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US Trials Off Track Over Juror Internet Misconduct
aesoteric writes "The explosion of blogging, tweeting and other online diversions has reached into US jury boxes, in many cases raising serious questions about juror impartiality and the ability of judges to control their courtrooms. A study by Reuters Legal found that since 1999, at least 90 verdicts have been the subject of challenges because of alleged Internet-related juror misconduct — and that more than half of the cases occurred in the last two years. Courts were fighting back, with some judges now confiscating all phones and computers from jurors when they enter the courtroom."
> with some judges now confiscating all phones and computers from jurors when they enter the courtroom
Gosh, and I just needed something to motivate me more to participate in juror duty.
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
"with some judges now confiscating all phones and computers from jurors when they enter the courtroom."
What makes me wonder is why people would bring these things in the first place. I can understand why someone would bring a cell phone (since we bring cell phones everywhere), but why on earth would you need a computer when doing Jury duty? Or are they considering smartphones to be computers?
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
Wait until I tell my 571 friends about this!
It is, and the problem has been dealt with already. It's an issue of jurors not following the orders they've been given. Jurors are ordered not to investigate the case or speak with anybody about it while the case is ongoing. After deliberation you can speak freely about your thoughts, but up until then you're ordered to avoid coming into contact with any information related to the case where possible, and report any possible exposure to the bailiff, so that the judge and attorneys are aware of anything which could compromise the verdict later on.
The bigger problem is that the jury pool ends up being people that are less educated or retired and don't necessarily get shown a lot of respect by the politicians that require them to be there. The court staff does treat jurros well typically, but it's hard to feel appreciated when you're being asked to lose so much money to serve.
In a similar vein, it's not like things have really changed. I bet just as many people talked about the case with friends and family, heard things they weren't supposed to, and had just as many pre-trial prejudices before the connected age as they do now. It's just that the new methods of communication leave a trail that public, near permanent, and easily searchable.
So, in my opinion, the courts can either just throw out the random cases where the jurors are too stupid to hide their misconduct, or they can use this as a learning experience to find new ways to reduce that misconduct. I'm hoping that it's both, leaning towards the latter, but the US judicial system isn't always the most agile.
How can this be? Only our best and brightest peers get to sit in that stupid box for way too long listening to a bunch of nonsense about something they could give to shits about, then make a decision that's fair. All the peers you WOULD want to sit there (if you're the one in court) will get removed by your courtroom adversary, or themselves anyway. What's left are those that could not come up with a good excuse to get out of the duty, and have nothing but time to waste pretending to do a public service that would be better served from a pool of paid peers. Unless you have a shitload of money, then you get a good lawyer and he'll fight for some "good jurors" for you at least. Good justice is served to those that can afford it. If not, you're fucked.
AND they have to keep the jurors off the Internet. Face it, it's broken, or borken.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
It's just a question of money. If you let jurors go home at the end of the day, then there's no way to control what they see or do. The solution is to keep jurors confined to hotel rooms for the full duration of the trial, or if that's too expensive in a lawsuit-addicted society like the US, to build juror barracks for this purpose.
By being part of a jury pool, you are basically imprisoned during the jury time. Do anything beyond sneezing or don't show up and you get contempt of court and a fine or jail (judge discretion). It is not optional. Anyone see a problem with that?
This is going to be a very tough issue for the courts to resolve since there will always be a strong desire for some jurors to do their own investigations while they are grappling with a tough verdict. I think that many of us would be very inclined to do our own research if we were jurors if just to determine which set of expert witnesses (defense or prosecution) is more correct.
It would be very hard to not lookup details, precedents, and opinion on cases which you are weighing and ultimately responsible for the future life of an individual. I am actually surprised that this type of issue does not happen more often (and, in fact, it probably does happen a lot more often than the numbers reported in the article, as the article itself hints at).
...and have other Jurors determine their fate. Then we create an infinate loop and cause a DOS to the court system.
Instead of kidnapping random people and reducing their entire perception to the proceedings of the case, why not save some time and use the prisoners we already have?
parent++; I am losing tons of money by not being at work for two weeks and the court only pays a bit more money than travel, parking, and eating expenses.
Instead of picking random people who aren't smart enough to evade duty - forcing them a day (or a few) off work et cetera - why not instead EMPLOY people who are actually responsable, and intelligent enough in order to properly take important decisions? You could call them, uh... judges... instead.
Problem solved.
The Jury, as far as I know, isn't supposed to investigate. The investigation has already been done by the prosecution and defense. The Jury is supposed to sit, listen, and make a decision based on what they are given.
I think it might even be illegal for a Juror to do an independent investigation.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
Heaven forbid a juror look up the definition of a word, or be well-informed about something referenced in the case!
Either get someone else to be on call or ask the judge to be dismissed from jury duty because of the undue burden it would put on you and your business. I personally have no idea if asking to be dismissed will work, but it's incredibly stupid to expect court to stop for you while you take a phone call about a tenant complaining about the wailing cat upstairs. In the US, and just about every other country, the court's business is more important than yours. If you can't find someone to help you run you business, you do not belong in that court room.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Isn't it fantastic to have a jury decide over somebody's fate when that jury consists of people playing Farmville while not paying any attention to what's going on during the trial.
In a similar vein, it's not like things have really changed. I bet just as many people talked about the case with friends and family, heard things they weren't supposed to, and had just as many pre-trial prejudices before the connected age as they do now. It's just that the new methods of communication leave a trail that public, near permanent, and easily searchable.
I disagree; I think it's also a scale issue. Now instead of talking about the case with their husband or wife and maybe a couple friends, they talk about it with everyone who's following them on Twitter or friends with them on Facebook. Instead of a few people, it's dozens.
