# Can a jury member ask a question? (USA) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 14, 2015, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-jury-member-ask-a-question-usa/734613 "2015-10-14T07:43:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-jury-member-ask-a-question-usa/734613/41 "2015-10-16T19:57:32Z")
It’s not a stupid rule, exactly. The problem is that you and your fellow jurors are likely to give extra weight to anything you hear twice. Unfortunate, in that case, I agree. ---
**Author:** ![magnusblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@magnusblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magnusblitz)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-jury-member-ask-a-question-usa/734613/42 "2015-10-17T00:40:20Z")
> [@Yarster](#): > > I was on a jury several years ago for a criminal case in CA involving an older woman who was selling meth, and a big factor in the case was whether she was simply in possession of the drugs or was a dealer. We sat through a week of evidence, which included the fact that 1) meth was all over the coffee table and dining room table along with small baggies full of the drugs. 2) lots of people went to the apartment at all hours of the day and night. 3) one bedroom consisted of almost all stolen goods 4) in her bedroom were what were called “pay and owe” sheets with names and said stolen goods exchanged for drugs. > > What bothered us about the case was that when the cops knocked on the door, she just let them in and made no effort to stall them and hide or flush the drugs down the toilet, and the fact the prosecutor never established if the “pay and owe” sheets were in her handwriting. We were all 90% sure she was guilty, but in deliberations, we really wanted to know about these two things because there was some thought that she might just be a naive woman who had been taken advantage of by a drug dealer who had been staying with her and happened not to be there when the cops came. When we asked the bailiff if we could hear two specific things from the transcript that would have cleared some of this up (since it had been mentioned two days before, but we didn’t know it was important at the time), the judge came back and told us we had to listen to the ENTIRE transcript of the trial again or not at all, which struck us as a stupid rule. Since none of us wanted to sit there for another week, we found her guilty. I’m sure she really was guilty, but it struck me as wildly prejudicial to force the jury to waste a week of their time to hear 30 seconds of testimony again. If you guys still had questions, then why did you find her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? (I mean, based on the way you describe the case, I’d probably have found her guilty as well, but if you guys really had questions and felt there was the possibility she was just a naive bystander, you really should’ve voted not guilty) ---
**Author:** ![Jimpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@Jimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimpy)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-jury-member-ask-a-question-usa/734613/43 "2015-10-17T03:07:54Z")
I was on a trial about 20 years ago, and I would have liked to ask the question to the defense attorney (in a civil case) Why did you go to four different doctors to give the plaintiff an MMPA (we the jury had low regards for the MMPA’s and basically ignored them) and only call the one with the results that best suited your side? We kinda got the answer to that because the plaintiff"s attorney called the other three. But there was a more important question about the MMPAs that we would have liked to ask but couldn’t. The woman worked 60 hours a week or so for 30 some years at a busy hospital emergency room and your MMPA says she has a tendency to be lazy, something no one had ever said about her in her work reviews. How would you explain this apperant discrepancy? The Defense never asked the question and the plaintff’s attorney point it out in the closing arguments, but never asked it. In the end it didn’t really matter because all the evidence and the truck driver’s testamony said that the driver was at fault and he had been on the road for 18 or so hours because he had to get a shipment somewhere in an amount of time that wouldn’t allow him to take a break and the only two doctors that gave a medical diagnosis, said the woman would never work again. On a side note, to a post that turned into one gigantic side note to the OP, I wonder if the defense attorney, or the trucking company ever figured out that besides the fact that the defense was all dancing around the subject, smoke and mirrors, the defense attorney spent four or five times the amount of time questioning and cross examining witnesses. Plus he called way more people. That, more than anything else, in a trail that was eight days of listening to doctors, was why we the jury put the hammer down on the defense to the tune of $4 Million. ---
**Author:** ![Jimpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@Jimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimpy)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-jury-member-ask-a-question-usa/734613/44 "2015-10-17T12:16:18Z")
I just woke up and the first thought on my mi d was, it’s MMPI not MMPA. :smack: Also, my spelling was a bit rough. I think I should never post when I’m thinking its time to go to bed. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-jury-member-ask-a-question-usa/734613/45 "2015-10-17T12:40:58Z")
> [@Yarster](#): > > I was on a jury several years ago for a criminal case in CA involving an older woman who was selling meth… But see, if there was someone else involved it was the defense’s job to point that out. (The whole adversarial relationship thing). There are a number of explanations: -stupid/lazy public defender. _(Important point, do you get to hear how competent or how much time defence spent on the case?)_ -the woman was willing to take the fall for her boyfriend - love can be crazy that way too. (But then, wouldn’t she have pled guilty to ensure the heat didn’t end up on her boyfriend?) - the prosecutor was picking on her as a threat to make her roll over on her boyfriend. -if someone else were involved too, i.e. lived there, presumably they would have been charged if evidence like fingerprints or handwriting or even they had clothes and a bed there, pointed to them. _(Another good point - would you hear if someone else is charged in the same crime? Presumably the trial would be joint, and if severed it would be because each is blaming the other?)_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-jury-member-ask-a-question-usa/734613.md?page=2)