The question is prompted by this case. The jury was taken to the apartment where a baby was killed in a microwave oven.
I’m untrained in law, but I can foresee problems with this. Jurors are not supposed to discover evidence, and I think there’s a substantial risk that someone may observe something irrelevant to the case at hand, and use it to make a decision, prompting another mistrial.
There must be a perceived benefit to someone, but what could it be? Mom claims someone else did it while Mom was passed out drunk. What could be seen in the apartment that would confirm or refute this claim? The article doesn’t even say whether it was the prosecution or the defense asking for the tour.
My uncle used to be a court bailiff, and occasionally escorted juries on trips like this. He said that they were carefully instructed that if they observed anything that they thought was relevant evidence, or if they saw something that raised a question in their mind, they were to immediately write it on a note, and the bailiff would give it to the Judge, who would publicly talk about the point or question, have it discussed by the lawyers for both sides, etc.
Thus it was no longer information discovered by a single juror, but an item of evidence presented to all jurors, and addressed by both lawyers & the court.
He also said that this was pretty rare.
It was usually cases where lawyers would try to persuade jurors that it was too far away for a witness to have seen something accurately or other questions like that, matters of fact that the jury had to decide.
I served on a jury for a murder/arson trial back in '93 and we were escorted to the crime scene not once but twice. Without going into lengthy details, a very important factor in that case was the establishment of timelines for the crime and line of sight by passerby and other witnesses. Both the prosecution and the defense felt that their cases would be helped by us seeing the crime scene firsthand.
Pretty much everything t-bonham said applied in our case. We were not allowed to ask questions, discuss anything with our fellow jurors, or talk to anybody outside of the bailiff. We were instructed to write any questions or thoughts down and have the judge/lawyers decide if they were to be heard in court. We visited the scene once during the trial.
While we were deliberating, many issues related to the crime scene and timelines were being discussed at great length, and all the jurors requested a return to the crime and to be able to reevaluate & discuss evidence while there. The judge/lawyers agreed.
That 2nd trip turned out to be devastating to the defense, as it made it a lot easier to fit the evidence hence presented to the crime scene. We returned a guilty verdict. The defense filed several appeals, and many of them keyed on the “jury’s antics” during this 2nd trip. They claimed we created/distorted evidence and conducted our own time experiments to fit the charges, etc. All of the appeals were thrown out and the verdict held.
The jury I was on was escorted to several places relevant to the trial we were hearing. A lot of testimony and evidence involved specific locations, directions, distances, etc., and by seeing the scenes we were able to have a spatial understanding of what was being discussed. It can reinforce or undermine points in testimonies. (Witnsesses claimed that they were in visual contact with the defendant during the entirety of a basketball game, even when he was sitting out for half of the game. Went to the gym, and saw that the place he was said to be sitting was actually out of the sight of most of the court, which undermined the reliability of that claim. Examined their SUV and saw that the prosecution was right when they claimed the vehicle was too tall for some of the defense’s claims regarding evidence.)
Jury views can sometimes be useful, and in Ohio can be requested by either side. It’s somewhat uncommon; I only went on one in my six years as a prosecutor. The bailiff (or deputy sheriff) accompanies the jury and keeps them together. The lawyers beforehand write down what they’d like the bailiff to point out at the crime scene, and the judge approves or disapproves each item on the list. The jury cannot speak to the defendant, but he may go along on the jury view (under guard, where appropriate). The judge typically does not go.
I remember reading that, during the O.J. Simpson murder trial, there was a jury view of Simpson’s house. His lawyers had earlier removed all of his artsy-nude pictures and put up civil rights-related pictures (including the famous Norman Rockwell painting of the little black schoolgirl being accompanied by U.S. marshals) instead. :rolleyes: