I was called for jury selection. I'd forgotten about the summons and failed to show up the first two days, so I called the clerk who said that as long as I showed up on the third day, I wouldn't suffer any consequences. They had me at the bottom of the list so I sat there all day making small talk with potential jurors. I discovered that the first two days had seen few (if any) selections and there was speculation from both attorneys that they'd probably need to call another round of potential jurors.
I found out in the first ten minutes of waiting that our case would be a murder trial. I expressed my opinion many times throughout the day that I could never give someone the death penalty simply because humans make mistakes. Not the defendant, but those collecting evidence and providing testimony. There'd been recent news at the time about a few cases that had been overturned years later - rape cases with better DNA testing, manslaughter cases with new evidence, that kind of thing. My peers dwindled throughout the day and we heard from the deputies guarding us that selection had picked up and just maybe there wouldn't been the need for another set of potential jurors. I was the last in the room, the deputy received word that the last person before me was selected and completed the jury pool, but I needed to hang around because the judge wanted to speak to me. He arrived with both lawyers in tow, I expressed my apologies and was dismissed.
The defense attorney was a former client of my computer hardware business. (The relationship was known to the court.) Because of my familiarity with the lawyer, and because I'd been there during jury selection, I followed the case in the local news. The accused denied he was the perpetrator and maintained his innocence. His lawyer, my acquaintance, argued that his client was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was mistakenly identified as the assailant. (The details about whether this meant he was indeed near the scene elude me, but it's not important to my point.)
I was disappointed to find out the man was convicted. Perhaps the jury was afraid of releasing a criminal back onto the streets. I was relieved that he was given life in prison instead of the death penalty. Six months later, new evidence came to light, the right man was arrested, and our poor innocent soul was released.
Perhaps even if he'd been given the death penalty, he wouldn't have been executed in six months. But what if it had taken years or decades to discover the new evidence? I feel certain that my discussions with other potential jurors kept this man from receiving the death penalty.