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Jury Duty

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Re: Jury Duty

#201

Post by wfo »

rayiner wrote: post #2

> In the end, only two men of color make it to the jury, and I am one of them. The other is Latino. There are two Latina women, one African-American woman, and one Asian woman. The remaining six jurors are white. Thats basically the racial composition of the U.S. Indeed, people of color are over-represented in that jury.

No, over-represented with respect to the U.S. population which is irrelevant. Chinese people were criminally underrepresented with respect to the population of the world. It depends on the local demographics which we don't have access to. What we do have access to is the fact that there were many, many more people of color in the selection pool who were removed because of racial discrimination.

Re: Jury Duty

#202

Post by pc86 »

wtbob wrote: post #187

I've served on two juries, one for murder and one for a far lesser offense. In one the defendant was a fairly wealthy young man; in the other a poor woman. One defendant was guilty; the other not. My experience in both those trials was nothing like the author's here. Indeed, I wonder how much of his experience was due to his own concern about things like race and politics instead of, y'know, guilt and innocence. Perh…

FTA:

> The judge has already instructed us directly that we are not to do any research on the law while sitting on this jury. This is the first of several times I will violate those instructions.

Why do people do this? Why blatantly disregard the instructions of the judge when you're tasked with determining the guilt or innocence of someone and potentially sending them to jail, ruining their professional career, etc?

To completely ignore the instructions of a judge when tasked with something this important should have much more severe consequences than being dismissed and causing a mistrial.

Re: Jury Duty

#203

Post by joshstrange »

pc86 wrote: post #202
wtbob wrote: post #187

I've served on two juries, one for murder and one for a far lesser offense. In one the defendant was a fairly wealthy young man; in the other a poor woman. One defendant was guilty; the other not. My experience in both those trials was nothing like the author's here. Indeed, I wonder how much of his experience was due to his own concern about things like race and politics instead of, y'know, guilt and innocence. Perh…

FTA: > The judge has already instructed us directly that we are not to do any research on the law while sitting on this jury. This is the first of several times I will violate those instructions. Why do people do this? Why blatantly disregard the instructions of the judge when you're tasked with determining the guilt or innocence of someone and potentially sending them to jail, ruining their professional career, etc?…

Honestly I can't imagine ever abiding by a rule like that. No outside research? So I'm just supposed to trust everything other jurors say and ignore facts and statistics? I think not. Juries are already horribly misinformed as it is (see: almost every case involving tech/computers) and to rule that no one can even attempt to educate themselves is quite frankly disgusting.

Re: Jury Duty

#204

Post by chiph »

geomark wrote: post #60
YorkianTones wrote: post #29

"Edith looks up from a game of solitaire and casually mentions that she actually thinks the murder was committed by the accomplice, who was never found and is not on trial. But since the defendant’s lawyer did such a poor job exonerating him, she concludes, she’s going to deliver a guilty verdict. My jaw drops. No one questions her obviously flawed reasoning, because she’s on their side." This, for me, was the most t…

Brings back memories. I served on the jury when Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys was on trial for including a rude poster in one of their albums[1]. Jury deliberation was a circus. One woman hung the poster up (it was pretty rude [2]), looked at it for a while, and said "Kinda makes you horny". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Kennedys#Frankenchrist_an... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_Landscape

Ahh yes, the PMRC. I remember those "concerned parents", led by Tipper Gore. The best part of that time was Dee Snider from Twisted Sister testifying before Congress (their song "We're not gonna take it" was squarely in the sights of the PMRC).

When John Denver testifies against you, you're really off track.

Re: Jury Duty

#205

Post by pc86 »

joshstrange wrote: post #203
pc86 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTA: > The judge has already instructed us directly that we are not to do any research on the law while sitting on this jury. This is the first of several times I will violate those instructions. Why do people do this? Why blatantly disregard the instructions of the judge when you're tasked with determining the guilt or innocence of someone and potentially sending them to jail, ruining their professional career, etc?…

Honestly I can't imagine ever abiding by a rule like that. No outside research? So I'm just supposed to trust everything other jurors say and ignore facts and statistics? I think not. Juries are already horribly misinformed as it is (see: almost every case involving tech/computers) and to rule that no one can even attempt to educate themselves is quite frankly disgusting.

You are to take the case as presented by the prosecution, the case as presented by the defense, and rule one way or the other.

You are not, as someone with no legal training, no background in law or litigation, and no experience in the courtroom outside of being on a jury, supposed to start reading decades old case law and attempting to interpret it.

Lawyers are not paid $300 an hour because they've come up with a sweet gig, it's because the average person (yes, even the average software developer) does not have the context or experience to understand the finer points of the laws in question.

Re: Jury Duty

#206

Post by pc86 »

It is an absolute failure of voir dire that this person made it onto the jury. A few select quotes:

> The judge has already instructed us directly that we are not to do any research on the law while sitting on this jury. This is the first of several times I will violate those instructions.

> a jury...is not quite about justice but instead about the direction of the tide.

