Sure fire way to avoid serving on a Jury?

Great Debates
1

Now that minty green is gone for a couple weeks…[sub]just kidding[/sub]

Years ago while heading into the court house to do my duty as a juror, I was handed a pamphlet entitled Fully Informed Juror. As anyone knows who has ever served on a jury, I had ample time to digest its contents.

Living in a small county, I have had occasion to serve on quite a few jury panels, about every two years or so. That little pamphlet said some things that were pretty contrary to anything I’d ever been told by the judge, but which seemed right in the context of what little of the Constitution that I recalled learning in school.

[sub]To wit:[/sub]

You have the right and the duty to determine the law as well as the facts in controversy.

As a juror you have the unreviewable and irreversible power to acquit in disregard of the instructions of the law given by the trial judge.

Pretty heady stuff… they were telling me that I had the power and the duty to determine the Law.

[sub]Case in point[/sub]A vacationing cop passing through town, happened to notice that one particular house had a huge garden of colorful, heirloom varieties of flowers. Problem being they were a particular variety of flower that can be used to manufacture an illegal substance, namely heroin poppies.

Being the dutiful fellow that he was, and probably due to the fact that it was the mid seventies, he dropped by the local sheriff to file a complaint.

Our small town sheriff, being the reasonable man he was and having personal knowledge of old Mrs. Eshenbacher, and also knowing for a fact that she didn’t have the foggiest idea what heroin even was and also knowing that everyone loved to look at Mrs. Eshenbacher’s beautiful field of poppies, dutifully took the report and later filed it in the proper receptacle.

As luck would have it, the reporting cop passed through town a week or so later on his way home from vacation and noticed the same field of poppies proudly waving in the breeze.

All kinds of stink was raised but the end result was Mrs. Eshenbachers flower garden was pulled and taken into evidence and she was charged with growing a controlled substance.

Under the jury instructions given by the judge after all the testimony was taken, we had no way but to find Mrs. Eshenbacher guilty of growing a controlled substance. Plain and simple, she unknowingly broke a law, albeit, a really stupid law IMHO.

Fortunately, her neighbors had been handed the Fully Informed Juror pamphlet at the door of the courthouse and on that information, chose to invalidate the law in this particular case and acquit Mrs. Eshenbacher.

Despite the title of this thread, I do not advocate avoiding jury trials. As a fully informed juror, I feel more than ever that this is an important task that we should feel honored and privileged to perform.

The problem here is that we serve a three-month juror term here as often as every two years. I always take along my tattered Fully Informed Juror pamphlet to share with others. Ever since that trial, any one who indicates that they are a fully informed juror, never gets chosen to actually sit on a jury, all are removed in the Voir Dire process.

So…what do you all think, why do lawyers and judges not want to impanel a fully informed juror and more importantly, why are we not told of our rights and obligations to judge the law as well as the circumstances of the case in question during our jury instructions?

2

my $0.02

I don’t think a defense lawyer would have any problems using an fully informed juror on a panel. No, the problem would be with the prosecutor and Judge. Their records are established by the ammount of convictions they can rack up, and/or not appearing soft on crime.

You have a couple of Joe Six-packs deiciding that some laws are just to onerous to support, then you have D.A.s wondering how they’ll get reelected and judges wondering how they’ll move further up the judiciary.

3

Jury nullification is one of my pet loves.
I’ve been selected twice, once for a store employee accused of some major theft and once for someone caught with cocaine and charged with possesion and intent to sell.
With the theft, I felt that the guy was guilty but we couldn’t get a consensus so he got off.

With the cocaine, I hung up the jury all by my lonesome (and let me promise you that it WAS lonesome) because I feel drug laws are shit. The key is not to actually tell anyone during the deliberations that you are refusing to convict based on jury nullification, or they can kick you off and get a new juror.
Just shut your mouth and hang tight.

4

Freedom, I’m proud of you, man.

But I’m curious…you have told us what was in your heart as you hung up that jury, but what did you tell the jury? If they were all so convinced he was guilty, were you just saying you didn’t buy it? Didn’t they browbeat you endlessly?

My thinking here is that if you admitted why you were hanging them up, they’d dump you and get the alternate or something…? I dunno…

stoid

5

I was called to serve as a juror about a year ago. As part of the selection, the judge and the attorneys went on and on about how we were supposed to take instruction from the Court as to what the law was, regardless of our personal feelings or individual knowledge of said laws.

When they started asking me questions, one of the attorneys asked me if I could put aside any personal knowledge and simply follow directions. I pointed out that “just following orders” was an excuse used at the Nuremburg trials, and that I could not accept instructions to do something I knew wasn’t right.

I got sent home so fast I left a contrail behind. It seems that actual thinking in jurors is not encouraged.

6

I used to believe so, also. For similar motivations as Freedom, I look forward to jury duty.

Not to mention, it’s a mini vacation - the courthouse is 5 minutes from my house but my office is 30 minutes away. And you get to make new friends, and the hours are cushie as hell.

Anyway, every engineer I know says once they declare their occupation, they get immediately dismissed during jury selection (I’m not going to try and spell the v. d. phrase). My experience was no different until a couple of years ago.

It turned out that this was a second trial, the first jury had hung, and they apparently needed a smarter panel this time. So I was one of two engineers, a schoolteacher, a phone company tech, three(!) accountants and some others, a few retired. The trial and deliberations took 11 days… and the jury hung again. (The prosecution had a flimsy case, and the victim’s testimony had glaring inconsistencies that told us he was hiding something.) Not exactly what I was looking forward to.

