Slight hijack, as I’ve been on a jury but not for a murder trial.
I was just wondering why the court informs the jury candidates the nature of the trial before selection. Seems to me that that could bias the candidate’s answers, no?
Not that I’ve seen. It’s done as a courtesy to the jurors. The defendant is presumed innocent, of course, but if a juror knows upfront a little bit about what the case is about, it provides a useful frame of reference for the process of jury selection.
Do people ever say weird (but false) things to avoid getting on a jury? My wife joked I could say “Will this make me miss my Nazi rally today?”
I don’t know, but I have a good guess.
I was once selected for a civil trial. A woman was an employee at a bar, and slipped and fell one night. She was suing the owner. We were informed of her name, the owner’s name, and the name of the establishment. During selection, we were asked if we knew any of the interested parties or if we’d been to that bar. A yes meant automatic dismissal.
It happens all the time. If they catch someone lying, though, it’s years of jail time.
Yes, but if you have a bias against clumsy people, you could be a tainted juror. They can ask if you have that bias without revealing the nature of the actual case.
I was on a jury for a first-degree murder trial about four years ago. One of the other jurors mentioned that a woman who was being questioned during Voir dire and was excused because of her poor English skills spoke perfectly good English in the ladies’ room. (The implication being that she faked having poor English skills.)
The defendant was on trial for murdering his estranged wife, who was in the process of divorcing him. And during the initial phase of jury selection, we learned that the defendant was caught literally red-handed so I was confused why there was a trial at all (instead of a plea bargain). Eventually, I figured out that we were there to determine whether the defendant would stay in prison for the rest of his life.
Why not? I mean, at least you’d get someone who (presumably) has a better than average chance of deciding the case on the facts and the law, not whether they thought a witness was cute, or was feeling pissed off at the police for getting a speeding ticket or whatever.
Which if you’re Al Sharpton I can see having rational jurors being a negative, but (again, I presume) you try to win cases on their merits, right? Sure, if you don’t have the facts or the law on your side, you don’t have much choice but to pound the table and hope for irrational jurors, but I presume you’d be strenuously persuading your client to settle in that situation.
I think the issue with a lawyer on the jury is that almost everyone would treat them as an expert on the law and probably not want to go against what they say.
Might have the same problem with a Dr. on a jury if the case was medical malpractice or involved medical topics.
I wasn’t, but my Mom was on one 20 years ago in Manhattan. They visited the scene of the crime and got sequestered while deliberating. It was really fascinating to listen to her stories about it, the witnesses involved, the other people on the jury, etc. (Of course she didn’t tell us all the details until after the trial.)
Got on a murder trial in Manhattan maybe 15 years ago. Pretty much a slam dunk for the prosecution : Videotaped confession, credible witnesses, etc., but very interesting to be part of. Got to see this defense lawyer, Melvin Sachs, operate, who I later found out was a pretty famous. I guess he was doing some pro bono work. As someone mentioned earlier, fascinating to see how the attorneys work to manipulate juror’s perception by raising objections & asking questions of witnesses & so forth they know will be overrulled, or struck from the record, but just want to kinda “plant seeds of doubt”.
We ended up getting sequestered & everything, later finding out that the sole holdout against conviction basically just wanted to get a free night in a hotel! Anyway, we did get free pastrami sandwiches from Katz’z Deli while deliberating, which was memorable (“MMMMM…Katz’z!”), dinner at this Italian restaurant behind the courthouse where all the judges & lawyers ate, & that had a special “Juror’s Menu”, and a night at a Holiday Inn out by the airport. Your tax dollars at work!
Reallly made me want to avoid any contact with the judicial system in any capacity if at all possible. Talk about seeing how sausage gets made! :eek::smack:
For one thing, the lawyers probably wouldn’t be as hot as Angie Harmon
Or look like Elisabeth Rohm or Alana de la Garza
But what’s wrong with that? If we assume the people are impartial, then the impartial attorney juror’s just another guy the lawyers have to convince. Get that one guy, and you get the jury. It’s a 50/50 shot almost.
I think the whole point of a jury is that everyone is more or less equal but a lawyer would be considered to be different than the other 11 people. It’s not that the lawyer is biased but how the other 11 treat him/her.
Again , this is the reason that a lawyer would not want another lawyer on a jury for their case. I can see their point but I can also see valid arguments against that point.
