I was in the jury selection pool for a case where a woman was fighting a DUI charge. I made it through the first round of cuts and the prosecution was going down the line asking us questions. He came to me and asked "Do you believe that we should always assume police reports are the truth?"
I said something like "I think it's their job to record the facts of a case to the best of their ability, but there's always the chance that a mistake is made, so it's important that there's evidence to back up their account"
He asked the lady next to me the same question. She went on this diatribe about how she never trusts the police, because her son had been arrested multiple times for selling drugs, and now when she leaves her house, the police follow her in unmarked cars, and she caught a guy going through her garbage trying to find evidence to use against her son, and she saw a helicopter following her on the way to the courthouse today, and she's sure they're going through her car right now in the parking lot, so no she does NOT believe a police report. She wouldn't even believe video footage, because they can alter that, and make it look like you're doing all kinds of things that you didn't. It was a 5 minute stream of unfiltered batshit. And by the time she finished, there were wide eyes and concerned looks across the entire jury pool.
So when it came time to make the final selections, I didn't know if I would make it, but I figured for sure, the loon next to me would be shown the door.
Nope.
I got cut. She made the final jury. I have no idea what the prosecutor was thinking. There's not a chance in hell she was going to side with the police. She flat out said so.