And for all the denying this fact that people seem to do around here, making things easily searchable makes a big difference. If I'm on a jury, don't care about my instructions, and am curious what the press said about the case, it's entirely likely that I'll be curious to just type the guy's name into Google while I wouldn't have been curious enough to go to the local library and start pulling back issues of the local newspaper.
You are correct, jurors are forbidden from doing their own investigation. I did not mean to imply that they were allowed to, my point was that there is a strong incentive for them to do so, regardless of the rules.
When making an important decision, it is natural to desire as much information as possible in order to make the best possible decision. If jurors question what they have heard in the courtroom, or have doubts about particular aspects, then they will have an incentive to research the issue on their own.
I would be intrigued to learn if any studies had been done about such cases that show whether juries who broke them rules in this fashion arrive at "better" or worse verdicts (where it is possible to determine what a "better" verdict is).
That'll work great until cell phones start being implanted surgically.
The bigger problem is that the jury pool ends up being people that are less educated or retired and don't necessarily get shown a lot of respect by the politicians that require them to be there.
Citation?
I was just on a jury about a year ago and the average age was somewhere around 30-35, I think there was one person close to 60, maybe two in their 50's, and three of us in our 20's.
I was actually kind of surprised at how "average joe" everyone was, while still being a pretty diverse group.
There was only one retiree in the group, and the vast majority was college educated. This same distribution was roughly true of the people prior to jury selection, too (you know, where they gather everyone up before sending off to various court rooms for selection). There weren't a lot of old or apparently uneducated people.
Your blanket statement simply does not hold up with my personal experience at all, and since you cite no references, I call bullshit.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Also, judges for the most part are understanding of hardship exemptions. In your average court in your average week, there are far more potential jurors than will be needed...if I trial is expected to be long , they usually ask if it would pose an undue hardship on you to be in court for 3 weeks or whatever (such as having an employer who won't compensate you for the time). You can't really lie about this but if it is true, the judge will release you if there are enough other potentials.
Bottles.
Considering the number of trials in the US, (26,948 in State courts in 2005 for example, so throw in federal trials an round it off to 300,000 over the period amounts to about 3/10ths of 1 percent.
While nothing to hand wave away, it still suggests that the problem is tiny, and the vast majority of jurors do their best to follow the rules.
Only the stupid get caught at this. Those that feel that every facet of their life must be tweeted of facebooked or texted somewhere.
Others may do "research" without getting caught.
I don't worry so much about the facebook posters and tweeters (information outbound usually does not damage a trial) as I worry about the clandestine researchers drawing conclusions using internet sources and facts not in evidence.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Interestingly enough, the original juries in English law WERE supposed to investigate.
Is there no way for the jurors to have any input into what goes on in court? Have they no way to e.g. in some way cause a question to be asked of a witness by someone?
You used to have to go to a library to do your research on weird case-law...now if curiosity gets the better of you, it is right at your fingertips. Also, if you are on a newsworthy case (most are not) it is much easier to just not read the newspaper or watch the evening news for a week than it is to avoid seeing things online where it can pop up in completely unrelated ares.
Bottles.
There seems to be two general categories of Internet communications when it comes to trials. One is making comments about the process or trial. This I think has always happened to some extent, but was never made public (i.e. telling your spouse about your jury service). The addition of the Internet has made this more of a problem, because in the end, it is supposed to be the juror's decision about guilt, not him/her and the readers of his/her blog.
On the other hand, looking up terms or information about the trial, I think, only makes for a more informed jury. Otherwise, your only piece of information is from the prosecutor and defense lawyer, which are both extremely biased opinions. Granted, jurors have to be careful to judge information on the web carefully, but we're asking them to do the same thing in the courtroom as well.
... and not just about the "jury nullification" thing.
In some cases, judges have withheld important, material information from the jury in order to get the verdict they wanted.
The two cases I'm thinking of, one involved some ridiculous charges brought by everyone's favorite criminal UFO cult against one of its critics. The other was a medical marijuana case where the judge concealed from the jury that it was a medical marijuana case, and that the doctor on trial had fully complied with state law. In both cases, after the trial, several jurors said that they were horrified, and that if they had had any idea of the full facts, they would have voted differently.
While this would suck if it was your $20,000 in legal fees (average for a four day trial in the US) that just went up in smoke because of a twitter post, is one case in every other state per year a crisis?
This seems like a tempest in a teapot, something for judges to deal with, and worry about, but San Francisco, California Seats hundreds of juries a year. One medium sized city. this doesn't seem to be an issue beyond being a new problem for judges. A comparative study about which Jury instructions seem to result in greater compliance seems like a reasonable result of this data.
Work bio at MMWD
It WOULD be hard to not look up stuff when you went home in the evening, on a multi-day trial.
It's really to hear the people saying "Just turn off your damn phone!" and say "Right on!" but a lot of these juror misconduct cases have been about a juror looking things up online, and then using that information when deliberating in the jury room later.
I'm so used to looking up ANYTHING I'm wondering about... but tour rules are that you're not supposed to base your decision on anything you didn't see or hear in the courtroom.
Interesting discussions here. http://goo.gl/zc77H
I've thought many times during the farce that is jury selection that wouldn't it be easier to pay willing people to do the job. That or at least let the volunteers go first. I'm sure there's plenty of folks that would do it without being randomly picked first. You'd have to filter out some bad eggs planted there by others, but they pretty much have to do that anyway.
Also I was listening to the latest This American Life where they were interviewing the lone holdout on one of the counts in the Blagojevich trial (which why the vote had to be unanimous to stick is beyond me). It didn't take much for the press to figure out it was her and they started camping outside her home, stalking her and the like.
So my thought is, why aren't jurors put in individual rooms with a video feed to the courtroom. Let them watch and then give them an electronic voting booth style poll. Keep it anonymous as to who sees what and who's voting on what. Heck, have them decide on multiple cases and randomly choose which jurors from the pool count. You could even separate when the trial takes place and when the jury sees it. ...and one day the jurors could do this from home over them inter-webby-tubes...
