Slashdot Mirror
Computer Geeks and Jury Duty in the US?
Stan Schwarz asks: "I just spent a day doing jury duty here in Los Angeles, and it was a colossal waste of time. I've been called for jury duty five times over the last 18 years, and I -never- get picked for a jury. I answer the five questions (name, where you live, marital status, occupation, spouse's occupation) and they throw me out. My lawyer neighbor says this is because they don't want computer people because we think logically and are not emotional. Have other slashdot readers had similar experiences with the judicial system? Or should I just develop a complex about this?"
Well here (Canada), the reason I don't get picked for jury duty is because I have contracted work for firms, and by breaking that contract I could be sued, I have to provide them with a contract showing that I would incure losses, etc.
Also, if you will incure sufficent losses in doing Jury duty, at least in Canada, you are let off.
Free means no restrictions, ironic the FSF's GPL forces restrictions, isn't it? What's your definition of free?
Your lawyer neighbor is probably right. But why develop a complex?
Winona had some hollywood exec on the jury that convicted her. So you're probably right, lawyers don't want logically thinking people on juries (cf OJ Simpson Jury).
I was called for Jury Duty for the first time in my life (I'm 30) back in November. I went to the court (Salem, MA), sat in a room, and was let go along with the other 100 people called as all of the cases for that day settled before going to trial. (1 Day 1 Trial System)
I would actually like to get called again and SERVE on a jury. In fact, serving on a grand jury would be fun.
IANAL, however I do like reading decisions from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
--Mike
The whole jury selection process is flawed because they end up with nothing but dumb squares. Find the right audience, and you'll be able to convince them the sun is cubic.
Repeal the DMCA!
My lawyer neighbor says this is because they don't want computer people because we think logically and are not emotional.
Can someone explain to me why this is a bad thing? It seems you would want logical thinkers and NOT highly emotional jurors...
We want people convicted because they're guilty, not because the jurors don't like the way they look, right???
A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
So lawyers are rejecting exactly the fairest jurors, doing a grave injustice to justice. We should be outraged, but on the other hand...
I think lawyers should have NO say on who goes in the jury. Not only can it skew the results, but it wastes a LOT of time. The time of people like you who are called in, interviewed, and rejected (I've heard of hundreds of people being summoned for high profile cases), and the court's time for the time spent interviewing and haggling. And they complain of a backlog!
Sure, not every random person is suitable, but neither is every lawyer-edited jury. IANAL, but I suspect that the time savings from simplifying jury trials (and reducing the number of jury members while we're at it) would greatly outweigh the putative increase in the mistrial rate. Bumping up the frequency of venue changes would help.
Since you asked about my juror experience as a geek, I was called once for a trial in Quebec, but I was in a Waterloo (Ontario) co-op program at the time. I was freaked out because the initial estimate of the trial length was 6 months, and even a couple of months would have delayed my degree by a whole year. Fortunately I did not have to go because they would have had to pay hotel bills since I was from out-of-province. It seems likely that professional geeks are more mobile than nongeeks, and therefore undersummoned for juries. In my case though, I was greatly relieved.
If we were ants living on a Rubik's cube, differential geometry would be a little more confusing.
I think the key is to have open-minded jurors. And computer geeks who think they know everything (and rarely do, especially about the law) are probably not a good selection.
The law is logical if you've studied it inside and out and know all the reasons behind every little inconsistency. But if you haven't, you can't really make sense of it, so you just have to buy whatever the judge instructs you to.
You assumption about the task of the jury is incorrect. The jury is not present todo what the judge asks, they are present to distribute justice. Justice by a group of peers no less.
... juries should be _the_ backbone of our system. Juries should be removing laws that are set against the people (DMCA.. etc).
In the US -- juries have slowly been stripped out power by judges and lawyers, but they are the backbone of the system (or should be).
See: http://nowscape.com/fija/fija_us.htm
Juries are a critical piece of the puzzle that makes America work... People need to remember the power they have...
http://nowscape.com/fija/_600wrd.htm
When the jury is being sworn in, I do not raise my hand and have had to ask several times (I keep getitng called over and over) if it is okay to affirm I am telling the truth instead of searing. As a Quaker (yes, there are many Quakers who work with technology -- we're not the ones in horses and buggys), my belief is that I should always do my best to tell the truth, and swearing an oath (which, by the way, the Bible says not to do -- although I don't hold the Bible as inerrant at all), implies that one is telling the truth only at certain times and that it is okay to NOT tell the truth at other times. Almost every time this has come up, I see one of the lawyers making a mark on paper when I ask this question. I can't be sure, but I suspect that's when I'm struck.
And the ironic thing is that, as a Quaker, I would feel it to be of the utmost importance to listen to both sides without prejudice and to value both sides equally as I weight the facts.
