Eleventh Circuit Law Day

"The yeoman’s work of our judicial system is done by a single judge and a jury. Twelve ordinary citizens of Alabama were asked to sit through long days of often tedious and obscure testimony and pour over countless documents to decide what happened, and, having done so, to apply to these facts the law as the judge has explained it to them. And they do. Often at great personal sacrifice. Though the popular culture sometimes asserts otherwise, the virtue of our jury system is that it most often gets it right. This is the great achievement of our system of justice. The jury’s verdict commands the respect of this court, and that verdict must be sustained if there is substantial evidence to support it. Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80 (1942)."

That is Judge Tjoflat's introduction to a rather lengthy opinion which affirmed in part and reversed in part, convictions secured by the government against Don Seligman, the former governor of Alabama.  The case also has a very interesting discussion relating to post-verdict juror examinations.  Bottom line, unless the examination relates to the question of whether or not information extraneous to the evidence or outside infulence played a part in the verdict - forget it.

The other opinion out of the Elventh this week can be summed up as thus:

If you show up to a computer arranged meeting to have sex with a minor, your car is going to be searched, even if you are arrested outside of it; and, the court is not going to suppress nothing.