My wife was called to JD this week. On Monday, as the initial screening began, the first group to be dismissed was felons. Per her report, about 10% of the people present got up and left at that. Your jury pool reflects the jurisdiction from which it is called.
The courts and attorneys are very selective about who they choose for a jury. They want the least intelligent and most impressionable people they can find. They don't want people who can think and reason well. They want people who will follow orders and do as they are told. And if they happen to know what a jury is for, they will not be selected.
The people who fit the profile are also likely to be stupid enough to have an online profile and to openly share information about themselves and what they are doing to the entire planet. (I'd be interested to know what percentage of slashdot users actually have and maintain social networking accounts. I suppose in a way, Slashdot might be considered a social networking site too, in which case I would be a hypocrite... oh well.) From what I have seen, those who are involved in the social networking sites are rather addicted to them to the point that being disconnected may bring about physical discomfort. Expecting THOSE people to not mention everything that is going on in their lives is simply unrealistic.
It is time something changes and I would prefer it if more intelligent, logical and reasonable people were allowed to be on juries.
90 verdicts does not seem to be a high number considering the number of cases in the US. How many verdicts were overturned due to juror misconduct that did not involve the internet? This is yet another sensationalist story.
This is a control issue, and they recognize that its much more difficult to control someone who has access to infinite amounts of information at their fingertips. I know, it sucks for the judges and lawyers that they can't exercise their type A personalities and run the whole thing as a racket anymore, but they seriously need to get over it. You can mod me as a troll if you want to, but the simple fact is, that law and legal procedures is merely another avenue where access is going to be a game changer. They can either realize it, and change the rules of the game to adapt, or they can spend endless and countless hours fighting against it, probably by way of what amounts to draconian force, and still lose in the end.
I was just on a jury about a year ago and the average age was somewhere around 30-35, I think there was one person close to 60, maybe two in their 50's, and three of us in our 20's.
Yeah, I guess an average joe might think that 20+20+20+50+50+60 divided by 6 is between 30 and 35....
(And that's being generous with the "20s, 50s")
But your Honor! this trial would cause undue burdens on me and my Farm!
insert funny sig here
You ask for citation beginning of post. Then conclude he fails because he didnt give citation? Are all internet comments now requiring that they have applicable citations page now for all posts?
Jurors can make a request to the Judge for clarification, additional information, etc. It won't always be granted, but they can ask.
Depends on the courtroom. In most states, it is at the judge's discretion whether to allow the juror to be an active participant in the process or merely a passive observer. There are many judges that welcome juror questioning, but others do not. It's usually in the form of a written question passed to the bailiff, who them passes it to the judge, who then determines whether or not to allow the juror to ask the question, though as I understand it, in some (rare) courtrooms, the judges do allow spontaneous questions from the jurors.
more info
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It's just a question of money. If you let jurors go home at the end of the day, then there's no way to control what they see or do. The solution is to keep jurors confined to hotel rooms for the full duration of the trial, or if that's too expensive in a lawsuit-addicted society like the US, to build juror barracks for this purpose.
Congratulations, you just turned jury duty into something that is inconvenient to one that would be utterly terrible. What do you do for the trials that go on for a week or two? (Or a year!) Do you keep the jurors locked in their admittedly-comfy prisons the whole time? What if they're a single parent?
the judge will release you if there are enough other potentials.
See, this is the problem. The idea that the state has some claim upon my time is reflected in taxes. If they want their time in kind, then so be it - but the ability to force someone to work for three weeks straight, with only token compensation, without the ability to earn their normal living, is the ability to destroy that person's life. Either pay them at least as well as an E-1 in the armed forces for their time served, or limit the term of service to one week, but by all means schedule their service in advance. Three weeks is my entire yearly vacation allotment at my current job; if I'm going to lose my entire year's time off, the barest courtesy would be to give me six months' notice.
The investigation has already been done by the prosecution and defense.
In theory. I've heard of cases where neither side did a very good job. One such case I remember something about was a woman was accused of poisoning her infant son. She had a 10 minute unsupervised visit, during which she allegedly feed him ethylene glycol (AKA anti-freeze). The child was tested several days later by a hospital and found to have (IIRC) two teaspoons of it still in his system. She was convicted of attempted murder.
She finally got a good defense lawyer, who pointed out that the half-life of ethylene glycol in the human body is 4 hours (IIRC). He back calculated from the hospital's report and found that she would have had to feed him AT LEAST 40 gallons in those 10 minutes. She was quickly released. Turns out he had a rare genetic disorder which causes the body to produce ethylene glycol. Neither the prosecutor nor the initial defense attorney brought up this fact.
Second example: I was on patent infringement jury. The plaintiff claimed he showed information to another company under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), which the other company violated, and caused the plaintiff's company to go bankrupt. I was one of two jurors that didn't buy it. Thankfully we were given copies of the NDA and the bankruptcy papers. We (the jury) argued over this point for more than 30 minutes before the two of us realized that the others didn't look at the documents (our mistake). The date of the NDA was AFTER the bankruptcy filing. The defense never pointed this out. Once my fellow juror and I pointed this out to the rest of the jurors, the plaintiff's case collapsed.
More information is always a better thing tbh. Maybe I'm juror for us gov vs assange treason case and without reading articles I just never find out treason only applies to american citizens. This added fact helps me understand what is going on. Or government caught hacker with wireshark and well that hacking tool is all they have on him. Quick wiki of it gives me information relevant. TBH lawyers just want the ability to be intellectually dishonest.
Agreed - everybody else in that courtroom is paid to be there.
When I was in jury selection one guy who was called claimed the excuse that he was a lawyer who had to prepare for a trial. He was immediately excused. I didn't hear anybody else who just had a job to do get excused.