In Richmond, VA, they take jurors from lists -- voting registration, property tax lists, driver's licenses, etc. I don't know if it is still true, but this used to mean that if you were on a number of these lists, you were more likely to be chosen, since your name was on the master jury list once for each of the other lists it was on (this is what I was told by someone working for the Jury Officer). I think the court should be required to have 80% of all eligible jurors serve before a juror is called back. I'm 40, and I was called 2 times while in college (given exemption because I was living out-of-town), once after that, again after I moved to a surrounding county (exempted since I no longer lived in the city), and, after moving back into Richmond, I've been called another 3 times. That's 4 times since I wsa 18 that I've served and 3 times I was called when I was not living in the district. While I try to maintain an even and calm viewpoint, I've gotten so many notices for jury duty, that I wonder if I'd able to make a dispassionate decision if I did sit on a case.
Well, that's too bad, as it seems you have them
Btw, the side with the weakest case (which is not necessarily the same as the "guilty" party) has a better chance of throwing out the "logical" thinkers, as they are the ones most apt to follow the judge's instructions.
I read this story, and the fortune at the bottom of the page is:
Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty!
The lawyer's job is to obtain the best outcome for his client, whether the plaintiff or the defendant. The judge's is to ensure the trial is conducted 'fairly' according to established laws and procedures. Then it is up to the jury to determine guilt/innocence in a criminal proceeding or 'responsibility' in a civil suit.
My first time doing jury service was also in Los Angeles (downtown? Out in the Valley? -- maybe that makes a difference). This was a couple of years ago when you had to serve the full two weeks, none of this one-day and you're out stuff. After 4 days of playing CivII on my laptop in the assembly room, they asked for volunteers to go out to Van Nuys. I volunteered because it was closer to where I was living, I'm not there 20 minutes when I get called for a panel (wasn't called for a panel for 4 days downtown), they ask the std. questions -- I don't get excused, was foreman of my jury. I was clear enough about my role in the industry that I had to explain to the judge exactly what I did, and apparently that wasn't enough.
YMMV, of course -- and perhaps it was just random chance. All I know is that I missed out on 6 more days of CivII. Seriously, I actually enjoyed it -- I wasn't serving with the brightest bulbs in the in the county, and the case wasn't terribly difficult (had one guy that as soon as the door was closed said, "Ok, he's guilty - where's the forms").
Nowadays, with jury duty being 1 day/1 trial, there's really no excuse for folks not to serve. I know it's cliched and everything, but if I was on trial for something, I'd feel better knowing that there were slashdot folks on the jury, as opposed to 12 Angry Postal Workers.
Ok, maybe not.
My lawyer neighbor says this is because they don't want computer people because we think logically and are not emotional.
So when I was called for jury duty, I proudly told them my profession (engineer), and expected to be rejected. However, the case involved two engineers, so I guess the defendent's lawyer tought I would be more sympathetic to his client.
Having grown up in a family with a few cops, and having worked for a security company is a sure way to get off the jury. (Father, uncles, cousins, brother-in-law.)
:=)
Here in "Massachheeewwwssetts," they ask if any in your family are police, lawyers, work in the court system, etc.
Since it's true for me, I have NEVER had to sit thru a trial (in 30 years). I have been called to sit and made it to the jurors box a number of times, but I always get release. Of course, I never know if it is the prosecution or the defense that has me kicked, but I have a strong feeling it's the defense laywers doing every time.
----- Lotus Super 7 - A real car.
Personally I like serving on Jury Duty, the company I works for will pay me normally and the court will also pay me. Get paid twice. I get the day off of work with pay even if I am at the courthouse only five minutes.
:-)
Besides, I served several times and since they ask jurors questions out loud, I learned interesting things about some neighbors
First Verdict!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I work for a small engineering company, and I always wondered why people there would say in our weekly meetings "I've got jury duty, should be back before lunch." Turns out that most of the technical people there have had the same experience: when the lawyers find out what you do/what you're trained for, you're booted and fast.
I've been told it's because technical people think logically and aren't as easily swayed by the lawyers, who often rely on surging emotions to win their case. But I think too it's because of our natures: as a juror you're not supposed to do any external research on your own. But suppose it's a case about a collapsed bridge and you're a civil engineer on the jury. Are you going to be able to resist? Or for those of us with some background in physics, if you were on a jury for a traffic accident, could you resist pulling out the ol' conservation of momentum, 2D mechanics, etc.? Maybe we're just harder to control.
Bah - anybody that can't get out of jury duty isn't one of my peers. There is no way the courts could get 12 of my peers in a single jury. Not a chance :)
... they don't arrest innocent people (do they?)' card. If all those fail, the 'I get to judge as I see fit, regardless of the actual laws, right??' card is guaranteed to get me sent home - but I generally never have to pull more after I throw down the 'racist' card.
That said, I suggest Juniors and Seniors in college, preferably during the off season (summer, xmas break...) They are smart(er), better read, up on current events, fair(er), and as of yet do not owe anybody anything so they do not have political burdens or obligations. Nobody is as smart as a college Junior or Senior, just ask them and they will assure you of that.
