Interesting things in other places recently:
1. A surprising acquittal explained. The headlines called it the "dungeon rape" trial. Two 17-year-old South Carolina girls testified that Kenneth Hinson kidnapped them, bound them with duct tape, and raped them in an four-foot-high underground bunker. From the witness stand, they described their escape -- biting through the tape, moving the concrete slab "door" to the dungeon, and running through the woods for home. And their words weren't the only evidence: DNA proved the sexual contact between Hinson and the girls.
So it surprised a lot of people on Monday when the jury acquitted Hinson. Crime Scene Blog yesterday helped explain why, summarizing an extensive juror interview with a local magazine called The State. The jurors didn't credit Hinson much, but they found too many holes in the girls' account. “It just sickened us that the evidence did not corroborate the girls’ stories," the juror said.
2. New posts at jury blogs. It's great to see new posts at both Robert Kelley's Florida Jury Selection Blog ("the cure for the common voir dire") and Clay Conrad's Jurygeek, two superb jury blogs. Jurygeek advances what Conrad rightly calls an "interesting conversation" on the difference between rights and powers when it comes to jury nullification:
The real issue, as I see it, is when the ignorance of jurors is replaced with lies. Jurors do retain the prerogative to nullify: they cannot be punished for their verdict, and a substantial number of jurors do decide not to convict on extra-legal grounds. When a trial court tells a jury that they cannot do this, then the jury is being positively lied to. It is hard to respect a legal system that depends on positively lying to jurors in order to maintain control over their verdict.
Merely because Courts have the power to lie to jurors does not mean they have the right to do so. Until the 1970's, most juries in the US were instructed that if the State proved its case, they may convict, but that if they had a reasonable doubt, they must acquit. This is sufficient to acknowledge the independence of the jurors, without raising a distractive debate about jury nullification. It is honest.
3. The drip method of learning. If you never seem to be able to make time to read anything long, what you need is podcasts. With an iPod, a commute of any length, and some good podcasts, you can become surprisingly knowledgeable with delightfully little effort. Both Mary Whisner's Trial Ad Notes and Evan Schaeffer's Illinois Trial Practice Weblog feature reviews ofthe ABA Litigation Section's podcasts for litigators, including one titled "Eight Tips For Better Voir Dire."
4. Look her in the eye? The great blog Cognitive Daily had a post this week called "If You Want To Persuade A Woman, Look Straight At Her," describing a study where two listeners at a time heard to a "virtual" presenter, a computerized "avatar," read a persuasive script. The researchers varied the avatar's eye contact; sometimes he (it?) looked away from both listeners, sometimes back and forth between them the way a normal speaker would, and sometimes, through the miracle of technology, simultaneously directly at each listener the whole time. The result, accompanied by a dramatic graph:
While men weren't persuaded significantly more in any of the conditions, there was a large increase in persuasion for women when the avatar of the presenter looked at them for the entire course of the experiment, despite the fact that this meant the presenter's gaze behavior was often socially inappropriate.
This is fascinating, but I'm not ready to start staring at female jurors. It's one thing when a computer face looks straight at you through a whole conversation, and probably another thing when a real person does it.
(Trend note: If the word "avatar," used to describe a computerized person, is new to you, it's time to learn it. Take a few minutes and visit Second Life, a virtual land where people have created almost six million "resident" avatars. More than 28,000 of them are walking around Second Life at the moment I'm writing this -- going to virtual jobs, hanging out in virtual bars, making virtual avatar friends, and buying virtual land. You're going to have jurors who know all about Second Life.)
5. Breaking news and preview of next week: "Scientists Develop New Tool To 'Freeze' Crime Scene Memories." This story, released today at Science Daily, looks worth a post of its own:
University of Portsmouth scientists have developed a powerful new tool that 'freezes' the memory of crime scenes in the minds of witnesses.
The tool - a self-administered interview applied by witnesses at crime scenes - combats natural memory decay by using the latest research in cognitive psychology techniques. It 'freezes' images and details of crime scenes and perpetrators in the minds of witnesses, particularly small and seemingly insignificant details that provide major leads for detectives that turn out to be crucial in solving cases.
Tests at simulated crimes scenes were remarkable with witnesses using the tool recalling forensically relevant information 42 percent more accurate than other witnesses who were simply asked to 'report as much as you can remember'. The tests also revealed the witnesses using the self-administered interview (SAI) were 44 percent more correct with details about people - therefore, possible suspects - who had been involved in the event.
6. I know I point out Eric Turkewitz's weekly "Personal Injury Law Round-Up" roughly every time I do this, but he has everything I missed, plus that cool cowboy illustration. Against the chorus of virulent voices on tort reform in the blogosphere, Eric is leading a remarkably sane discussion, most recently in his just-the-facts explanation of the economics of a plaintiff's medical malpractice case.
(Photo by Ho John Lee at http://www.flickr.com/photos/hjl/101443399/; license details there.)