7

Stoid
I just shut my mouth, keept voting for Not Guilty and told them that I just didn’t feel the guy was guilty. There were a couple of legitimate things in doubt, like if all the drugs belonged to the same person and a couple of other fuzzy things I can’t quite remember right now. (It’s been 5 years) They had been pulled over for some traffic violation and the driver had another warrant out for his arrest for non-payment of some tickets. This guy was one of three passengers in the car. Everybody pointed the finger at each other and denied any knowledge of the coke.

I’m not sure how I would have pulled it off if there hadn’t been just a little bit of ambiguity involved.

After about an hour of talking to me, they got the hint. We went out once, and the judge sent us back in. After four hours, they let us out.

I had this fear that the judge would keep us in there for days on end like you see in the movies, but I guess that since it was a fairly minor case and they had a ton of cases to try, they didn’t bother.

I was a little uneasy about the whole situation. The guy was a black guy from the streeets of Newark. I have no illusions about the life this guy leads.

I went through a whole thing in my head about what I would do if there was a white middle class kid in the same situation, and it kind of pissed me off that I would deal with that situation a lot more comfortably. I went through the possibilities of this guy killing or injuring someone because he wasn’t in jail.
In the end I figured that I wasn’t supposed to play God, I was just supposed to close my eyes to the person involved and decide if anyone was supposed to go to jail for this particular action.

I never heard anything about the people involved after the trial was over, so I don’t have an end to the story.

My experience here is one of the main reasons I feel the criminal justice system is slanted against blacks. I know my heart and I know how anti-racist I am. If I had such strong feelings towards letting a white guy off easier than a black guy, then I’m pretty sure it’s a feeling many jurors (hopefully) struggle against.

8

This engineer is 1 for 2 so far on being seated, and I have a sibling who’s a police captain, too.

9

I regret at this time I have but a few seconds to respond, but I am extremely disappointed in you Freedom. As a juror, you took an oath to determine the guilt or innocence of the defendant based on the facts of the case and the law as instructed. You clearly broke that oath. If you thought the guy was not guilty (like the guy charged with theft), fine, hold out to your hearts content, but if you think drug laws are draconian and should not be enforced, you never should have been a juror. The Judge, prosecutor or defense counsel would have asked you a question if you could follow that oath…you lied. They probably would have asked you if there is any reason that you should not serve on the jury…you lied by ommission.

The jury should be people who have not prejudged the case…you did. I think it’s an incredible shame.

10

Hamlet said it better than I could have. From what I read I am not sure you felt the guy was guilty or not.

Would it be a true statement to say that your beliefs led you to find him not guilty regardless of the facts?

11

I realize I was unclear. Freedom - you say that “There were a couple of legitimate things in doubt” but then seem to backpaddle into the discussion on the merits of drug laws. Hopefully the post preceding this will make more sense now.

12

Hamlet, thank you.

When I hear things like Freedom said, I only hope that if s/he is ever involved in a dispute in front of a jury, someone has decided aside from any facts in the case that Freedom’s concerns aren’t valid to his way of thinking, so there.

You had no place on a jury, Freedom. You may have even had to lie to be chosen, as one is usually asked questions about their feelings on matters before the court, and if they could make an unbiased decision, which you clearly could not.

Why do so many people actively try to fuck up the system, then complain that it sucks? Jury duty is not a hardship, it’s a priviledge. I didn’t always think so, but I’ve grown up.

13

It might be just a bit drastic to start calling people liars here.

Here is a link to the The Fully Informed Juror website.

14

Hamlet, Opengrave and EJsGirl

Please allow me to respond on Freedoms behalf. Until very recently it has been uderstood that the jury place was to decide both the fact of the case and the law.

A couple of quotes for you:

I applaud Freedoms stand.

15

If Freedom or anyone else disagrees with a law, then lobby for change. Don’t refuse to apply or enforce it. If you are the victim of a crime, would you want the responding cop or presiding judge to decide that he doesn’t agree with the idea or practical application of that law, and not enforce it?

16

this is perhaps a better link to the site in question, it takes you right to the Fully Informed Juror Handbook.

Ej’s Girl, are you advocating that we should change the Constitution or what?

Instead of chastising Freedom’s or by association, my belief, it might be better to ask yourself why we are not as jurors told during the jury instructions, that we have a right and a duty to judge the law as well as the circumstances.

If you don’t like the Constitution, you should lobby to change it.

17

Horsehockey, EJsGirl. Unfortunately, I just threw out my copy of the ABA Journal, which had a cover article entitled “The Power of 12”, a fascinating discussion of juries and their power to nullify laws and make policy. Throughout history, important rights have been vindicated or indeed established by juries willing to defy the court and the law. Freedom of religion and freedom of the press are two that come to mind.
Just because judges and lawyers do not want juries to act independently does not mean that juries should not act independently. The true role of the judges, and the attorneys are to aid the jury, not control it.

Sua

18

And if you are accused under an unjust law, would you want the jury to decide that, even though the law is unjust, they will still enforce it?
Besides, your analogy is for the most part inapt. Almost all cases of jury nullification come in instances of victimless crimes - the article I mentioned in my last post noted jury nullification trends in criminal cases involving bookmakers and strippers.

Sua

19

I read about other tales of jury nullification–the Scottsboro boys, the murder of Medgar Evans, and so on. Just so you know, jury nullification can work both ways.

20

So to hell with the Constitution and the Supreme Court, the laws the law?