As for me, I have a bunch of cards that generally get pulled. The 'unjustly busted for speeding when I wasn't by the evil highway patrolman' card comes out early, the 'race' card comes out after that, the 'eager to be a juror because I can spot a guilty man a mile away' card after that, followed by the 'of course he is guilty
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Does your lawyer neighbor actually try jury cases and use lack of emotion to strike jurors? If so I could probably guess several elements of his temperament, and that leaves him in a position to be manipulated.
Neither my degree nor my programming profession has kept me off juries. Don't get a complex, the sixth time may put you in a room with a dozen folks from outside your social circle and a patriotic mission.
easy to get out of jury duty...Just say you believe in Jury Nullification...
0 7J uryNullification.html
http://www.greenmac.com/eagle/ISSUES/ISSUE23-9/
and for most of us, it's true...(unless you believe that Law always equals Justice and the movites of superiors should NEVER be questioned..)
basically, you're saying if you believe a law is BS, you have the right to acquit the defendant even if legally, the crime was committed...a good example would acquiting a guy who smoked pot because you believe the war on drugs is BS persecution.
sometimes it goes the wrong way (good ol' boys who are acquited in the south of lynchings...) - but it is a right of the founding fathers...
Lawyers HATE these guys, and in fact, if you believe in this and don't declare it...they can hit you for contempt of court...
But I've contempt of our court system for a while now...
RB
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Before my wife passed the Bar, I would get the occasional notification for jury duty. I have not been called once in eight years since she passed the Bar and started practicing law. For those that don't know, lawyers are exempt from jury duty (although their spouses are not)
Back when I did get called for jury duty, I would go show up and answer their questions. Each time, when the selection process was happening, they changed my occupation from "systems admin" or "database admin", or whatever I put down, to "white-collar-worker" and then I would be summarily dismissed -- and, a bit worried about being mugged on my way to my car. Maybe its just Saint Louis, Missouri, but it seemed to me that they wanted uneducated housewives or factory workers.
But, like I said, I don't understand the jury selection process at all. Neither does my wife who practices in federal courts without juries.
Suggestions so far have been pretty bad. The problem, as the original poster suggested, is that lawyers want people they can manipulate. The answer is to make it more difficult to exclude people. That way the lawyers have less control over the constituency of the jury.
There are often good reasons to exclude potential jurors. But we have gotten to the point where each lawyer on the case can exclude X number of people, for no reason whatsoever. There should be very narrow and well defined criteria for which potential jurors should not serve. These criteria should be similar to those judges use to recuse themselves from cases where there is a conflict of interest.
If the lawyers can no longer control the constituency of the jury, then the jury itself has a better chance of being a jury of "peers", rather than a jury of "people the lawyers thought they could manipulate". Of course, jury selection itself is not totally random, lists of potential jurors are limited to voters/property owners/licensed drivers.
But a semi-random list is certainly much better than a list that reflects, prima facia, people who lawyers thought would be easier to convince of their case.
[Posting anonymously for obvious reasons. Don't want some guy getting out of jail and coming after me :)]
I served on a jury once, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Although it was interesting to get a glimpse inside the system, it's a very weighty feeling to be responsible for judging someone guilty or innocent and possibly condemn them to prison for life.
They never asked me about my occupation. I just happened to have the second lowest juror number of everyone there, so I was one of the first called up. The way it works where I live is the jurors are called up in order and the defense and prosecution can either accept you for the jury or decline. They keep going until they have 13 people (12 jurors and one alternate). They each have a limited number of declines (maybe five?) so there is an incentive to take the first few people and save the declines for when they really need them.
It was a sad case, involving armed robbery, carjacking, and a poor guy being locked in his own trunk. There was, IMHO, not a lot of direct evidence to tie the defendant to the crime, at least according to my logical geek mind, but enough to convict him according to the law. No one was able to testify that they actually saw the robber's face, just heard his voice. The clincher was when the suspected accomplice testified against the defendant. His testimony was crucial, but he was so reluctant to testify against his friend that he just danced around the questions and only at the end said that the defendant was the guy. There was also some insinuations that he'd only agreed to testify as part of a plea bargain, so his testimony was somewhat suspect.
We found him guilty, but it was a wrenching decision. Props to the judge for being very fair throughout. Afterward, he came to the jury chamber and told us that he thought we made the right decision. He told us that, depending on how he structured the sentence, the guy could go to jail for the rest of his life. While I'm glad that a guilty man will be punished it was very difficult to have it happen through my hands. Someone asked how old the guy was and then, only after the trial was over, the judge was able to tell us that he was only 19. It was like the air went out of the room. 19??? And we'd just played a part in sending him to jail for life. Of course it was his own deeds that he was punished for, but if you take it seriously, it's hard to have the decision rest on your shoulders.
I'm glad that I did my duty and that, for the most part, justice was served. I'm sorry for the victim and his ordeal. But it was a heavy experience and I don't ever want to have to do it again.
Given that each of the lawyer, judge, and jury have different roles, doesn't it seem a miscarriage of justice to allow the lawyers to select the jury? Lawyers cannot select the judge that hears their case, why should they be allowed to select the jury?
