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Per the NY Times, the jury deliberated for 7 hours. That seems like quite a long time for a simple case. I wonder what the hold-up was. They add, "The jury det

• wat10000 1y ago
  I’d guess there were some “law and order” types on the jury and it took a while to convince them to acquit.
  • giardini 1y ago
    So now anyone can throw sandwiches at ICE agents w/o fear of retribution?
    • wat10000 1y ago
      You can if you don’t intend to hurt them by doing so, and can convince a jury of that.
    • phantasmish 1y ago
      I think any time charges are over something so entirely lacking in even plausible potential (let alone actual) harm that each individual juror has suffered far, far more harm by being called to serve on the case, yeah, there's a good chance the prosecutor's going to be told by those same jurors to go fuck themselves. This never should have been anything more than something in roughly the same legal realm as a parking ticket, for that if no other reason. Instead, probably a thousand-plus person hours and god knows how much money were wasted to use the process itself as punishment... over a thrown sandwich.
• analog31 1y ago
  It could easily take 7 hours to determine, empirically and with good statistics, if a sandwich could cause bodily injury.
  • BobaFloutist 1y ago
    I somehow doubt the jury deliberation involved empirical testing of a sandwiches capacity to cause bodily injury, though it's fun to imagine.
• tclancy 1y ago
  They apparently ate lunch in the middle. You’ll never guess what they had.
  • cogman10 1y ago
    They needed to do ballistics tests in deliberation.
  • mmooss 1y ago
    Can the jury do empirical experiments?
  • burnt-resistor 1y ago
    There was a lot of bread remaining but not many dangerous cold cuts, hazardous mayo, or lethal onions.
• guywithahat 1y ago
  In the strict legal sense, this is assault; assault is just "offensive touching". If I spit on someone in an offensive manor (such as after yelling at them), that's classified as assault, and this has been affirmed by many courts (one such ruling by the 9th circuit court https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1424739.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1424739.htm...). I'm not saying I personally agree with the legal definition, that's just how they do it in the US. Throwing a sandwich at someone in a situation like this absolutely counts as assault, I don't think there's any debate about that. What we have is a case of jury nullification, where a jury recognized the crime and decided not to convict. This is probably fine with the prosecution though, as the real punishment was holding him in jail, getting him fired, and wasting his life savings defending this case.
  • mmooss 1y ago
    Interesting points. > This is probably fine with the prosecution It's an embarrassment, so not at all fine. I doubt anyone is deterred. I wonder if we'll see copycat 'assaults' - I'm surprised we haven't.
    • Scipio_Afri 1y ago
      The guy got arrested, lost his job and had to hire a lawyer. Almost got charged with a felony assault, but the jury decided that he shouldn't be charged. Instead, later charged with a misdemeanor. I'd be super stressed about all of that, plus the trial and then having to wait 7 hours to find out I'm not guilty, but also incredibly happy after. However, all that and his name is forever associated with this incident, so despite no criminal history he might find future employment more challenging. He has probably been through quite a bit despite not being found guilty of a crime. I think that any person who is somehow inspired by doing what he did because he got away with it was always willing to do it anyway. Surely any reasonable person would realize how much he already had to go through which is enough of a deterrent. It was some degree of luck as well, even with similar or same circumstances it might up that another individual is charged and found guilty. He's fairly lucky he doesn't have a criminal record, but it didn't come without consequences. I think the fact that the sandwich was still wrapped on the ground, hit the officer's shoulder, that the other police at the time were visibly amused during the incident, and clearly joking about it for several days after as well with the officer who had it happen to him, showed that the incident wasn't serious enough to ruin anyone's life over. A formal criminal conviction in the US would've made it hard for him to get employment for some time, if not the rest of his life.
• dragonwriter 1y ago
  Clearly, either the jury had some members that were not initially ready to make a decision without review of the evidence in the case, or at least the first poll of the jurors was split, probably either the latter or both. That it was a simple question doesn’t mean that the jury was initially unanimous on the answer,
• giardini 1y ago
  Did they send out for deli sandwiches?
• nobody9999 1y ago
  >It seems like that couldn't have taken seven hours by itself. Perhaps they wanted to have sandwiches for lunch (or to throw at each other[0]) while deliberating, so they took their time? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBXFTksOxr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBXFTksOxr0