I was on jury duty about six months ago. I got picked (and voted foreman, moohoohahahaha) for a three day trial. The accused had broken up from his wife and the custody battle over their child had turned really, really nasty, even by the standards of such things. He has a restraining order forbidding him from contacting his ex-wife or approaching their former home. He interpreted this to mean that it was okay to sneak into the house at midnight and threaten her with a crossbow.

At first it just appeared to be he-said-she-said, as the crossbow could not be found, and the police had not been called in until 2 days later. But there was one prosecution witness who testified that he stopped while driving past the house and seeing a car parked on the verge outside He searched the car, when he spotted crossbow bolts in the back seat. There were unsubstantiated allegations that he stole the guy's wallet. He approached police after hearing about the case. Regardless of the wallet thing, his testimony was the reason we found the accused guilty, particularly as the defence lawyer (who was just drawing a paycheck, frankly) didn't really challenge him.

After we delivered our verdict, the judge informed us that the accused was already serving time, along with his mother and father, for an offence committed after the one we were trying - namely, that the three of them had tried to hire a hitman to whack the ex-wife so she couldn't testify in our case. Whee!