I think lawyers should have NO say on who goes in the jury. Not only can it skew the results, but it wastes a LOT of time.
I agree! It is a stupid, wasteful, undemocratic process.
Perhaps allow a scaled down version for murder trials, but for the rest just randomly pick them. Half the jurors lie anyhow.
Table-ized A.I.
high and the cases got settled. So no dice.
Second time I actually came in, set around for 4 hours and got paid
$16. Not bad for a normal college kid with no money.
Sadly, I actually wouldn't mind doing jury duty.
Third time got a survey for a federal jury duty. Put occupation
as college kid and never heard back again. oh well.
1. Bring a laptop on which you can do work. If your job cannot be done on a laptop with no network connection then you are screwed and should take the alternate approach, finding excuses to get out of jury duty.
2. Find the outlet in the jury pool room, and sit next to it. Arrive early if you have to. Your laptop battery will not keep you going long enough, so you must plan to run on AC power. If there is only one outlet, you must not let anyone else sit next to it. To avoid problems, you may want to arrive early or bring an extension cord.
3. Pretend to be an idiot during voir dire. This is crucial. Courts take a dim view of software development work in the jury box. The place you want to spend your time is the jury pool room, not the courtroom. It's easy to minimize the time you spend in the courtroom. During the voir dire process, be sure to express at least one of the following opinions whenever any question is asked of you:
You may still get picked for a jury despite your best efforts. If this happens to you, make sure you have something dry and technical to read, like a printout of some API documentation. (Don't bring anything more interesting along or you'll end up reading that instead.) Most judges don't care if you catch up on your reading during the procedural lulls that consume most of the court's time, when your attention isn't needed. People read romance novels on juries all the time. But I think an open laptop would be pushing it.
4. Don't make any friends. Remember, you're going to jury duty to get lots of work done, not to socialize! The reason jury duty is great is that it forces you to work because there's nothing else to do and no one interesting to talk to! No meetings, phone calls, emails, or Slashdot. You have to take advantage of this valuable time. If you make friends in the jury pool room, you defeat the entire purpose of not trying to get out of jury duty!
Seriously, I got called for jury duty and I got an amazing amount of work done that week. It was unpleasant and uncomfortable as hell while I was there, but afterwards it was definitely worth it.
Okay, so, knowing what you just found out, when I got called to jury duty a year or so ago, when they got around to the elimination round, I was asked about evidence, etc., and I mentioned that fingerprints at a crime scene don't indicate guilt or innocence, just the presence of that person at the crime scene. I was the first one rejected. Aww, too bad. Lawyers are easy marks. :)
I have a similar record of times called for jury duty and not being on a trial (~8 times in 15 years). The last time was in the county superior court for a murder trial. Was I not selected because I'm a techie? Probably more likely because I'm against the death penalty or because I have a sister-in-law who's a lawyer for the state of CA.
Several hundred people were called for this one trial alone, but it takes that many to get a jury of 12 people plus 12 alternates. Some are eliminated because they've heard too much news about the case. Some because of their feelings about the laws concerning the case (e.g., the death penalty). Some because they have family in law enforcement. Some because lost work time would be a financial hardship. Some for health reasons. We filled out a lengthy questionnaire, and many people were doubtless automatically eliminated because of answers to various questions.
But eliminated because they're a techie? I don't think so. Several years ago a co-worker (one of the seniormost programmers) was called for a kidnap and rape case, and ended up serving on the jury. He ended up being jury foreman as well. He said at the time that many of the jurors selected were older, retired folks.
But I see all these people in this forum with ways they get out of jury duty. Being on a jury is one of the most important duties in your life. IMHO, doing jury duty is as much a service to your country as joining the army. Why is it that people treat the job with such chagrin? You are deciding the fate of someone; you have the most direct role in the legal system possible (assuming a criminal court).
Really, if I were called for jury duty, I'd be chuffed to have the opportunity to involve myself with the legal system in this way. As long as I don't stand to lose millions of dollars or my life, I'd certainly not make any excuses.
Bring it on. I'm just waiting for the opportunity...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I'm a software engineer and I got picked for a jury a few weeks ago in southern California. There was also one other programmer on the jury. As it happened, the two of us hung the jury. We were the only ones that, despite believing the guy did what he was accused of, felt that there wasn't enough evidence to convince us beyond a reasonable doubt. Most of the other jurors wanted to convict the guy and would look at the evidence from perspectives that would allow them to do that. In other words, for them if it was possible that he did it given the evidence, then he was guilty.
In California, at least, this is further confused by the jury instructions we were given. In california, circumstantial evidence is allowed, and the jury instructions state something like "if there are two explanations, and one is reasonable and one is not, you must accept the reasonable explanation." But what it doesn't say is that the evidence must convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that the reasonable scenario actually happened. The other jurors took this to mean that if they felt the prosection's story was more reasonable than the defendent's story, then they could convict him. We finally got an opportunity to get the judge to clarify these instructions and explain that any decision must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt by the evidence, but by then the others had already made up their mind.