I've known people called as witnesses in courts and they get similar treatment. They're forced to show up and are not paid, and half the time somebody goofs and there is a continuance. Oh well, good thing everybody else gets paid to be there whether anything gets done or not.
People should be paid more than their current salary to be on a jury, to compensate them for the fact that their boss is going to be upset that they didn't weasel their way out. Will that cost taxpayers money, sure? Maybe then we'll think twice about what we drag people into court for, and court fees can be raised accordingly to cover the true value of everybody's time.
I suspect that way back in the past jurors were decently compensated. The problem is that the fees were not adjusted for inflation, so we probably get the same daily rate they got back when Parliament was running things.
Depends on the judge, but mostly no. I was a juror on case where that did happen. This was a civil case BTW. The rules were each juror could only ask one question per witness. The questions had to be written, then the judge looked them over. He would throw out any he didn't like. He then showed the remaining questions to both sides, and if either objected to a question, it was thrown out. Any remaining questions the judge asked the witness, then both sides had a chance to cross-examine.
The judge asked those that would stuck around after the trial was over if we think it helped us reach a decision. All of us said yes. The judge did mention he had tried this with a criminal trial and the verdict got thrown out because of it, so he could only do it for civil trials. I wish more judges would do this.
The bigger problem is that the jury pool ends up being people that are less educated or retired and don't necessarily get shown a lot of respect by the politicians that require them to be there. The court staff does treat jurros well typically, but it's hard to feel appreciated when you're being asked to lose so much money to serve.
The proper solution here is for legislation that requires employers to treat jury duty as paid time off *separate* to normal vacation time.
This is actually a good thing. The problem with jurors investigating off their own bat is that the other parties in the courtroom are unaware that this material has now been considered. It means that, say, while there might be a rational explanation for something, the defence will never advance it because it doesn't know the jury is considering it.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Are you saying that your wife has a good chance of also being a felon or that she lives in a place full of 'em? Either way, it can't be good.
I know someone who was sequestered on a capital case. They ended up sentencing the guy to death. (he killed someone in prison with a shiv while serving a life sentence -- not a very nice guy). They put them up in a decent hotel near the courthouse.
They don't sequester people on civil trials unless it is some celebrity thing. The civil trial I was on took 3 mornings. I went to work in the afternoon and stayed late so I didn't actually miss any work. It was not much of a burden for the one time in the 20 years I've lived in this state.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
I believe OP was talking about the others outside of the 30-35 age group.
But not half so well as they treat churros.
Delicious cinnamon-y churros.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
"If you are unwilling to pay your dues to your country... please leave."
When did we stop talking about the United States of America? Clearly you are talking about some other country. People have lives, and jury duty can be a significant burden, especially if it goes on for weeks or months. Federal and most state laws prohibit employers from imposing penalties for jury duty, but people have other obligations as well, family being probably the most significant of those, although self-employment would be a significant obligation for many people as well. Most people can make arrangements before they serve on a jury, but many can't. I'm not saying there isn't a lot of laziness going around, we're all Americans after all, but compulsory service is not in keeping with the spirit of this country. I would also add that, in the country with the highest prison population (both total and per capita), perhaps we just have too many acts being criminalized, which is leading to too many prosecutions, which is resulting in too many trials, which is exhausting the supply of potential jurors. That's another matter entirely, though.
He got through med school but wasn't smart enough to get disqualified by one of the attorneys? Wouldn't want that guy operating on me!
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Yes, they were compensated the same way we are now -- knowing that if you are indicted, you have the right to trial by jury. Jurors in the US have never been compensated well fiscally (excepting bribery :)) -- it's civic duty to serve.
You are compensated for your time as a juror by the fact that you live in a more-or-less orderly society where you (in principle) have rights that the government cannot take away.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
What's even funnier about all of that is that our jury rolls are taken from the voting rolls... and felons nearly always lose the right to vote. Voter fraud, anyone?
To answer your question, I live in a rather felonious place. Taxes are bad, services suck, and the cops are just another gang, but the commute is fantastic.
Have you got a solution or are you going to whine some more? I really don't see the judge giving any quarter to unfiltered information, which may contain prejudicial, hostile, or just plain wrong info. If you want to improve things, perhaps you could start by paying jurors well - perhaps at their dayrate (based on tax returns).
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I would be intrigued to learn if any studies had been done about such cases that show whether juries who broke them rules in this fashion arrive at "better" or worse verdicts (where it is possible to determine what a "better" verdict is).
There was a case quite recently where a juror decided to investigate, so the court case was deemed to be a mistrial, and the juror was convicted to pay damages to the court, the lawyers, and the defendant. So I'd say it was a worse verdict.
I suspect that in the 1700s they didn't have trials that lasted two weeks, and employers probably weren't able to get away with punishing people who go on jury duty.
If I miss two weeks at work nobody will mind one bit. Of course, I still need to complete my three month project that was already super-aggressive on timeline in the alloted time. I'd never be fired for going on jury duty. I might suffer for not getting a project done on time, however, and that is basically the same thing...
I agree with you. Jury duty is an important part of our society obligations and I can't count how many times I have heard people get out of it just because. I have had 4 jury duty notices and each time I get them in all honesty I get happy. 3 of the 4 have been canceled just before trial. So that was always a let down. However, the other jury duty I have had before I was on to be selected but was nixed because my parents were both police officers. While I got 6.00 for being there the pay sucked when I paid 5.00 in parking and used a gallon of gas. I am not complaining about doing the job but the expense of performing were better paid then I think you would have more people WILLING to serve then those ditching to make more money. Hardship or not we should be able to live while serving on a jury. No one on the jury should worry if they will be able to put food on the table because they have to help justice.
If your presence at work is critical, you can get a deferral (I've done this in NY & NJ). In my experience, this is done via a letter from your employer (or self, if self-employed) to the court requesting it. Eventually you'll need to serve or face a contempt-of-court charge.
