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?"
Please enlighten us, then. How would you improve the jury system?
I write in my journal
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.
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.
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
[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.
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!
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.
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.
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.