Juan Carlos "Juice" Ortiz was one of the many Sons Of Anarchy characters who never saw better days. Every single day came with a new challenge, and while trying to handle these challenges, he kept on getting worse and worse. Eventually, he reached a point of no redemption.
Juice started as a hacker and tech expert for SAMCRO before becoming more involved in field operations. The field was a tough playground for him, and he often found himself making plenty of mistakes. Here are the ways in which he kept going on a downward spiral.
Cooperated With The Authorities
Nothing puts a gangster at greater risk of being killed by his fellow colleagues than cooperating with the authorities. In the fourth season, AUSA Potter figured that Juice was the weakest link in SAMCRO so he targeted him as a potential informant.
Potter had discovered that Juice was not fully Puerto Rican. His father was African-American thus he made Roosevelt threaten him about leaking the information. African-Americans weren't allowed to be members of SAMCRO at the time, so Juice began cooperating.
Constant Carelessness
Juice was often careless and he made no effort to change. For example, when an ATF agent came to Charming to try and bring down SAMCRO, the members transferred all their illegal weapons to the Devil's Tribe base Indian Hills, Nevada. Juice and Tig were given the responsibility of stealing a truck that would be used to transport the weapons.
Juice went on to give crystal meth to the dogs guarding the truck yard so that they'd pass out. The opposite happened as the dogs became more fierce. As a result, Tig was almost torn to pieces by the dogs. This made Tig become hostile towards juice. It's a wonder that Juice thought meth would tame dogs.
Evolved Into A Murderer
For the first three seasons, Juice never killed anyone. While his brothers were taking lives on a daily, Juice managed to stay without blood on his hands. But all this changed when he was released from prison with the other SAMCRO members.
Together with Bobby, Chibs, and Happy he went to get arms from some members of the Russian Mafia but they murdered them right after that, This was Juice's first kill but it just so happened that one of the men they had murdered was an undercover FBI agent.
Desperate Measures
As part of his job of being an informant, Juice was tasked with getting a cocaine sample that SAMCRO was selling so that Roosevelt could build a solid case against both the IRA and the Cartel. So, Juice managed to take one of the cocaine bricks.
However, the club realized that one of the bricks was missing. As Juice attempted to take the brick back, Miles caught him with it. During the confrontation, Juice ended up killing Miles. And as if that wasn't enough, he framed him for stealing the cocaine too. Desperation had forced him to kill a SAMCRO brother.
Lost The Desire To Live
After cooperating with the authorities and killing Miles, Juice began to feel really guilty. The club hadn't figured out he was ratting yet but he felt like his days were numbered.
Even after Clay congratulated him and gave him a "Man Of Mayhem" patch as a reward for the way he dealt with the Mayans and Russians, Juice wasn't feeling too comfortable. Thinking there was no other way to redeem himself, he decided to hang himself on tree. But it wasn't his day yet. The tree snapped and he survived.
An Easy Target
Despite being a gangster, Juice never made any effort to toughen up. It always felt like he didn't belong in this world. Due to his weakness, he was often targeted by anyone looking to take advantage of the club. The Potter and Roosevelt scenario is a good example.
In the third season, Juice was also assaulted by the Calaveras MC as he tried to sell the pharmaceutical drugs that Piney's friend had given the club. The Calaveras also took his cut. And during the prison stint in the second season, he was stabbed repeatedly with a shiv. He was again attacked by the Triads during his second stint in prison in the seventh season.
Fading Loyalty
Juice has been Clay's guy since the first season. It was evident that if there was ever going to be a division in the club, he'd pick Clay's side. However, in Season 5, Juice agreed to side with Jax when he was threatened with expulsion and being punished for his crimes.
He agreed to get evidence linking Clay to the Normad home invasions. As a result, Clay was voted out of the club and Jax took over as the new president. Later on, Juice also gave Jax the gun that was used to frame Clay for the murder of Damon Pope.
Tried Too Hard To Prove Himself
Given that Jax knew all his sins, Juice began trying too hard to prove himself. After returning to Charming from the Indian Hills in Season 6, he helped Jax kill the mother of a kid who shot up his school with a KG-9 that the club had sold. The killing ate at his conscience but he figured he had to do it so as not to lose his patch.
Later on, he and Tig attacked and killed a group of Ne0-Nazis that had assaulted Unser. He also fought with corrupt cops to prevent them from arresting Jax. And when SAMCRO helped the Irish to rescue Clay, Juice he ran over and killed a guard. Jax even noticed his excessiveness and told him he had nothing to prove.
The Drugs
When Bobby advised Juice to go to the Diosa and have a good time, Juice stole his Oxycontin so that he could use it to get high. Juice ended up taking too much of the drug that he passed out. Luckily, he was found by Nero and Gemma before things took a turn for the worst.
The drugs were a way of Juice escaping all the troubles that were coming his way. While high, he accidentally revealed that Jax ordered him to kill Darvany. By doing this, he erased all the strides he had made to prove himself to Jax. A while later, Jax found out that Juice had exposed their secret.
Complicit In Tara's Murder
Juice passed by Tara's home just after Gemma had killed Tara. There, he found Gemma and Roosevelt. As Roosevelt attempted to request backup, Juice killed him. He then disposed of all the evidence into dumpsters.
This was a mistake on his part since he could have been better of telling Jax what had happened. By siding with Jax instead of Gemma, he could have gotten back to the club's good books. He didn't see things this way thus he lost a major chance he had of redeeming himself.