This allows companies and individuals to not face undue hardship from jury duty.
When I was called in NJ, I was once even given the opportunity to select when I would be available, and I scheduled projects/coverage at work around it.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Not everyone works for a big corporation that can eat the loss without much trouble.
I really do not see how allowing the witness to prepare an answer is a problem at all.
The information given to a jury is carefully and deliberately controlled for a reason. The withheld information may be prejudicial or even illegally-obtained, and therefore should not be considered. Since humans are not very good at mentally excluding such evidence, we don't tell juries about them at all.
That makes no sense. Do you really want a juror to make a decision one way or the other because they googled something on their smartphone? That is circumventing the entire process. Once you have heard both sides you are free to google your ass off and present your findings to the judge. Then the lawyers can research the info and present new info based on that. Just typing something into a search engine does not mean your right about what you think you found.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
There are only 12 states (Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming) where Felons may permanently lose the right to vote. I say may, because some of these 12 states have provisions where some Felons may apply for restoration of their voting rights. Further some only permanently restrict voting rights based the type of felony. For more information look here: http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=286
I agree. I've sat on one jury and it was a mix of people, some very smart and articulate, and a couple weren't so much. But it was a wide range of people. I've also been summoned many times and I can see the sorts of people that got picked for the juries, and they also felt like a good cross sample of people and not over packed with retirees, stay-at-home spouses, or idiots. Fact is, most employers who hire more than 10 people give adequate jury leave, and these employees do get called and serve.
Yes, one in three tries to get some lame excuse about how they can't serve, or they'll answer the question in such a way that you can tell they're just trying to weasel out of it. And you can see every prospective juror in that room, which can be over 50 of them, all looking at those people who give lame excuses with disgust. Ie, we're all putting up with the hassle of being there and we don't appreciate someone who feels that he's more important than the rest of us. And the judge knows who's lying, they've seen it all before. I am actually amazed that most judges have so much patience for it all.
Jury rolls come from a variety of sources. Voter registrations are just one source, and yet I hear morons saying "I'm don't vote because I don't want to get called for jury duty." Well duh, they will also use DMV records, tax rolls, utility records, etc. It varies from state to state and county to county, but it's almost never just from voter registration.
All defendants now will receive a not guilty vote by everyone wanting Julian to be free and Wikileaks free to continue. All friends of freedom now vote not guilty. And don't let on that you will do it.
Because....information presented in a court of law is never free of prejudicial, hostile or just plain wrong information?
Paying jurors well might help, but lets not pretend that not having access to external sources of information and having to rely on paid 'experts' who parrot whatever either side wants them to for whatever the going rate may be is the end all be all of a high integrity justice system.
I thought that they generally didn't want lawyers on juries anyway.
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100% pure freak
Depends on your jurisdiction. In mine, it's voter rolls. And in mine, many felons lose the right to vote.
Can't do it. Sorry.
I'm self employed. As such, I can get an exemption if I'm in the middle of a contract when called for jury duty. But between contracts, if the weather is crappy, I'd be more than happy to put my name in a pool for a few weeks. But our local courts have no means of accepting such an offer. And I've been told that its not permitted.
Have gnu, will travel.
I wonder how long it will be until completely sequestering a jury for the duration of a trial will become S.O.P...
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
It's less prejudicial than random unfiltered crap on the internet. The point is not that you can eliminate problems, but that you can get a reliable process and get everybody on the same page. Do you really want jurors to each decide questions of law for themselves? If you allow them to go be junior detective, they will, and the legal system will get even more insane.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
In Australia, when the jurors enter the jury room at the beginning of the day, all phones, computers or anything which could be used to communicate with the outside world is taken and locked away. At the end of the day the jurors get them back.
This is standard procedure, to reduce the chance of evidence contamination. Jurors are also required not to perform their own investigations, or to talk about the case with anyone outside of the jury room, both during the trial and after the trial concludes. Breaking these rules can lead to prosecution. I'm always amazed at the stories of jurors in the US talking about trials, why they made their decisions, etc. Here in Australia that would get you locked up.
Then again, jury selection is also very different in Australia. Neither the defence nor prosecution can ask any questions of the potential jurors. Each time I've been up for jury duty (I've served once) the process was as follows (this was for the Supreme Court of NSW - other courts may be somewhat different):
1. Potential jurors asked to be excused. Those who were excused were informed that they would be re-summonsed within about 6 weeks. When you're selected for jury duty in Australia, eventually you will have to allow yourself to be part of the jury pool. You're also informed at this point that by turning up for selection, you've avoided a fine of between $1100-2200. Forms regarding payment options are filled out at this time as well.
2. Those who were not excused were told that they are exempt from any future jury summonses for at least 1 year.
3. Those who were not excused were told about the case. At that point anyone who already knew particulars about the case, knew any of the defendant, witnesses, or felt they hadany other reason that they could not be impartial about the case were excused.
4. One at a time, jurors were randomly selected from the remaining pool. Each of the defence and prosecution could "challenge" (reject) any juror, but only by looking at them (i.e. there are no questions whatsoever). The defence and prosecution could each challenge a maximum of 5 jurors.
5. Once 12 jurors went unchallenged, the rest of the jury pool was dismissed.
6. The 12 jurors were sworn in and informed of their responsibilities, then taken to the jury room.
7. Once the trial concluded the jury was dismissed, and were told how long they are exempt from jury summonses (at least 3 years, but can be longer at the judge's discretion, depending on length of trial, etc).
Oh, I'm sure my employer would say that I don't need a deferral.
You're assuming a level of altrusim that most people don't get from their employers. I exaggerate the case a bit with my employer (though a multi-week absence would surely be missed). However, many people would definitely suffer in such a situation.
