I hear this many times in stories on the Dope or in the media, that during the process of voir dire, lawyers on both sides prefer stupid or ignorant people they can influence to their side. I guess the logic is that dumb people are more easily convinced. A smarter person, one who has some background that may influence how he sees the case, is less desirable. Is this true?
It seems that even if we accept that premise, it would be true for both sides. A juror may be influenced by you but may be pulled the other way by the other attorney. I don’t see why stupidity should benefit one side or the other. Unless the case involves something very technical that a lawyer feels would give his side an advantage because of the details involved, I don’t see why a lawyer on either side should be biased for or against the relative intelligence of a juror.
It seems that whenever I read about it, cases are always being reported where lawyers try to get rid of the scientists, college grads, engineers, business executives, other lawyers, and try to stack the jury with the stay-at-home parents, retirees, minimum wage workers, etc. Is that just confirmation bias on my part or are lawyers really seeking those type of people? Why type of cases where one type of person would be preferable to the other?
I litigated for a year, and I will say that a lot of it depends on the style of the attorney (as well as the facts of the case). I’ve found that passionate and emotional attorneys typically prefer to have less-informed jurors, if only because they feel their arguments can sway jurors, when the facts may not be on their side.
On a side note, a few years ago, I was summoned for jury duty. It’s somewhat given that attorneys will strike other attorneys down during voir dire, so I expected to show up in the morning, spend an hour or so in the waiting area, and then have the rest of the day to myself for errands and whatnot.
Well, I got placed in a jury pool and the way my county handles things is that all the jurors are numbered, and after the voir dire questioning, the attorneys meet and decide whether or not they want to strike juror #1, then #2, etc. I had a fairly high number, so I didn’t think they would even get to me. I didn’t take into account the jurors with low numbers who were “undesirable,” with one old man stating that he didn’t want to be there and he had to pick up his grandchildren from school, so he would do whatever it took to ensure a speedy trial, regardless of facts.
So, yeah… I was selected to sit on the jury. Day #2 of the trial and I saw a former classmate walk into the courtroom to hand something to the defense attorney, and when he made eye contact with me, I got a puzzled look as if to ask “how did you get selected?” I shrugged from the jury box and when the trial was over, the next day, I told him about the process. He also told me some very interesting “inside baseball” information, regarding the case.
I want the smartest jurors I can find. The reason? I think I’m right. My case has merit. The other side is going to to try to confuse and complicate things to avoid a verdict in my favor. I want jurors who can see through that and resent it.
I think it’s mostly a combination of confirmation bias and a slight conflation of two different ideas. One is that lawyers want stupid people on juries. The other is that lawyers want to avoid a biased outcome (in a game theory sort of sense where you don’t get to pick the direction it’s going in). I don’t think it’s true that lawyers want dumb people, but I do think it’s true they don’t want bias. A person’s expertise is one possible source of bias.
Obvious example: you’re a criminal defense attorney. Do you want a police officer on the jury? No, you do not. That’s not necessarily because you think police officers are more likely to be harsh on defendants in general (although you might think that), or even because you think police officers will be more likely to trust the police (although you probably will think that). It’s also because you know that no matter what that police officer’s opinion is, the other jurors are going to be like “well, you’re a cop, tell us what really went on here.” It’s normal and rational for a police officer to think in terms of his own experience in coming to grips with the evidence, and it’s also normal and rational for other jurors to think well, he’s a cop, so he’s probably got some reason for believing what he does.
The officer himself might be super smart. He might be a model juror in lots of respects. But by virtue of his knowledge of police procedure, he is less likely than average to be able to decide a case based on nothing but the evidence in front of him. He’s more likely to guess, even correctly, at what’s going on behind the scenes, and introduce some of those inferences into the jurors’ deliberations.
It works the same way in less obvious situations, too. You don’t want a doctor (or nurse or technician or whatever) in a medical malpractice case. You don’t want an engineer in case about a bridge collapsing. It’s not that you want stupid jurors – the really smart cop could be perfect for the med mal, and maybe the doctor would be great for the bridge – but you don’t want anybody with any preconceived notions about the facts that you’re going to need to introduce them to during the trial. If somebody is back there teaching your other jurors what the evidence “really” means, you might as well have not brought on expert witnesses and carefully questioned them. There are reasons there are 12 of them back there. One reason is so that no one person’s biases, conscious or unconscious, dictate the outcome.
I want people who don’t think they know everything and demand to be the center of attention. So SDMB members are right out. I want people with an open mind and critical thinking skills who can see through bullshit and deal with it a lot. I want people with children so they know a dumb lie when they see one. I want people who work for a living and have a business so they have a sense of responsibility.
I do not want someone who has been to law school and has a strong opinion on everything. You know, like me or the judge. I do not want an engineer because they are more opinionated and less open minded than lawyers and judges.
