speaker002:] that's that's certainly true I just I I mean I don't agree with juries doing the sentencing but I do agree with trial trial by jury I just think that's critical
[speaker001:] course in civil cases trial by jury doesn't necessarily work if you have a big complex uh business type case where a jury could get totally lost in a lot of those cases people decide to just try the case before a judge and just not have a jury
[speaker002:] right well I think that can that makes sense too because it looks like it would be awfully hard to pick jurors that could follow something as in in a civil case I mean that was really complicated and had a lot of technical issues in it but they there are a lot of criminal cases a lot of murder cases and that that are really very complicated and they seem to be able to get through those
[speaker001:] and you had up there North Carolina that case of that lady who poisoning her various husbands what was it Blanchard or
[speaker002:] Blanche Taylor Moore
[speaker001:] Blanche yes
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] we've we've been reading about that
[speaker002:] yeah we uh have you have you heard about trial that we've got going on now with the uh the man that's accused of molesting twenty three children at a day care center
[speaker001:] no I don't remember reading about that
[speaker002:] well that's the uh that's probably one of the biggest child malestation cases in the in the nation's history this man and his wife it it's a trial by jury but it's really going real ragged I don't understand how they're doing it and they got they he had a hundred and seventy eight charges against him and his attorney's managed to get it reduced to ninety three but the jury in that case they've just absolutely sequestered them nobody even unless you were paying attention at the very beginning you don't even know their names and they uh uh from what I've been reading in the paper they are the ones who are gonna do the sentencing in that
[speaker001:] we've got a case going here where a man is accused of poisoning his wife with arsenic now and the jury the case went to the jury today and the jury's deliberating right now
[speaker002:] arsenic is uh this this Blanche Taylor Moore woman was very clever she did it very slowly over a large period a long period of time at least it was it was done very slowly over a large period of time and since the jury has found her guilty now the judge did the sentencing in that and she's appealing but I'm assuming that she's guilty because I really believe in the jury system
[speaker001:] well the collective wisdom of the jury usually prevails
[speaker002:] yeah hopefully they're smart enough not to be hoodwinked by illegal ploys by lawyers and prosecutors