> I do believe in jury nullification. And I think the American carceral state is so corrupt that I’m starting to doubt if I could bring myself to render a guilty verdict under any circumstances.

To clarify the above, any mention of jury nullification is a sure-fire way to get removed. And if you're not 100% sure you could render a guilty verdict "under any circumstances," you have absolutely no business sitting on a jury.

> I keep thinking of Walter Scott, whose uniformed murderer is seen on camera shooting him while he runs away, and who plants a weapon on his freshly killed corpse.

Blatantly false.

> I don’t necessarily have a problem with ignoring the judge’s edict

> Outside of court, I tell everyone I can’t talk about the case. Then I usually talk about the case a little.

> because [a coerced confession] was not presented by the defense, it’s merely a conspiracy theory and we can’t consider it. Secretly, I’m considering it too.

> Henry and I splinter off from the others. Jurors aren’t supposed to talk about the case outside of deliberations. We talk about the case.

> Again I violate the judge’s instructions

> An accusation from another juror: You lied during voir dire!

Re: Jury Duty

#207

Post by mc32 »

simula67 wrote: post #113
mc32 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Japan lay judges (citizens) were re-introduced into trials in order to offer defendants a possibly more sympathetic audience. In Japan, due to quite a few idiosyncrasies[1], prosecutors achieve upwards of 95% conviction rates. An imperfect jury system is likely better, in criminal cases, than having cozy professionals decide cases. [1] often no attorneys during interrogation, forced confessions, detentions without…

My apologies, but I find your comment somewhat confusing. > In Japan lay judges (citizens) were re-introduced into trials in order to offer defendants a possibly more sympathetic audience. In Japan, due to quite a few idiosyncrasies[1], prosecutors achieve upwards of 95% conviction rates. > often no attorneys during interrogation, forced confessions, detentions without charges, taking up only choice cases, declaring…

Unfortunately I was talking about two things simultaneously without making the connection.

One, with professional juries (judges) a high conviction rate is achieved in Japan, possibly contributed to by the cozy relationship between attorneys and judges as well as some deficiencies in how its determined when to take a case in addition to laws and in addition to police misconduct.

One of the reasons (there were others, such as decreasing backlog) for the introduction of lay judges ("peer" jurors) was because it's thought they could prove more sympathetic to defendants.

Re: Jury Duty

#208

Post by rrego »

pc86 wrote: post #205
joshstrange wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I can't imagine ever abiding by a rule like that. No outside research? So I'm just supposed to trust everything other jurors say and ignore facts and statistics? I think not. Juries are already horribly misinformed as it is (see: almost every case involving tech/computers) and to rule that no one can even attempt to educate themselves is quite frankly disgusting.

You are to take the case as presented by the prosecution, the case as presented by the defense, and rule one way or the other. You are not, as someone with no legal training, no background in law or litigation, and no experience in the courtroom outside of being on a jury, supposed to start reading decades old case law and attempting to interpret it. Lawyers are not paid $300 an hour because they've come up with a sw…

This assumes that both lawyers were of equal competence. The authors does not think so (other members of the jury didn't think so).

In the end, won't the jury have to interpret "case law"? How can you be presented something without interpreting it.

Re: Jury Duty

#209

Post by pc86 »

rrego wrote: post #208
pc86 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are to take the case as presented by the prosecution, the case as presented by the defense, and rule one way or the other. You are not, as someone with no legal training, no background in law or litigation, and no experience in the courtroom outside of being on a jury, supposed to start reading decades old case law and attempting to interpret it. Lawyers are not paid $300 an hour because they've come up with a sw…

This assumes that both lawyers were of equal competence. The authors does not think so (other members of the jury didn't think so). In the end, won't the jury have to interpret "case law"? How can you be presented something without interpreting it.

Yes you interpret it, as it is described and presented (in lay terms) by both the defense and prosecution, as filtered by an impartial judge.

And incompetent representation is grounds for an appeal. I'm not sure what exactly that has to do with the fact that John Doe off the street is probably not equipped to read primary source material on legal precedent and interpret it correct on his own.

Re: Jury Duty

#210

Post by bababouy33 »

joshstrange wrote: post #203
pc86 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTA: > The judge has already instructed us directly that we are not to do any research on the law while sitting on this jury. This is the first of several times I will violate those instructions. Why do people do this? Why blatantly disregard the instructions of the judge when you're tasked with determining the guilt or innocence of someone and potentially sending them to jail, ruining their professional career, etc?…

Honestly I can't imagine ever abiding by a rule like that. No outside research? So I'm just supposed to trust everything other jurors say and ignore facts and statistics? I think not. Juries are already horribly misinformed as it is (see: almost every case involving tech/computers) and to rule that no one can even attempt to educate themselves is quite frankly disgusting.

The guy that wrote the article talks about doing "research" in one breath and then telling the judge something he heard from Law & Order in the next. I'm assuming people like him are the reason for the "no outside research" rule.
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