I’m not sure about your first statement Skald; nothing prevents the jury in AntiCoyote’s system from asking questions after viewing the edited tape. I don’t think anything would require the Court to answer beyond, “We can’t answer that question.” Let the jury know ahead of time that, due to Rules of Evidence, etc… there will be questions they can’t get the answers to, and move on. I’ve wondered before on the feasibility of a system like that AntiCoyote describes, and I suspect that cost is the reason we don’t have it. There’s additional points, such as being able to view the testimony in person, which I’ve read helps with determining veracity.
I have read of Federal Judges making it their goal that juries hear uninterrupted testimony during the days they are sitting, and radically restructuring their judicial operations to achieve that goal. Basically, this requires a lot more work from the judge and lawyers to hash out likely evidence fights ahead of time. IIRC, an objection to testimony would be tabled until the next recess, and the examining attorney ordered to move onto another subject until that recess: the judge really wanted to cut down on the “Objection. May we approach/discuss this outside of the presence of the jury, file the jury out of the courtroom” shtick. By his account, it worked well. Being a Federal Judge probably helped… ( I don’t recall the judge being Judge O’Hara, but the Trial Guidelines cited in the Litigation article I read were similar to these.)
My own suggestion for the OP is to eliminate civil juries entirely, at least for state trials. I realize the 7th Amendment may pose some obstacle to this idea for Federal trials… One of the purposes of juries was to serve as a check on the power of the state, an error-checking routine, if you will. So, I’d keep them for criminal cases. But civil cases are usually between two non-state actors, there’s no power of the state to check. I guess by this logic, you’d keep juries for cases involving a state agency or actor. I’d do this due to the complexity of modern civil litigation. Keep in mind that I’m not suggesting that jurors don’t try. Every practitioner I’ve talked to on either side of the Bar, criminal or civil, told me that juries really try to do the best they can. It’s just that the law and legal process can be very confusing. With judges determining questions of fact and law, hopefully you’d get some consistency of results and a speedier process. Also, this way, you’d have more jurors for criminal cases, where their theoretical check on state power is needed much more.
All of this is pie-in-the-sky, however, but reforms to the process such as Judge O’Hara’s seem like valuable changes.
I’m really uneasy about dropping the unanimity requirement in criminal trials. I’m not a fan of any change that makes it easier for the prosecution to get a conviction; everythings way too stacked against the defendent as is. I *might *be willing to go along with a supermajority setup (say 9/10 out of 12), but with the caveat that a if the supermajority isn’t reached the result is an acquittal instead of a hung jury (ie if it takes 9 votes to convict and only 8 jurors vote guilty that translates to a Not Guilty verdicr with no possibility of a retrial).
A) I think courtroom proceedings should be sealed while the trial is in progress. Once a verdict is in, the media could discuss anything they wanted with anyone involved. Spectators should be disallowed as well. Anyone who’s not directly involved in the case would have to wait until it’s over to find out what’s going on. No more months long media circuses. Once the trial starts, it’s a media blackout, with people who break the blackout being held in contempt.
No more sequestering juries. A citizen who shows up to serve in good faith doesn’t deserve to be yanked away from their lives for months at a time.
Three week time limit for trials. One week for the Prosecution, one week for Defense, one week for opening/closing and miscellaneous. Even that’s pretty generous, imo.
Kick the media out of the courtroom and send them tapes on a 24 hr delay instead. The jurors then have no reason to be sequestered and the talking heads will always be behind a day so discussion developments won’t affect their ability to process new information.
No more arguing over evidence in court. Do it before the trial starts or it doesn’t fly. Evidence coming to light during the trial is exempted, and lines on inquiry stemming from the admitted evidence are fair game. Counsel should consider as many aspects as possible beforehand.
If they don’t like the way the opposition is spinning something they can counter it, its their JOB.
Three week time limit, maximum for capital cases. One week limit for everything else. 90 day limit for collection of evidence and building of cases if the defendant is being held in custody. If you can’t get it done in that time frame you don’t have anything anyway.
eliminate all but the most basic voire dire processes.
The judge shall remind the jurors at the beginning of each day that the defendant is presumed innocent by the state until convicted by THEM. It is the responsibility of the prosecution to prove their case. The judge shall also define reasonable doubt.
In the Bay Area, Alameda County at least, you call the night before to see if you have to go, and sometimes during the morning to see if you have to go in the afternoon. I’ve been up to court every time I’ve actually had to go to the jury room, so I think our system works pretty well.
The judge determines how easy it is to get off. Just before Easter one judge let anyone who was even thinking of taking a vacation off. I had airplane tickets, so I got off easily. After that the other judges were a lot sterner, and said that if you claimed you were necessary for work you needed a note from your company.
I would either pay a decent amount or require employers to pay for jury duty, as part of their civic duty. I get paid so it is fine, but those who work for themselves are losing real money. Jury duty should not be a hardship.
I’d also want the court to be more efficient. I went half days, and someone who had a long commute and could not work from home would suffer a hardship. Get the trial over with to minimize the disruption. The system certainly does not work with jurors needs in mind.
Out of curiosity I just did the math regarding my jury pay. $20 a day divided by 7 hours (we got an hour for lunch comes out to $2.86 per hour. That’s less than half of minimum wage. It’s a little over a quarter what I was making at the job I wasn’t being paid for while I had to do jury duty.
On this note, I do not believe that capital crimes require a jury that is pro death penalty. The death penalty qualification of jurors in certain states is out of line.
I wouldn’t change much. The big change would be what the juries see and hear. Instead of creating a courtroom drama, the testimony should all be previewed by a judge before being presented to a jury, instead of starting and stopping, and telling jurors to ignore things they’ve seen or heard. Recorded video could be used if acceptable or necessary. This should make the jury portion of the trial move along quickly.