All in all, it was a very disturbing experience. All I can say is that if I'm ever accused of a crime, I pray that there is a programmer on my jury!
So lawyers are rejecting exactly the fairest jurors, doing a grave injustice to justice.
Wouldn't the most fair jurors be lawyers or judges? Somehow I'm guessing they usually get declined as well.
To bad the OJ trial didn't have some logically thinking geeks on it........
Snoozer.
Geeks of a different sort ;-) They may also have a conflict of interests. That could be ameliorated by changing venues, but still the other jurors would probably be intimidated by the lawyer in their midst. I think the fix for that would be to instruct all jurors not to reveal their occupations to each other.
To clarify what I originally posted, I think random juror selection is fairest to jurors, the plaintiff, and the accused, but I accept that some jurors should be rejected, with the biggies being conflict of interest or unreasonable burden for a juror. I have a feeling that weeding out conflicts of interest, as objected to by the lawyers, may have been the seed that the current mess sprouted from, but obviously the fraction of rejected jurors should be lower than it is.
A fair judge would be a good position to spot trouble early, but if all judges were reliably fair we wouldn't need juries so much. The rejection rules should be specified before hand (i.e. no lawyers), probably by a legislative body. Statistically, the best rejection threshhold and jury size would be a very interesting optimization problem.
If we were ants living on a Rubik's cube, differential geometry would be a little more confusing.
Remember that even seemingly minor disputes are very important to the people involved!
Juries protect the rights of people who are accused of crimes, and they protect injured people from insurance companies that won't pay claims (the defendant in any given civil case is nearly always an insurance company). Today's Bushie-Republican judges almost always rule in favor of the rich and powerful, and against the poor and weak, no matter what the merits of the case. Someday you or someone you love might actually benefit from having 12 ordinary people in the box!
Yes, computer professionals are thought of as unfeeling and/or unable to assign a dollar value to things that can't be objectively quantified, say, "pain and suffering" damages in civil injury cases. The more I read Slashdot, the more I am convinced that this stereotype is TOTALLY, 100% VALID.
Yes, the system was designed in an age long ago when jurors' time was less valuable than today; and there are many rules that don't make sense, even to many lawyers. The only consolation I can offer is that most of the rules are there for a reason, lawyers are not exempt from jury duty (at least not in California), and you are performing a valuable public service that you would really appreciate if you were in the other guy's shoes.
IAAL, and I get bounced out of the blue chairs even quicker than you do.
Guess what - one of the BIG changes here in NY was that about 5 years ago they dropped the exempt occupation list - even Lawyers, MDs and Cops have to serve now! One of the more interesting times was when Rudy G (the Mayor at the time) was called for Jury Duty - yes, one of the lawyers had him tossed off the panel
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I checked out Reading People:How to Understand People and Predict Their Behavior-Anytime, Anyplace from my local library, and I STRONGLY recomend everyone who is interested in this story do so. The author is a professional jury selecter (She help selecte the Jury for the O.J. Simpson case), and her insites will help you understand what is going on.
Note: I found myself wanting to throw this book against the wall several times, Arguing out loud with it, and other behavior only reserved for things that are really wrong. In other words I don't recomend this as a way to learn to read people (not that I claim to know anything about reading people), so much as a way to understand lawyers. Not that I disagree with it so much as I find it horiable that people are choosen/rejected for the reasons stated. Often what she would call a definate no for a jury is someone I would want!
Ps: that link is to amazon.com, because it was the first I found. I know there are better companys to order from.
My grandpa recalls two cases. One he was selected for, and he stood up the first day of the trial and said "Your honor, it is true that I don't know the defendant, but I know three other people he has beat up". The lawyers couldn't get him out of there fast enough after that. (and because he knew those people he shouldn't have been selected anyway) However the other jurers would have no opportunity to know that this is not a one time incident, something he felt was important to suggest.
Another time a friend was on a big murder case, and they described cutting open the defendants coat and finding some metal, and that was the critical evidence that allowed them to convict him. Only afterwords was it pointed out that the coat had been to the FBI experts, and the odds of them not finding such critical evidence is low. However after the FBI was done with it other people (prosicution...) had opportunity to plant evidence. (Typically the jury isn't allowed to handle evidence, this was an exception that we don't understand)
In other words, the lawyers from both sides have it in their best interest to not have thinkers finding holes in their arguments. Normally the prosicution has things in order in criminal cases, and guilty is fairly likely (why waste your time with a trial if you are not 100% sure he is guilty. however sometimes they are wrong.)
Let's see... Thomas Penfield Jackson: appointed by Ronald Reagan, a Republican. Collen Kollar-Kotelley: appointed by Bill Clinton, a Democrat. The judge who handled the case before Jackson was also appointed by a Republican president. Of all these, Kollar-Kotelley was the only one to hand Microsoft a victory.
Get your head out of the sand, and join the rest of us in the Real World(tm, patent pending).
