Bloggers and reporters have written thousands of words about juries and jurors in the last 12 hours or so, and some of it has been very wise. In a blog for trial lawyers about juries, two things seem worth saying, although they've probably been said better elsewhere.
1. Jurors work hard to follow the law. Lawyers love to say they don't, but they do. If the jury instructions are read to them in a monotone, or given to them in legalese -- and both happen, often -- they might not be able to follow the law. But when jurors can decipher the instructions, they follow them, even when the result seems unfair or stupid.
After mock trials, we often ask jurors whether they felt there was some "better" result that they weren't allowed to reach, because the jury instructions or the special verdict pulled them another way. They almost always say yes. Libby juror Denis Collins captured the process in this moment from his interview:
There was just so many of those [conversations] that it was just very hard not to believe how he could remember it on a Tuesday and then forget it on a Thursday and then remember it two days later.
Now, having said that, I will say that there was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury. It was said a number of times, "What are we doing with this guy here? Where's Rove, where's you know, where are these other guys?"
We're not saying that we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of but that it seemed like he was to put it in Mr. Wells' point, he was the fall guy.
2. Thank you, live bloggers. Live blogging is the greatest thing for people who want to learn about trials since -- since I don't know what. The firedoglake folks were congratulating each other yesterday for their unique journalism throughout the trial, and they deserved every word of it. They were rooting for the prosecution, it's true, but on the other side, JustOneMinute was live blogging and rooting for Libby, so we could always doublecheck for spin. At TalkLeft, images of the jury notes were being posted almost as soon as the trial lawyers saw them.
You might not yet have warmed to the idea of live blogging Survivor or the Grammys, but live blogging trials is a real gift to those who want to know what happened. The traditional morning media updates -- this person testified yesterday and you may remember that Libby is on trial for perjury and obstruction relating to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame -- suddenly sounded laughable when we had already heard the highlights of cross, seen the jury notes, and heard about the legal arguments outside the jury's presence. Until now, the only way to know a trial that well was to sit through it. Now you can be at your desk and practically be there.
Your local Big Trial is likely being live blogged too. Here in Wisconsin, the Avery murder trial has live blogs in the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel and a blog called Lakeshore Laments. The Couey murder trial in Florida has live blogs here, here, and here at least.
(Photo by Payton Chung at http://www.flickr.com/photos/paytonc/132501588/; license details there.)