I was on a jury in Oregon some years back, and we were allowed to submit questions (via a folded piece of paper) to be asked by the judge to witnesses.
You are free to use that as a reason that you can't serve on the jury.
The judge is free to accept that reason or not, and some actually might.
The fastest and easiest to get dismissed from jury duty, even when you don't want to be, is to say you believe in jury nullification and Fully Informed Juries.
I was notified twice I had to appear for jury selection. Both tymes I was hoping I'd be picked to serve on a jury involving possession or distribution of drugs or another victimless crime so I could use jury nullification and send a signal these types of laws restrict liberty. Unfortunately both tymes for 2 days I sat around waiting to be called for questioning without being called.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Haven't the felons "paid their debt to society"? Why is the USA continuing to punish them? I've heard you don't let felons vote.
Anarchists never rule
you're about to be judged by 12 people not smart enough to get out of jury duty.
Except it's not true. My presence was requested in court for jury selection twice. If I had been picked, I was hoping I would be, chances are good the defendant would have liked me being on the jury. That is because if I think that a law that exists should not I would use jury nullification to overturn said law. For instance I not only disagree with drug laws and prohibition but I would vote innocent if someone were charged with drug possession, distribution, or sells. The same with prostitution.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Check the other guy who replied to me. Most do not let felons vote while in prison. Many more do not allow it if on parole, and others not until a probationary period is complete. Twelve retain some limitation against voting for at least some felons either for life or until some complicated standard has been met.
Honestly, if they restricted it to "real" felonies - armed robbery, murder, and the like - I'd have no trouble with it. Of course, all felonies were once punishable by death, and while I'm not at all confident enough in our jurisprudence system to trust it to put people to death, I also think that if you have actually committed a "real" felony, you deserve to die.
No one on the jury should worry if they will be able to put food on the table because they have to help justice.
Now I don't know but I'd think judges have the discretion to dismiss potential jurors due to financial hardship. I believe jury duty is a duty every citizen should participate in however I also am willing to make arraignments for those it would be a hardship for.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
need much better pay to motivate jury $17 a day is way to low and just covers the costs of parking / public transportation.
may jury pay start at $50-$100 day + lunch. and $150 if a over night stay is needed. with added pay for 2 week trials.
You're an idiot. Just because YOU don't like some law doesn't mean that no-one else does. So you lie your way onto a jury (when they ask if you would be unbiased, etc). Big deal. Unless by some miracle you find yourself on a jury with 11 other people who also lied their way onto a jury, the most you are likely to do is cause a hung jury. That is not going to change any laws. All it is going to do is cause everyone (including the defendant) to go through the expense of another trial, which you will not be a part of. Get over yourself.
there should 3rd party experts in court / special jury's.
so in cases that deal with stuff like tech can have a way for the jury to ask questions about stuff that they do not know about.
look at terry childs only one IT guy on the jury.
are jurors also not supposed to educate themselves about he process of law?
Sometime neither defendant, judge, nor prosecutor wants an educated jury. Other times one or two may want one but not the other parties. Actually if a potential juror knows about jury nullification if the judge does not dismiss the juror the prosecutor will ask for the dismissal. And other tymes defense will seek dismissal if the juror knows about Fully Informed Juries.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Life hasn't been very kind to me lately.
If I miss two week's pay in one go, I will lose my home and my car. It will ruin my life.
To anyone who thinks this is a reasonable "duty", considering there are several ways to solve the problem, I say "fuck you".
Switzerland does this-every able-bodied male is automatically in the national army and has training for a few weeks a year. I think it's a fine idea, but in the case of the USA, I think the logistics involved would be too complicated.
I've advocated for that too. However I'd make it male and female. As for it being complicated, no it wouldn't be. We ship off those same amounts of kids to school, just extend it to military service.
Speaking of which, I'd also have it so that every year a person serves in the military they get a year of college paid for too.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
That's the point.
"If, by some miracle." If a law is so universally regarded as unjust that this set of circumstances doesn't constitute a miracle, that's the sort of situation for which nullification is (IMO) warranted.
If that happens, and there's a new trial, then you've got 12 more randomly-selected people who will have to come to some sort of agreement. If, by some miracle, they also say "not guilty", lather, rinse, repeat. Eventually, the DA's going to get tired of it and give up.
Four boxes in defence of liberty: Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo. Use in that order.
If asking your representative doesn't get you a law you can support,
And if voting in another representative doesn't get the law changed,
Then the next box to open is the jury box. People break the law and stand before a jury of their peers. And if all 12 jurors refuse to convict, and they do so repeatedly, over many cases, the law may remain on the books, but it won't be enforced.
That's a damn high hurdle to overcome. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people being charged, found not guilty by juries of their peers, only to be released and then charged the next time they commit the same offence.
It has to get worse than that before opening the last box is an option.
My fellow jurors, whose opinions matter just as much as mine do, also get a say in the outcome. They might have trouble convincing me that a law against "buying beer before noon on Sundays in County XYZ" is right and just, but there are other "victimless crimes" where many people, myself included, would be perfectly open to counterarguments. Convincing 12 randomly-selected jurors to nullify a law is hard. It's supposed to be hard: if any of the other parts of the system are functioning, the situations under which nullification is even plausible should be astronomically rare.
(I'd nullify the one about beer on Sundays. I'd be damn tempted to nullify, but would be open to counterarguments on a DMCA violation. I'd nullify if someone bludgeoned a spammer to death :)
If I miss two week's pay in one go, I will lose my home and my car. It will ruin my life.
Life hasn't been good to you lately? I'm sorry about your financial difficulties but wait until you've been disabled in an accident then see how life treats you. I am in that boat and for the past 14 years my life has been a living hell. I have not worked in that tyme. My disability does not pay enough, when I get all of it. Which hasn't happened in 2 years. The only reason I have a roof over my head is because my sister owns the apartment I live in and lets me live here rent free. However that may not last long because she is having problems too, financial and from the government.