I was on the jury for a murder trial in the early 1990s. A man was accused of killing his neighbor in a suburban apartment complex. The trial lasted three and a half days, and the defense only called two witnesses. There was a bunch of forensic evidence, and the police found a copy of her apartment key in his possession. His alibi was that he had been at the grocery store to buy hot dogs and cherry kool aid at the time the murder occurred, but the prosecutor called a computer expert from the grocery chain who show that nobody buy that combination of goods during the relevant time period. He tried to finger the victims husband, a UPS or FedEx driver, but was once again foiled by technology. The drivers had GPS equipment in their trucks that showed he was 20 miles away.
It seemed like an open and shut case, but I remember being very nervous when we went out to deliberate. The weight of the decision suddenly struck me, and I suppose other as well. We took our time to go through the evidence pretty thoroughly before we reached a verdict. There weren’t a lot of spectators… maybe a half dozen people from the victim’s family and another half dozen from the defendants’.
Neither of the attorneys had much personality. It was all pretty matter of factly presented. The thing that sticks with me was the emotional energy invested by the groups of spectators on both sides.
I was on a murder trial in DC a few years ago. Several men raided a crackhouse and shot the dealer. One pleaded guilty and was convicted quickly. Two others were tried together, with different lawyers. The pleaded guilty guy testified against both of them, among other evidence.
Long story short, one of the defendants had an awesome lawyer, one had a terrible lawyer. (The prosecutor was not all that impressive.) One defendant was convicted quickly, and we deadlocked on the other after more than a week of deliberations. Try to guess which outcome relates to the guy who had the awesome lawyer.
I talked with people I work with who were on jury duty and several of them found the guy not guilty - but the crimes were minor. I was surprised since I believe over 90% of people at trial are found guilty.
QUOTE=Quercus;12072660]Why not? I mean, at least you’d get someone who (presumably) has a better than average chance of deciding the case on the facts and the law, not whether they thought a witness was cute, or was feeling pissed off at the police for getting a speeding ticket or whatever.
Which if you’re Al Sharpton I can see having rational jurors being a negative, but (again, I presume) you try to win cases on their merits, right? Sure, if you don’t have the facts or the law on your side, you don’t have much choice but to pound the table and hope for irrational jurors, but I presume you’d be strenuously persuading your client to settle in that situation.
[/QUOTE]
The problem is that the attorney might start second guessing elements of the case. In a criminal trial, he might be looking at what isn’t there and wondering if something hadn’t been excluded. The attorney may not like the jury instructions, and may tell the jurors that negligence is really _______________*. The thing about juries is that they are only deciding what the facts of the case are. The Judge tells them what the law is. **
The other issue is that the lawyer may be predisposed against the practitioners of an area of law. A lot of attorney loathe personal injury attorneys. I personally don’t like collections type attorneys and practices based on cases I’ve had with them. ***If I were a plaintiff’s attorney trying a case on negligence, I wouldn’t want an insurance defense attorney on my jury and vice versa. They would be coming in with their own biases. ****
- For something like negligence, the jury instructions are pretty standardized. DC for example has standard jury instructions for negligence. The issue may come into play for something like nuisance, where there is no standard jury instruction.
** The judge can decide a case on summary judgment or motion to dismiss if the material facts aren’t in dispute. i.e. even if x, y, and z occurred as alleged, it still isn’t enough to support a claim of negligence.
*** I hate collections type practices since inevitably everything is a form and the attorneys are so overloaded to the point where they won’t get back to you unless you file a motion. I have a small pro bono case I’m doing, where they filed a non-suit but didn’t provide the order to dismiss the case. I left a message on Friday and haven’t heard back yet.
****For the most part, picking a jury is matter of gut feeling and the attorney’s own biases. I personally prefer bench trials for a lot of issues.
I was in the pool for a murder case with a possible death penalty option. I went through two screenings, and made it to the final selection, but luckily was not called to the jury box by the time they got enough people.
Being against the death penalty did not seem to help, since the judge asked if you would follow the law. One person in the pool was Indian, with strong religious convictions against the death penalty, and he made it through a few iterations.
I was on a criminal case, spousal abuse, about as far from a murder as you can get, and we still had to fill out a fairly long form - but not nearly so long.
BTW, the person on trial was convicted and got the death penalty. It was a murder during a rape, which happened quite a while ago. He was arrested after his son turned him in. The freakiest thing was sitting not to far away from this asshole.