Being in a jury pool is fun, if you have the time. The last jury pool I was in with a recent Nobel prize-winner--he and I both smoked, so we ended up hanging out, talking sci-fi, swapping our favorite paperbacks back and forth, etc. He told me the coolest thing he bought with the Nobel money was cordless phones--he loved being able to make calls from the bathtub. I imagine he has a cellphone now, this was a few years ago. Watching lawyers question this guy for a jury was truly hilarious, as he is trying to give such careful, accurate, truthful answers and they really just want some excuse to get rid of him fast.
Another time, I sat around a big table (reading, hiding from the TV) for 5 days, where most of the conversation was led by a kid who worked in the local Toys-R-Us, who spent all 5 days boasting loudly about how he could steal us all the toys we wanted if we just drove up to the loading bay and asked for him.
It is a stereotype that all jurors are sheep.
Remember that trials are adversarial -- dumb juries cut against both sides, yielding random verdicts. Of course, foolish lawyers may still want dumb jurors. But also, remember that half teh litigants lose, and the loser is going to tend to badmouth the decisionmaker.
Jury philosophy varies, and sure a lot of it is art, but I know of three very bright federal judges I worked with who served on juries (two of whom are *very* intellectual, and emotionally barren), plus plenty of clear-thinking college graduates. Especially if the subject matter is complex, you may want logical jurors. For a slip&fall, maybe the more emotional ones will help the plaintiff -- but what will the defense do in response?
State practice varies a lot; New York for one until recently had broad exclusions for everything from lawyers to undertakers (IIRC these were repealed). Thus the jury pool may be trimmed down in advance.
Under the federal system, the only one I know in detail, the parties have a limited number of peremptory challenges; all other challenges must be for-cause. The peremptories (3?) can be for any reason short of race or sex discrimination, etc.
I guess the defendant's lawyer thought I would be more sympathetic to his client.
So were you?
I went to law school in NY state and was pleased when they abruptly changed the rules. The old list of exclusions was outrageous, everything from all lawyers (gee I wonder who wrote that one in?) to undertakers to nurses.
You are right that automatic disqualifications vary from place to place.
The rules vary depending on where you are. I know of a number of lawyers who have served jury duty, including 3 federal judges -- 2 appeals court and the magistrate.
The magistrate was pretty funny when describing her experience. She said she looked forward to getting some insight, and declined to be foreperson because she wanted to observe. I think it was a medical malpractice case, and she said the jurors started saying something like, well, we don't think the doctor did anything wrong, but we should give the plaintiff some money anyway. She piped up politely that she was pretty sure they had to find negligence first (the verdict form must have indicated this -- do step A then B). Now she's probably looking at juries cockeyed.
That's an example BTW of prohibited jury nullification -- jurors ignoring the rules to do what they want, here probably figuring it was just some insurance company taking the hit. It's ugly.
I was a math student (ABD) and turned computer programmer in the financial industry - pretty geeky credentials. A year and a half ago I was interviewed for the jury on a securities fraud case. I thought for sure I'd be rejected when they found out my line of work, but that didn't seem to faze the lawyers.
In fact I was selected, and it turned out that the government used as evidence my company's data and graphs of stock prices of some of the securities in question. I found this somewhat surprising because I had told them that I work on the code that displays those types of graphs. All they asked me about that in the interview was whether I thought it would interfere with my ability to make a fair decision. I said that no, it wouldn't
On the other hand, some years before, I was rejected from a case when, in the interview, I raised what I thought was something relevant. (Nothing work-related.) A lawyer asked the same question - if I thought my experience would interfere with my ability to make a fair decision. I think that saying "I hope not" was probably what caused them to reject me.
I don't think I'll be serving jury duty any time soon. But I don't recommend my method to achieve such status in general. {grin}
I've never served (called 3 times -- twice in Mass, but told I didn't have to come in) and think I would like to for the experience.
IANAL, however I do like reading decisions from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Why that particular circuit -- aside from you probably live in it? (For the uninitiated, the system has 11 numbered circuits plus the DC circuit and the federal circuit. The armed services have their own appeals court.)
The 9th is unique, covering -- well, as their site says: "The Ninth Circuit is the largest of the 13 federal circuits and includes all federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands." That must be about 50 million people?
Maybe because it is so large the 9th is known for internal divisions that can lead to some chaotic and even contradictory precedent. I worked as a staff attorney in another circuit and the informal rule was never to cite to the 9th unless distancing ourselves from it. I know that sounds very parochial, but there has been criticism from other quarters as you likely know.
It's past time to break the 9th up into two or three circuits similar to the others -- it's literally that big! This would hopefully improve the administration of justice, but when and how this will happen I don't know. The circuit itself says everything is fine as it is. The current situation places an unnecessary strain on the people in the circuit, and it must be quite expensive on those occasions all the judges must meet in one place. Aside from those meetings, some judges of the circuit rarely see and faintly know other judges. In other circuits, the court hears all its cases in one or maybe two locations, which does help generate some collegiality.
