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Firefighter acquitted of fraud

The Globe reports on bodybuilder Albert Arroyo's verdict in federal court.

Peter Gelzinis writes: Case strong, but dumbbells win.

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Comments

This is sickening.. I am losing faith in the court system now.

I'm starting to wonder if we need to have professional jurors like Europe does. These people's job is similar to a judge, except they dont require a law degree, just some specialized training. HOWEVER, they get paid to be there, but make it a point to know and understand the law. And since they do this full time, they separate their emotions from their job. (which in our system can cause mega problems because jurors end up voting with feeling not in the facts)

I'm aware that our country requires "a trial by your peers" but honestly I am starting to wonder if jurors that are randomly picked like we do now are qualified to make such decisions. We've seen cases get over turned time and time again due to juror error. Maybe we need professionals in there.

(although I fear this will over run and corrupted by lawyers who can't get a job elsewhere.. and we know how well that has worked for us. Just look at Congress..)

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especially when corruption seems to find its way into almost everything in Boston.

At the same time, after years of reading predominantly moronic or crazy comments on the local news sites, I would be scared shitless of a jury of my 'peers'.

Maybe the answer is to require grad students of the local universities to do jury duty. The current state of things is scary, and that's our biggest pool of educated people within city limits. Not undergrads, though, because they too are often illiterate drunks.

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I think the better question is this: what in the world is going on at the US Attorney's Office when they cannot get a conviction on a case like this? Seriously, this should not have been a tough prosecution, although I have not seen all of the evidence presented. It certainly sounded strong enough to win.

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And as much as I might disagree with some jury verdicts, I've also been disgusted by prosecutors and judges, and "professionals" of all shapes and sizes. Professional jurors would probably be just as prone to error, as well as undemocratic. I'm sure you'd be a great juror- have you ever served? I never get picked for some reason.

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and suggest that the jury had a chance to review a much broader set of facts and arguments than we have seen in the media, and that the case was perhaps not as open-and-shut as we had been lead to believe.

I'm not defending Arroyo; I don't know anything about this case other than what I've skimmed in the press, and my personal reaction to what I've seen is that he ought to go to jail.

But rather than assume that the jurors were corrupt, stupid, or insane, I'm going to stick to my belief that the jury system is actually pretty good, and that the state simply failed to prove its case.

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No No No.
Invective. Hyperbole. Loss of scale. Outrage. Superior attitude. Extrapolate from your personal experience to the ideal of what should be for everyone else. Jump to conclusions without full knowledge.

C'mon anon(not verified), get wit da program.

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According to today's Globe the problem was the feds wanted a conviction on mail fraud...

and Arroyo didn't actually mail anything.

They've got interviews with most of the jurors saying basically 'yeah, he's guilty as sin... but not of mail fraud. Why couldn't they prosecute him on the corrupt crap he actually did?'

Hang this one on the prosecutors, not the jury.

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...sarcasm.

Must have been tremendously frustrating to be on that jury and to have let this schmuck go because the prosecution brought forward the wrong charges. Somebody needs to be fired, demoted or just continually ridiculed at the lunch table or something....

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to anons (not verified) everywhere. :)

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