Also a reasonable definition of ‘reasonable doubt’ should be used. Jurors seem to either swing toward ‘unreasonable doubt’ (maybe aliens did it), or toward or toward ‘no doubt’ (I don’t like him, he must have done it).
I think what should be done is that law school students, before they join the bar, before they start practicing law, should be required to sit on juries for two years.
I think that the problem is that court cases have become so complicated that the 12 slugs who could find an excuse for getting out of jury duty can’t understand them anymore. Especially when you have “jury consultants” used by all sides to get the most compliant 12 slugs you can.
My method of avoiding Jury Duty. “I’d make a great juror, Your Honor. I can spot the guilty ones JUST LIKE THAT!” (snaps fingers!)
Lots of people who serve on juries are not “compliant slugs” or otherwise too dumb to get out of it. For myself and several of the people who sat on the jury with me at a trial last October, we discussed it during lunch and I believe 8 out of the 12 of us were there because we believed that it was our duty as Americans and because we knew would want a jury of our peers if we were ever on trial for anything so we wanted to provide the same opportunity to the defendants. I believe that most people who fight to get out of jury duty do so because they can’t handle the loss of pay for the days they are going to serve and that the people who feel like only schmucks would serve jury duty if they could otherwise get out of it are in a small minority.
Then the logical conclusion is that the instructions to the jury should be altered. Otherwise, the message is “this guy is going to talk for an hour - but you shouldn’t listen to him.”
Two famous cases are the 2 space shuttle accidents. The NASA Mission Management Team discussions prior to Columbia disaster have been well-documented. While numerous engineers on the project were originally concerned with large pieces of foam that fell off the shuttle, the committee leader decided that a prior incident of foam was not a concern. They all eventually migrated to her view and the Columbia blew up. I wish I could site the Challenger incident as well (with the cold weather damaging the O-rings), but can’t seen to find it. There was a famous case study that we reviewed when I was in grad school.
Surowiecki summarizes the Columbia disaster and the various studies in Chapter 9 of The Wisdom of Crowds.
The point here, of course, is that a jury includes numerous individuals and we presume ( and they themselves assume) that they each reached an independent and unanimous decision. But this never happens.
Even worse, they eventually fall victim to confirmation bias, in which they begin to give greater weight to evidence that supports the “leaders” opinion. Thus, they become even more confident that they made the correct choice.
Now, you could argue that pecking orders don’t naturally occur, and thus there is no real leader. But I’m sure we’ve all been in group settings where this phenomenon occurs and is obvious. I’m on 3 investment committees where individuals come in with different opinions on a decision to be made. It frustrates me when, by the end of the meeting, they’ve all migrated to the Chairman’s or CFO’s opinion. I wonder why we even have a committee to begin with.
Another book that summarizes the problems of groupthink is: Why Societies Need Dissent by Cass Sunstein.
I want to add that I can try to dig up more cites if needed. The only comprehensive source I have is the Surowiecki book, but his ideas are all borrowed from numerous sources.
Groupthink is well known - I saw a video about it at work before the Challenger disaster. However, I don’t think it is as big a problem on juries as you think.
In a business environment the manager is possibly in his position due to leadership abilities, and thus will sway members more than average. He also likely has power over some of the members of a committee. This is not true in a jury.
When I was a foreman, the judge suggested that people give their opinions before writing them down. I did this, and I made myself go last. While it is possible someone was swayed by the others, no one had made any strong arguments yet, so it is doubtful. Plus, not everyone changing a position is doing it due to pressure or groupthink. Each juror sees a different case, and some will have stronger opinions than the others. We were 11 -1 for conviction to start with. The person against got a chance to give his objections, which turned out to be fairly minor, and we convicted on first ballot. Some people had stronger opinions and were more vocal than others, which you’d expect with a wide range of age, experience, and social position.
As the father-in-law of a recent law school graduate, now studying for the bar exam, I’d tell you where you could put this idea if this were the Pit. Do you propose to pay off the loans of the recent graduates while they are doing this?
I’d suspect 99.5% of all trials are not complex, and have defendants who can’t afford or don’t need consultants. You should stop watching the court groupies.
Judges aren’t stupid. I can imagine one saying “And I can jail you for contempt JUST LIKE THAT!”
I think the instructions on this issue are just fine. Everybody can tell the difference between a lawyer putting two and two together and the twos themselves. You just should not assume the lawyer’s reasoning is proof.
The lawyers may point out a connection that did not occur to you.
Based on my one grand jury and one petit jury service, I take issue with the characterization of juries in general being full of people too stupid to avoid jury duty. I saw numerous people request excuse from the judge (didn’t hear their reasons) and most were not excused.
We had quite a range of ages and kinds of people, which was very encouraging – various ethnic groups, occupations, etc. By no means was it all retirees and students. One guy looked to me as if he was a construction worker or contractor, almost everybody except for a couple of retirees was employed. And most of us truly got “into” it after a few weeks if we weren’t at the beginning.
The pay was so low as to be insulting (would you believe $5 a day???). But I honestly felt it was a privilege and a duty as part of being a member of a civilized society.
My dad always loved jury duty but was rarely called. My mom used to get called all the time, and of course she hated it. However, she was very honest. If the case had to do with someone suing for damages, especially if it was a motor vehicle involved, she would tell them right up front, “My husband was almost killed by an out of control bus. I’d give the plaintiff everything they…” “Dismissed!”
Have four of the 12 jurors be professionals- civil servants who do nothing else for a living but sit on juries. Have the other eight chosen from voter rolls as is. The professional jurors could use their experience to benefit the others without dominating the discussions. This would provide some level of consistency in the deliberating process but retains the trial by peers as is long standing custom.