Whatever. I think it's cool an IANAL is reading and enjoying the decisions.
Just randomly pick people and keep whoever is chosen, unless they're convicted felons or something. That guarantees impartiality. Just don't require total unanimity for any decision, only like 90% The jury should always be at least 10-12 people, IMO.
Repeal the DMCA!
Having been a manager at a large high-tech company in Oregon that keeps track of such things, we found that engineers and scientists were called and served on juries at pretty much the same rate as secretaries, techs and even vice presidents.
You realize that juries are made up of people not smart enought to get out of jury duty...
My first call to jury duty, I sat on a jury where the charges were assault and felony murder*. Three or four of us were computer professionals. Turns out an ealier jury heard the case and was deadlocked. We were, too. (How did I vote? None of your business.)
... is next month.
*Commission of a felony which resulted in a death. You and your roommate hold up a drugstore; your partner shoots the clerk. Both of you are accused of armed robbery. In addition, you'd be charged with felony murder, and he faces more serious charges of homicide or first degree murder. If no shots were fired, but the clerk had a heart attack and died during the robbery, you'd both faced with charges of felony murder in addition to armed robbery. Your milage may vary in other states. This does not consitute legal advice. IANAL. HAND.
My second time, I came close to being seated on a (six week!) medical malpractice case. No one cared that I programmed computers. The plantiff's lawyer didn't like that a close friend of mine was a family practitioner fighting a malpractice case.
My third time in the jury pool
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
I thought the Judicial system sought people without emotional attachments. You know, people who make decisions purely by reasoning with laws and not by how he feels about the defendant or prosecutor.
After all emotional people's decisions might be tainted by:
(1) Actor prosecutor/defendant
(2) How good they look
(3) Religion
(4) Ethnicity
(5) Age
(6) Gender
(7) Political Opinion
(8)
(9) Profit!
well you get the point. I cant believe they admittingly seek emotional people. Techies SHOULD be in demand for Jury Duty.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
First, IANeitherALawyerNorAmerican.
As life is so wont to imitate art these (heavily media-laden and influential) days, I'm going to assume there's at least SOME truth in what we see in shows like "The Practice", "L.A. Law" or (oh sweet Mercy, save us) "Ally McBeal" (at least in legal procedures, if nothing else. I may live half a world away, but the culture is saturated in the media). Or even, for just a moment, "Rumpole Of The Bailey" (if anybody remembers the late and lamented Leo McKern).
Lawyers are sometimes portrayed as clever private detectives, uncovering that vital piece of evidence or small niggling fact that everybody else missed. Makes for good TV, don't it?
However, lawyers are also very frequently portrayed as amazing PR flacks, coaching the client and witnesses to present the best image possible with rehearsed statements and body cues... n'est pas?
To whom would it be more advantageous to show a carefully crafted image - someone trained in analysis and problem solving, or somebody fed a lifelong psychologically crafted stream of media memes? Which group would experience the maximum effect?
Of course, the world could never be so cynical. With businesses and lawyers in the corporate world, image is never as important as cold, hard reality, surely...
When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When the law AND the facts are against you, make sure you're photogenic... or at least know the best buyer for the rights to the story.
Real nice, but did you stop to think he might be right. We do think very logically, we have to, or we can't do our jobs... Computers don't do things out of anger or love, they do it because of the 1's and 0's. Getting a 100% logic on jury would be tough on the people their, you wouldn't need opening arguements, sentiments would be ignored, they would look at cold hard facts, period.... Talk about needing a spine, you posted anonymously you coward!
I was called to serve jury duty in Framingham, MA. I forgot to send back the little card that informs you that you have to serve. It says on it - "Send this back, but even if you don't, you still have to serve"). So I brought the card with me. When I got there, I found out that I was not in the computer becuase I forgot to send the card back. There were about fifty people in the room, and they expected to need about forty jurors for the day. Since the clerk would then have to type my record into the computer by hand, he saved himself some work by sending me home first.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
The questions I had were never that personal -- just a list of questions to establish how familiar you might be with the particulars of the case (neighborhood, defendant, witnesses, nature of the crime, etc ). After I 'passed,' I was asked what I did for a job (web dev.) but it had no impact. I was Juror #1 for 5 days.
Most of the trial was, however, a large waste of time. Had we started at 9am every day, shrunk the 2 hour lunches to 1 hour, cut down on pointless evidence and circular questioning by the attorneys, it would have taken 3 days instead of 5. Had the defendant pled out as he should have based on the evidence at hand, there would have been no trial at all.
Thankfully I still get paid for jury duty, so no big loss, though I did miss out on some training that week. It was interesting nonetheless, but could have been handled more efficiently at times.
A whole bunch of other good, related links can be found here.
Thank goodness I read your post! You may have saved our financial skins. My husband has been hi-jacked for jury duty. We wondered what excuse might set him free...(butcher? blowhard? bigot?) How brilliant to state the truth. He's a nerdy computer programmer who actually works for some game shop called Nerdheaven. :-)
~ Backstab or kiss-ass to get to the top? www.OfficePolitics.com
Oh come on, you know fine well what the correct answer is. "Unemployed, and can we hurry this up, I have to get home in time for the rasslin'."
