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Jury Duty

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Re: Jury Duty

#101

Post by ketralnis »

I sat on a civil jury trial between a boilermaker in the Navy that had been exposed to asbestos and developed mesothelioma, and a company that made asbestos insulation.

Neither side could actually put the man and the company or its insulation in the same room at any point in the past. Lots and lots of companies made this type of insulation. (In an "accidental" outbust from one of the attorneys that we were instructed to ignore, we learned that he was in fact suing most of them.) The Navy kept meticulous records about where he had worked, and both the Navy and the company did the same about work orders and where the insulation had been installed. The best evidence the man had was "I saw their truck in the parking lot once".

This type of civil trial only required a 9/12 majority and the other jurors really only saw this as a chance to stick it to the company. "Of course this man should be repaid for the damage done to him!" Any sort of nuance like, "okay sure but should this company be the one to pay it?" was totally lost. He's hurt, so somebody should pay up. That was it. That was their justice. The jury instructions like the actual claims to damages were totally ignored.

I sure hope I never have a jury deciding my fate.

Re: Jury Duty

#102

Post by jacobolus »

coldtea wrote: post #89
surrealize wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure this is a first-hand account. The author experienced the judicial system directly, as a juror. Then he wrote this first-hand account. If you told someone else about it, that would be second-hand.

Isn't it second-hand for the parent though, which I think is what he means?

The way he used the word “vicarious” is not idiomatically correct usage.

I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I think he might have been trying to say that the author’s description was so vivid that he could vicariously experience the jury process through reading it.

Re: Jury Duty

#103

Post by geomark »

ketralnis wrote: post #101

I sat on a civil jury trial between a boilermaker in the Navy that had been exposed to asbestos and developed mesothelioma, and a company that made asbestos insulation. Neither side could actually put the man and the company or its insulation in the same room at any point in the past. Lots and lots of companies made this type of insulation. (In an "accidental" outbust from one of the attorneys that we were instructed…

I feel the same way. The three times I served on a jury were all the same. Very few people bothered to read or try to understand the jury instructions. Few considered the evidence that was presented. Most were utterly clueless, totally lacking the ability to perform any logical reasoning. Most just voted their biases.

Although, if you have a sharp attorney he could very well get a hung jury for you even if the evidence is slam dunk for a conviction. He just needs to be really good at jury selection.

Re: Jury Duty

#104

Post by simoncion »

coldtea wrote: post #71
kiba wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really trust jury/layman to make the correct decision. I mean, you're taking ordinary people, untrained to probe the gobbyspeak of lawyers or matters of science And you're expecting them to render guilty or innocent verdicts?

The idea is not that science or some "expert" judges those under trial. It's that the society they live in finds them either guilty or not. Jury's are representatives of what the society things happened. It's an extremely democratic institution, and juries and their role they have been devised and praised by "trained people" including the very best legal minds. Of course it's not fool prouf -- the same ways society a…

> Jury's are representatives of what the society things happened. ... Of course [juries aren't] fool prouf...

http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=299 (The author is a rather competent defense attorney.)

Re: Jury Duty

#105

Post by simoncion »

cgm616 wrote: post #56
snowwrestler wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would you trust to make the right decision? The prosecutor? The defense attorney? Like other aspects of republican democracy, it's not the best system, but it beats all known alternatives.

In this article, and apparently this happens a lot, jurors are not allowed to research the laws they are supposed to reach a verdict on. Also, the jurors cannot get the court transcript or ask the prosecution to repeat the charges. How is this the best alternative? Why can't jurors learn what they are incarcerating for?

For a more in-depth look at the nature of the circus: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=299

Re: Jury Duty

#106

Post by rtpg »

geomark wrote: post #79
desdiv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the author's city's racial composition is very different from that of US's national average, hence his implicit complaint. Since the author wrote anonymously (and understandably so), there's no way for us to know either way.

That very well could be the case. But even if we knew the demographics of the community the sample size is too small to draw any conclusions.

really? There are places in Texas or California, for example, where the population is over 50% latino. In that case having only 1 of 12 Latino jurors would be sign of something, right?

Re: Jury Duty

#107

Post by MichaelApproved »

ketralnis wrote: post #101

I sat on a civil jury trial between a boilermaker in the Navy that had been exposed to asbestos and developed mesothelioma, and a company that made asbestos insulation. Neither side could actually put the man and the company or its insulation in the same room at any point in the past. Lots and lots of companies made this type of insulation. (In an "accidental" outbust from one of the attorneys that we were instructed…

I almost sat on a similar trial with a similar "accidental" outburst from the defendants lawyers. Did this trial happen to be in Los Angeles?

Re: Jury Duty

#109

Post by tzs »

snowwrestler wrote: post #52
kiba wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really trust jury/layman to make the correct decision. I mean, you're taking ordinary people, untrained to probe the gobbyspeak of lawyers or matters of science And you're expecting them to render guilty or innocent verdicts?

Who would you trust to make the right decision? The prosecutor? The defense attorney? Like other aspects of republican democracy, it's not the best system, but it beats all known alternatives.

Have a two part trial, with two juries.

Part one, with jury #1, just considers the facts. It does not attempt to apply the law to the facts to render a guilty/not-guilty verdict.

Part two presents the facts as determined in part one to jury #2 (which was not present during part one), and jury #2 applies that law to those facts to render a verdict. The facts as presented to jury #2 are cleaned up to replace names with pseudonyms, and race, gender, etc., are removed (unless they are relevant to the applicable law).

Re: Jury Duty

#110

Post by [deleted] »

powertower wrote: post #48

A couple of things stand out for me here - > Perhaps this was the time to mention that having witnessed the murders of Eric Garner and Walter Scott on video made personal experience unnecessary. Eric Garner said "I can't breathe" 11 times. Any person that has experienced a chokehold, knows that if you can't breath, you can't move air in and out of your lungs and throat, you can't say anything, not even "I can't breat…

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