Juryology

In Anatomy of a Murder (1959), the parties are waiting for a jury to return a verdict in a murder trial in small town Upper Peninsula Michigan, nervously passing the time. The old lawyer who has been helping the Jimmy Stewart character leans back, looks at the ceiling, and says:
Twelve people go off into [...]

Link to KTVU-2 footage of Rich: http://www.ktvu.com/video/9641231/index.html
The murder trial of Scott Dyleski continues in Martinez, California, on the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay. This link is to some tv commentary I did this morning. Dyleski was 17 years old at the time that he is accused of murdering Pamela Vitale, wife of lawyer [...]

I was on television giving commentary on a trial that starts in San Francisco today.
http://www.ktvu.com/video/9527583/index.html

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 [...]

There is a phenomenon that has shown up in criminal juries for the last several years now: laypeople have very high expectations that technical, exact, and conclusive evidence will be presented to them. Further, the expectations are that this evidence — which can be expensive or highly time-consuming to process — will be offered no [...]

As you know if you see many trials, some judges try to give a speech about the importance of jury service to venirepersons when they are herded into the courtroom. Some aren’t bad. Some. I mean, some start with “I know you probably don’t want to be here, but let me try to convince you [...]

This blog will have lots of material on voir dire, but here are some things that I happen to have been discussing with clients in the last couple of weeks.
1. Be more likeable. This is for lots of reasons, starting with the fact that trust tracks likeability. People trust who they like. [...]

Let’s stipulate that the whole point of voir dire is to elicit honest, candid responses on issues that bear on the case, so that lawyers can exercise challenges effectively. If we aren’t getting the most candid responses from jurors, then the point is thwarted, and the whole exercise is rendered useless, and fairness suffers.
Well, [...]

Facts don’t persuade.
Sorry, but they don’t. I have counseled Fortune 100 companies in their sales negotiations, and salespeople often think that if they just told the prospective customer more features and functions (i.e., facts), then the prospect would have an epiphany and see things Our Way, and be persuaded to buy.
It doesn’t work. It doesn’t [...]

It happens periodically: there is someone in the venire who has key similarities to your client. You might be representing the plaintiff who lost a leg in a workplace injury, or a corporate defendant being sued for breach of contract and fraud. And we have all felt that tug on our consciousness: “Cool! This person [...]