Alternatively, you could lobby your elected representatives to fix the farce of jury selection. What the hell business does paid legal council have dictating who decides the facts of the case? Imagine what sort of legal system we'd have if we allowed politicians to decide what parts of the electorate have their vote counted.
Oh, wait...
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Of course, the UK govt. is trying to limit the right to trial by jury (because juries often find people not guilty, especially for things like marijuana possession whish shoudln't be crimes in the first place), so this system won't last.
But then I seem in the minority. I also like voting, for example.
My story about how flawed juries are:
I was already a computer nerd many years ago when I got selected for a jury. I looked forward to it.
We chose a gregarious, confident middle-aged guy as our foreman. The judge instructed us that the charge -- auto burglary -- required two things for conviction: forced entry and intent to steal. (This was fascinating, since there needn't have been any successful theft. Alternatively, you could walk by a convertible with a $100 bill on the passenger seat, lean in and take it, and there would be no auto burglary.)
I was horrified when, in the depth of the discussion about how the car in question had been proven NOT to have been locked at the time, the foreman suddenly blurted out, "I don't care what the law says, if she went into someone else's car to take something, she's guilty!" Not everyone was horrified, though, and I had a tough time demonstrating the flaw in this guy's reasoning.
We eventually reached a compromise, where we found the defendant guilty, not of the original (felony) charge, but of a misdemeanor charge of "auto tampering." Worked for me, and the defendant was grateful, so I suppose justice was served.
So were you?
No. The defendent (an engineer) was the owner of a small company and told the employee that he would receive a certain percentage of the profits once the product went to market. The defense never disputed that, but argued that it was just an off-the-cuff remark and couldn't be considered a binding contract. The plaintiff (another engineer) put in a lot of hours and hard work based on the belief he would receive the percentage. Therefore, we the jury found in favor of the plaintiff.
Afterwards, the judge was angry at us and said, "I guess I'll need to watch what I say to my secretary now." I suppose that's why lawyers don't want engineers around. For us, the case was clear-cut: you promise someone something in return for their work, you should follow through.
Didn't you know that an oral contract isn't worth the paper it's written on? :)
... the Statute of Frauds is sometimes called the "statute for frauds". I wonder what annoyed the judge; perhaps he just didn't believe the testimony.
:)
Of course most promises are enforceable, but it comes down to a test of credibility -- here between two engineers, so your loyalties must have cancelled out. Certain contracts must by law be in writing -- for sale of land, certain other contracts
Should be obvious that you can be held to your word, but a lot of people, including some lawyers (one who wrote into Dear Abby said you couldn't collect on a debt without an IOU), will tell you that you have no rights unless it is in writing. Wrong, but get it in writing to maybe avoid a trial, you might not get a sympathetic jury, and what a waste of money.
(See I had to learn this stuff to pass a test a long time ago, and now you know it , too.
Of course most promises are enforceable, but it comes down to a test of credibility
The judge explained to us during the trial that in order for an oral contract to be binding, both parties must have the same understanding of what was agreed. One of the defense's arguments was that since the defendent didn't intend to give what he said he would, the promise couldn't be considered a contract. For us techies on the jury, no amount of lawyering was going to convince us that was right.
but get it in writing
Agreed. If the defendant had denied making the promise, it would have been very difficult to find for the plaintiff.
I wonder what annoyed the judge; perhaps he just didn't believe the testimony.
He didn't believe there was a valid contract because the two parties had different expectations of the promise.
He didn't believe there was a valid contract because the two parties had different expectations of the promise.
:) The elected ones can be a particularly mixed bag.
;-)
That is one of the basics of contract law, the "meeting of the minds." But when one party misleads the other.... Sure they had different expectations, one to cheat, the other to work. I'm interested in what the judge thinks because (1) some have insights and (2) some are nuts.
Well, good job -- I'd like to be a juror some day, provided it's at a time completely convenient to me, and an interesting yet brief case, where all the other jurors agree with me. Getting a book contract out of it would be nice, too.
Read the following for details: http://www.reason.com/0301/fe.wo.courting.shtml.
It totally makes sense, too.
No, the British government is annoyed at the current situation where:
* Person is accused of a charge which could be convicted by a magistrate (cheap)
* Person pleads innocent, and so must be sent to a crown court with a jury (expensive).
* In the mean time, they must be held on remand (disruptive to the prison system, expensive)
* When they arrive at the crown court, judge fished out and jury assembled, they plead guilty.
They get the same sentence as they would have got had they entered their plea right at the start but they've wasted the system's time and money due to their belief that remand is a softer regime than once they're convicted (and it counts for time against their eventual sentence). This is silly and stopping it makes sense, even if this isn't necessarily the way to do it. It's not about abuse of human rights but stopping an abuse of the current system that wastes time and money.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!