We The Jury Need More Information? Or: Baliff, Could Ya Bring Us An Encyclopedia?

Factual Questions
21

The problem seems to stem from jurors thinking that they are required to disregard their own common sense, and rely solely on the relative weights of the “expert” testimonies.

ie, “forget what you know about flammability of floor covering (electrical wiring, blood in the defendant’s car, whatever) - judge solely by the quality of the presentation - never mind that you know otherwise[sup]*[/sup], just decide based on what’s presented”

    • no decent lawyer would allow a juror with relevant knowledge to be impaneled - such jurors are too risky - they might actually think!
22

A few states (or at least, counties) have begun to allow Juries to question witnesses a little (with written notes) and to even ask lawyers to clarify statements. I’m sorry I can’t find a cite for you, the article i saw was from several years ago.

23

That’s exactly the opposite role of the jury. The rationale for a jury is that ordinary citizens, not experts or trained judges, are placed at the heart of the fact-finding process. They have no stake in the game. The are neutral and unbiased, and are supposed to use their wisdom and common-sense experience and knowledge to observe witnesses’ demeanor, compare the evidence against their own experience and decide if the story told makes sense, if the witnesses are credible, if the plaintiff was injured, if the accused is guilty.

  • Rick
24

Yeah - well the problem is not what juries are supposed to do, but what they actually do. Adding to this is the problem in certain countries where jurors tend to be from a lower socioeconomic/intellectual level than the national average - because many professionals and skilled people cunningly evade jury duty so as not to lose income. I know I’m likely to get attacked for this comment, but go and talk to legal professionals in the UK and Australia if you doubt me.

I have met many ex-jurors who have been appalled at what went on in the jury room. Jurors basically putting in their own hypotheses, rejecting the evidence, “but what if maybe he did x, y, z” - totally ignoring the judge’s directions.

So forget what a jury is supposed to do, and take note of what they actually do. Human beings are not neutral, or unbiased, or necessarily intelligent, society is now so diverse they are highly unlikely to be your true peers, and much less so “twelve good men and true.”

25

<< If it’s disallowed that any juror has independent thoughts, then why even have a jury? >>

IANA Lawyer, but my brother-in-law is professor of law at a great metropolitan law school.

The first point is you need to distinguish between the juror’s thoughts and the evidence. Watch LAW AND ORDER. The police find a bloody knife in the defendent’s car, but they didn’t have a search warrant so the gun is ruled as inadmissable. The jury may NOT read a newspaper that says “Bloody Knife found in Car!” and accept that as evidence.

The rules are generally intended to protect the defendents. The jury may ONLY consider the evidence that is presented, and may NOT consider any other information. “The jury will disregard that comment” means just that.

This doesn’t mean the jury is not permitted to think or to exercise common sense, of course they are. But they must base their decision on the evidence and testimony that was presented, not on outside information that is not presented as evidence. Anything presented as evidence or testimony, the other side has a chance to refute, and the whole basis of the US legal system is that confrontational aspect. If there is information that the jury has that was not presented as evidence, then the other side has had no chance to refute it.

If one side presented an expert witness that the Eggos were terrorrist agents, the other side would presumably present an expert witness to describe the symptoms of paranoia, and the jury would then be asked to exercise their judgement and intelligence in figuring out which side to believe.

My only jury experience, the state was trying to buy some land to expand the road. They brought in an expert witness who said the value of the land was (say) $30,000. The other side (the owner of the land) did not appear. The judge’s instruction was that we the jury must now find that the value of the land was $30,000. He said that if the other side had shown up and presented an expert witness who said the land was worth $100,000, then we could decide on any value in between; however, since we had only one price, we must decide on that price.

One juror said he was upset by this, and would like to know why the other side didn’t show up (visions of a wheelchair-bound little old great-grandmother sprung to mind). The judge said that juror was dismissed, and he pulled an alternate juror into the box.

Thus, the jury can request any evidence that was presented (the one page of the book, for instance, but not the rest of the book) or can request to see the transcript of any testimony, to help them in their deliberation. But they may NOT request any additional information.

The second area is a clarification of the law. Most judges will happily explain any point of law, or restate it. This can mean a repetition of the original instructions. But sometimes juries do ask questions that were not included in the original instructions (often asking about what compromise decisions are possible, if any) and the judge will almost always answer those questions, or run the risk of being overturned by the next higher court.

26

I’m one with this experience. It was very much like “Twelve Angry Men”. One guy wanted to hurry up because there was a ball game on.

Another guy wanted to convict “because the guy was was obviously lying”. Ok, I said. He’s lying. Which charge are we going to convict him of? What’s he lying about?

Then there was the police-officer-in-training on the jury who lied about being associated with the police because she “wanted to have the experience of being on a jury.”

But . . . getting to the OP. I knew from experience that the main witness against this guy was lying, too, about seeing his shirt color at night, because the road isn’t lit there. There’s no way I could “undo” that knowledge.

Finally, to ramble on to an important point, what’s “common sense” or “common knowledge” to one person isn’t to another. How many common opinions do we immediately come to on the SDMB?