One Juror's Experience
http://www.bloggingvegas.com/lasvegas/opinion/jury_duty_101-11066.html
That link is to a blog posting by someone in Las Vegas who is reporting about his or her service as a juror in a federal criminal trial. If you are a trial practitioner, READ IT. Ladies and gentlemen of the trial bar, I present . . . your jury. This is NOT picking on this person! Rather, this person is obviously an above-average intellect, above-average articulate, above-average thoughtful. But this person is also a person, and is thus susceptible to all the usual prejudices and fallacies that we see as repeated patterns in juries (both real and mock ones).
Read the person's essay first, then come back here for a few comments.
* See the pop culture references to "Boston Legal" and "CSI"? This is your jurors' law school and criminal investigation school (along with "Law and Order" and its progeny, and for really discerning jurors of good taste, their police procedure school is FX's brilliant "The Shield").
* Note that this person took it upon himself or herself to chat with the prosecutor after the trial. Ask yourself: what sort of person does that? How might you determine what sort of person might do that in voir dire?
* Interesting that the prosecutor admitted to putting on certain evidence just because jurors widely expect it based on viewing "CSI".
* This juror reports -- undoubtedly accurately -- an avid desire to convict immediately after hearing the case. This is no doubt aided by the other interesting bit of data the jurors heard: the defendant had a prior criminal record. The psych literature is full of work that confirms the commonsense: knowledge of prior bad acts conditions jurors to think worse of the defendant in the current (and UNrelated) case.
* Um, yeah... a good practice tip for the defense bar: try really hard not to mispronounce your client's name. It's good manners. Oh, and jurors notice everything.
* Notice the jury's decisionmaking process. They pick their foreperson quickly, then the writer suggests a vote... apparently before deliberation. Now, that's illegal. Right up there with restaurant employees returning to work without washing their hands, and you know that rule is never broken, either.
* The juror reports regret bordering on anger that the jury hung and the defendant went free. We don't know the evidence and I certainly wouldn't pass judgment on this person's opinions. But it is worth noting that this person has open hostility to the notions of the presumption of innocence, the high burden of proof on the government in criminal prosecutions, rules of evidence ("the truth is so darn inadmissible") and the founders' notions that an unchecked government is more harmful to society than some number of criminal defendants avoiding conviction. Not unusual at all.
* The writer raises a very intriguing notion that men are more likely to be empathetic to a male criminal defendant and that women are more interested in "getting a bad man off the streets." I actually don't think the literature or vast amount of experience of lawyers and trial consultants bears this out, what with defensive attribution and other psych phenomena that make people harder on their own kind. Further, almost without exception, there are no useful conclusions to make about How Men Think or How Women Think as opposed to each other. Still, for reasons I can't pinpoint, I find this person's discussion of it really interesting.
That link is to a blog posting by someone in Las Vegas who is reporting about his or her service as a juror in a federal criminal trial. If you are a trial practitioner, READ IT. Ladies and gentlemen of the trial bar, I present . . . your jury. This is NOT picking on this person! Rather, this person is obviously an above-average intellect, above-average articulate, above-average thoughtful. But this person is also a person, and is thus susceptible to all the usual prejudices and fallacies that we see as repeated patterns in juries (both real and mock ones).
Read the person's essay first, then come back here for a few comments.
* See the pop culture references to "Boston Legal" and "CSI"? This is your jurors' law school and criminal investigation school (along with "Law and Order" and its progeny, and for really discerning jurors of good taste, their police procedure school is FX's brilliant "The Shield").
* Note that this person took it upon himself or herself to chat with the prosecutor after the trial. Ask yourself: what sort of person does that? How might you determine what sort of person might do that in voir dire?
* Interesting that the prosecutor admitted to putting on certain evidence just because jurors widely expect it based on viewing "CSI".
* This juror reports -- undoubtedly accurately -- an avid desire to convict immediately after hearing the case. This is no doubt aided by the other interesting bit of data the jurors heard: the defendant had a prior criminal record. The psych literature is full of work that confirms the commonsense: knowledge of prior bad acts conditions jurors to think worse of the defendant in the current (and UNrelated) case.
* Um, yeah... a good practice tip for the defense bar: try really hard not to mispronounce your client's name. It's good manners. Oh, and jurors notice everything.
* Notice the jury's decisionmaking process. They pick their foreperson quickly, then the writer suggests a vote... apparently before deliberation. Now, that's illegal. Right up there with restaurant employees returning to work without washing their hands, and you know that rule is never broken, either.
* The juror reports regret bordering on anger that the jury hung and the defendant went free. We don't know the evidence and I certainly wouldn't pass judgment on this person's opinions. But it is worth noting that this person has open hostility to the notions of the presumption of innocence, the high burden of proof on the government in criminal prosecutions, rules of evidence ("the truth is so darn inadmissible") and the founders' notions that an unchecked government is more harmful to society than some number of criminal defendants avoiding conviction. Not unusual at all.
* The writer raises a very intriguing notion that men are more likely to be empathetic to a male criminal defendant and that women are more interested in "getting a bad man off the streets." I actually don't think the literature or vast amount of experience of lawyers and trial consultants bears this out, what with defensive attribution and other psych phenomena that make people harder on their own kind. Further, almost without exception, there are no useful conclusions to make about How Men Think or How Women Think as opposed to each other. Still, for reasons I can't pinpoint, I find this person's discussion of it really interesting.
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