Also a lot depends on the jury that hears the case. You have some that if the offender is young want to give them another chance. Again this is affected by whether or not the offender has a criminal record and is it admissable in court. And it depends on the jury foreperson as to whether or not they can keep the jury on track of looking at the evidence and tone down some of the emotional baggage people bring to jury duty with them. An example of this:
I was on a jury where the man admitted selling a class 4 ? drug (a narcotic) to an undercover cop. It occurred in a bar know for drug trafficking, and the "suspect" was cultivated by the cop because he was a suspect in the drug trade in this bar. Well his defense was "the undercover" cop was a friend and he was doing him a favor. This guy on the jury was hanging us because he bought into this "friend" bit. We finally convinced him that it didn't matter because what he did was illegal no matter who because he didn't give it to the man but he sold it for a considerable market up of what he paid for it at the pharmacy. If it was a friend he would have either given the guy a pill or 2 or sold it for his cost not profit. His justification for his original view was that he would ask his neighbors for drugs like pencillin and give them to his kids without going to a doctor. Which, of course, is so dangerous.
As I said we had a hard time with this one guy on the jury. The bottom line was what the man did was illegal and he admitted he did it. So how can you turn around and find him not guilty.
In this case the man finally relented and voted guilty because it was a 6 member jury and the judge said we had to come back with a verdict and the 5 of us said not way were we going to vote not guilty since the defendent admitted to the criminal act. So in order to get to go home the guy changed his vote.