It really irritates me when others say how bad life treats them but who are fully capable. Until they are disabled there's little to complain about.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
And when do the prosecution and defense get to cross examine those experts?
This is going to be a very tough issue for the courts to resolve
It doesn't need to be, just pass a law allowing Fully Informed Juries. Even better, cut court cases by bringing back jury nullification.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
it's just as bad as people who make $17 a day to do the same.
"I disagree; I think it's also a scale issue."
But the scale issue rarely matters. Either you communicated or you didn't. Either it affected the outcome or it didn't. If anything, the scale issue makes it MORE likely that the court will be able to determine court misconduct. Not make it more likely for it to happen.
"And for all the denying this fact that people seem to do around here, making things easily searchable makes a big difference."
Maybe. And like above, maybe it's a good thing. Because if you can't understand or follow simple instructions, then maybe you aren't capable of deciding a case. And the fact that it is so easy means that you will more likely be found out. Maybe instead of collecting the electronic devices they could just tap them.... :)
I understand your sentiment, but good luck with that fairy tale you've suggested.
Enough Americans are now obsessed enough about taxes that the tax increase needed to pay for your Increased Jury Pay suggestion would get hammered at the ballot.
However, if you suggested lowering jury pay to help some taxhole save $0.12 on his bill, I'm pretty sure it would pass.
From the article "half those cases in the last 2 years" half of 90 is 45, so a big 20 cases/year?
Here in sunny Ventura County, California, there were probably 10 cases going at a given time.. I would think 1000s per year, and that's a medium sized county of the 52 in California. THere's probably a million cases/year in the whole U.S. So, this sort of thing is of the same general frequency as getting hit by lightning?
What is amazing is the situation doesn't change, and there appear to be no signs of improvement. Jury secrecy is a very important part of the process in English law-based court rooms, which includes the US
Everywhere I'm aware of in the USA your employer is required to give you time off for jury duty. Unless you are salaried, however, they are not required to pay you. Some rare employers will anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Honestly, if they restricted it to "real" felonies - armed robbery, murder, and the like - I'd have no trouble with it.
So as long as they're guilty of the crimes that you feel are tied somehow to an inability to make a responsible decision at the polls, it's acceptable to deprive them of their right to vote?
It is never appropriate to deny a citizen their rights. How you reconcile the supposed right to life, liberty, and happiness with incarcerating people I'll never understand. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that the whole notion of unenumerated rights is a joke, and that the enumerated ones aren't much less hilarious. Still, either you have a right to vote or you don't. If it can be taken away from felons it can be taken away from anyone... by simply making them one.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Makes it real easy to game the system: make breathing a felony, then selectively enforce it. No more need for gerrymandering!
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Does the judge read the news during trials as well?
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Jurors are supposed to decide questions of law for themselves. See FIJA.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Is the judge allowed to use search engines at night while a trial is ongoing?
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
So as long as they're guilty of the crimes that you feel are tied somehow to an inability to make a responsible decision at the polls, it's acceptable to deprive them of their right to vote?
I think that those crimes demonstrate sufficient disregard for others that people forfeit the right to be part of society. YMMV. That's why it's a political process.
I would guess the argument is not they are being deprived of a right, but that they relinquished the right when they committed the act that resulted in their conviction of a felony. And, many of those who restirct that right have a mechanism to regain it if the felon meets certain requirements.
Nope, your debt is never paid. You can't get a decent job. You can't vote or hold public office. You cannot join the military. Several 'inaleinable' rights are out right infringed or curtailed.
Crime empowers politicians and the more criminals there are committing crime the more power they accrue.
I could throw out some Roman era quotes if you'd like. I suspect I'd get ruled a troll if I threw out some by Ayn Rand or one of the communist philosophers like Trotsky.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
The investigation has already been done by the prosecution and defense.
And probably poorly. I'm unlikely to ever be enpaneled for any significant criminal case, because if I have any questions that the testimony didn't answer, I'm going to consider that reasonable doubt.
Juries shouldn't be doing their own investigations in secret, but they should be able to ask witnesses questions, and send requests for more testimony. They should also have complete access to transcripts and crime scene photographs.
Having a family member who obtained a felony years before 20, and "paid their debt" by 25; I can assure you that there is no statute of limitations on punishing felons.
It must be put on every job application. It bars you from entering certain jobs where the application must be deemed trustworthy; like X-ray technician, McDonald's food worker, etc. It's the new underclass.
How about it being a question of respect?
You see, in the US everyone is trained from birth to disrespect any sort of authority. So when a judge gives instructions to a jury a good percentage of the people just hear "yadda yadda yadda" and pay no attention to the ramblings of an old white man.
Threatening jurors with jail time if they don't follow the instructions is pointless - the reaction is "Instructions? What instructions?" because of the "yadda yadda yadda" problem. It also doesn't help that the old white man is, well, old. That immediately is a red flag that anything this person does or says is utterly irrelevant.
Now, if we had trials conducted by 17-year-old black gangbangers from the inner city things would be a lot simpler. Of course there would be a considerable amount of Red Queenish "Off with his head!" pronouncements, but trials would be more relevant to people and they would be over a lot quicker. Justice? I don't see any justice now so why would having younger, relevant judges make a difference?
I'm not sure that restricting the jurors will really address that concern. You talk about what jurors learn (or to be fair, what legal technicalities they think they learn) during the trial, but what about before the trial?
A juror can look up "burden of proof" from an arbitrary source when he first gets the jury summons ("ooh, I'm gonna be on a jury! I better start reading up on how to do this!") or form an opinion based on watching lawyer TV shows over the course of 10 years, or from taking seriously every slashdot post he's ever read that starts with the words "IANAL, but..."