A friend explained to me that in terms of “proof” law and science have different definitions, so prosecutors tend to not like scientists in the jury since the standard of proof for science is rigorous while the standard of proof for law is lower. Scientists can’t reliably turn off the science switch.
IANAL but I’ve been a juror twice. My take is that all of the attorneys (and sometimes the judge) were pretty quick to excuse the kinds of people you’re talking about. People who are (or at least acted) dim, people who couldn’t understand what was going on, people with poor English and people with legitimate biases. Note that that last group didn’t necessarily include people who were pretty obviously giving some variant of “I don’t think I can be impartial, can I go now?” as a catch-all excuse.
I didn’t seen scientists and engineers getting excused by default, either. I was definitely not the only techie or engineer on the jury either time. We did have one guy excused who runs a lab that does some type of DNA analysis - that case relied in part on just that type of evidence and the prospective juror honestly didn’t think he could put his own expertise aside and rely exclusively on what was presented in court.
The jurors that I served with were all, IMHO, average to smart. Nobody that I would describe as stupid or ignorant.
Couldn’t a lawyer use this to his advantage though? Why try to convince 12 people when I can convince one, and let him convince the rest of the jury for me?
But that’s what I don’t understand. The person with a strong opinion might be on your side, and if you knew ahead of time you’d definitely take him, wouldn’t you? Is it just playing the odds (getting someone you think you can convince no matter his beliefs vs. a 50/50 chance that he won’t be convinced by whatever you do) and betting that you’re good enough to convince anyone?
IIRC from my most recent jury duty, being a law enforcement officer was an automatic excuse. The attorneys had nothing to do with it. I assume this can vary from locale to locale.
A criminal jury requires unanimity. A civil case jury usually something like 9 to 3 (in California). It is okay to have one dominant asshole if you are sure he/she is on your side, but you can’t be sure of that, and if you are, the lawyer at the other table usually knows it too. This is why lawyers do not care for bench trials, where both sides waive the jury. Judges are human too, and while some of them work hard not to be biased, most of them don’t give a shit.
I see your logic of the defense favoring dissenters that might cause a mistrial or non-unanimous decision, but I don’t follow how that applies to bench trials, can you explain? Wouldn’t both sides have an equal chance of convincing one judge to their side? Why do lawyers not care for them?
Wouldn’t at least one of the lawyers want someone who doesn’t fall for bullshit? This goes back to my question about lawyers desiring stupid juries. You’d think that in every case, there would be one side who is weaker on the case and need to resort to BS, and another side more confident of their side who wants smart jurors who see through BS and hold lawyers accountable for doublespeak. My question is why both sides seem to want to use BS as a standard tactic instead of presenting a strong case?
My field of work is comprised of scientists and engineers, the majority of which have a MS degree or better. My less than scientific poll of colleagues- including myself - who had served on a jury came to the conclusion that we are far more likely be selected by lawyers in a criminal trial. Attributes like gender or ethnicity did not seem to matter during the selection phase. On the one hand this sort of obvious profiling seems to ignore the notion of a jury of your peers but if it I was a lawyer, I would certainly want my client to have people that could follow along with the arguments.
Asked some of my former classmates who litigate and they said that, while they wouldn’t necessarily use the term “stupid,” most of their colleagues try to avoid people who have a certain degree of education.
Apparently, the logic is akin to what Jimmy Chitwood said earlier. Jury instructions are very specific. You are only supposed to use the information introduced at the trial in making your decision. Citing the example of how you wouldn’t want an engineer serving as a juror where the cause of action is a structural failure, the reason is that she would bring in her own knowledge - that’s not admissible in court.
He said that, in post-trial conversations with jurors, those who are more educated / “smarter” will talk about leaps in logic made that were not necessarily valid. Where the purpose of the trial is to take you from A to E by way of B, C, and D, some of those jurors would just assume E from B, bypassing the standard of proof necessary to satisfy C and D.
Another interesting thing he said is that part of it has to do with the patience of jurors throughout the process. He said that the businessman who is forgoing officework and letting things pile up for when he returns is going to be in a much bigger rush to reach a verdict, versus others (unemployed, people who work non-traditional hours, etc.) who might see jury duty as a fun and novel experience.
I’ve been on two juries and have been through the selection process several more times, and have never gotten the impression that anyone was excluded for brain power. Except for a case almost exactly like the above. It was a civil suit concerning an elevator supposedly injuring someone, and one person in the pool was an engineer who had been an expert witness in several cases. He was excused when he said that he would be unable to accept testimony that he knew was wrong based on his expertise - but he was excused by the judge, not by one of the attorneys. I’m an engineer and have a PhD and it never has seemed to be an issue, though in Silicon Valley I’m not all that rare.