If the jury's decision weren't going to be based on a near-infinitely diverse variety of opinions, knowledge, values, cultures, etc that are totally outside the judge's instructions and the trial record reviewable by appeals, then we wouldn't bother to have juries. The whole point of juries is that the government doesn't get to make the rules and the jury's thinking can't be at all codified, with all the advantages ("yay, the citizens have a democratic check on the powers of courts!") and disadvantages ("oh no, mob rule!") that injects into the system.
If people are convinced this is too dangerous to the cause of justice, then let them (in USA) repeal the 7th Amendment. But let's not pretend that if only judges can get juries to act properly during the trial, that the jury's instructions and the trial record will be complete. They're not, and they never were.
In the end, and really no matter what political system people adopt, justice is our (We The People) power, whether directly by jurors or indirectly by judges appointed by legislative bodies whose members were elected after they raised enough money (by doing Cthulhu-knows-what) to buy enough advertising to convince people who eat at McDonalds that they're name sounded good during the primary that 20% of the population bothered to vote in. And what actually happened during the trial isn't part of any reviewable record; it's in the mind of some guy who entertained fleeting thoughts as he dipped his McNugget into "hot and spicy" mustard sauce. That guy ends up making the decision, either way, and the appeals court won't be able to point at some point in his thinking process and say he made an error. And I'm not saying it's pointless to have a trial record and appeals, just that let's not kid ourselves that this is some inviolate sacrosanct thing that is suddenly being threatened by cellphones.
Instead of worrying about what some idiot looks up on Google, let's persuade people to think about justice and the world they want to live in. That's all we really can do, anyway, so get to work on it instead of running around scared of the mob.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
need much better pay to motivate jury $17 a day is way to low and just covers the costs of parking / public transportation.
may jury pay start at $50-$100 day + lunch. and $150 if a over night stay is needed. with added pay for 2 week trials.
Your employer is legally required to pay the difference between the jury stipend and your salary. Even if you are a temporary or seasonal.
Of course, this varies by state. My state [Massachusetts] does. YMMV.
.
Irony? Hey this is the state that has Newark Liberty Airport.
Like the definition of premeditated? If you want to argue for jury nullification, that's fine, but they had best know what the law actually means.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Where are the other six?
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
The way I've always heard it is -
If you're actually innocent and you have the opportunity, pass on the jury. They convict too often on too flimsy evidence because your public defender is overworked to the point of incompetence and the prosecutor will happily withhold exculpatory evidence, fabricate the stuff that damns, and orate like a banana-republic dictator in the absence of either.
If you're actually guilty, go for the jury. Sometimes they can be swayed by irrelevant evidence, unimportant procedural error as evidence of something sinister, or sheer emotion (e.g., Orinthal James).
Unless you're self employed, in which case you're entitled to absolutely nothing, you're expected to just drop any work you might have on and tell your clients 'sorry, I'll be some indeterminate amount of time late' and hope that they ever want to work with you again.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Haven't the felons "paid their debt to society"? Why is the USA continuing to punish them? I've heard you don't let felons vote.
Getting out of jury duty is a punishment?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
if it was a due collected of EVERYONE, then it would be fair(-ish). If everyone did 2 days Jury Service per year, averaged over every 5 year period (numbers plucked from the air for argument purposes), that would be fair. However much you earn, you lose 2 days productivity per year, not unlike an in-kind tax.
The current system of randomly selecting people to bear a substantial burden because the burden needs to be borne is, to my mind, not unlike the government in a 100,000 person town trying to plug a $1,000,000 hole in the budget by selecting 1000 people at random and sending them a demand for $1000 each.
FGD 135
I work for a charity, and we have an application form for potential volunteers to fill in. It asks about criminal convictions, and then says 'we do not discriminate against ex-offenders'. "If we don't discriminate", I said, "Why do we ask?"
That went away a long time ago. By stigmatizing post-incarceration felons in hundreds of ways, not just voting, you hobble them, make them more likely to commit new crimes, and thus provide more grist for the legal/prison industry mill.
Social Credit would solve everything...
Thank you for your insightful post which shows that having complex laws leads to the ability for the government (judges) to game the system and work around the right to due process (fifth and fourteenth amendments) --- they merely have to instruct the jury about the too-complex law in question in whatever way they feel will sway it to the decision they want to attain.
The case cited by the GP is a perfect example --- it seems likely that the judge could have instructed the jury in a totally different manner, and gotten the exact opposite verdict.
No. They are ostracized to a degree, because the nature of their conduct has demonstrated they are not willing to be productive members of our society. They are not allowed to vote in many circumstances because they could theoretically undermine our republic by voting to make their illegal behavior legal. Since you're interested, do you think your country would like to take a few hundred thousand or so off our hands? - didn't think so.
Now as to what constitutes a felony that's another story, But you didn't ask that. My worry is more from the district attorneys that have the power to indict a ham sandwich should they choose.
I think that those crimes demonstrate sufficient disregard for others that people forfeit the right to be part of society. YMMV. That's why it's a political process.
it's not a political process, it's a criminal process. We all know that vote fraud is rampant.
There are plenty of felonies that have nothing to do with public safety. Did you conflate them intentionally or did you just not think?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I didn't conflate them. I specifically talked about "real" felonies - armed robbery, murder, rape. And the political process is the one that determines what are, and are not, crimes, and what the penalties for said crimes will be. I believe that some crimes are so heinous as to demand the separation of the people who commit them from society and its protections. If you disagree with me, that's fine. We'll argue it out through the political process, and see who wins.
The Post-9/11 G.I. bill (which went into effect around 2008, same time I was leaving the military) - no longer requires soldiers to have money deducted from their pay.
My brother-in-law told me that Obama changed the GI Bill once he was in office. Searching I saw the change you brought up. But unfortunately I didn't find any changes where I was covered. After being disabled I've been trying to get back to college but haven't found any financial assistance.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?