Things of interest to jury watchers and thinkers over the last couple of weeks:
1. Seale convicted. In breaking news, James Seale's jury convicted him last night of kidnapping and murdering teenagers Charles Moore and Henry Dee in 1964. (I had written about the voir dire here.) Congratulations again to Matt Saldaña and the Jackson Free Press for their coverage; Matt's description of closing arguments shows again how powerful a simple this-is-what-I-saw report can be.
2. The British survey. They're talking juries in England, after the release of a four-year study on the demographic make-up of juries there and how racially mixed juries treat defendants of different races. I haven't read the study itself, and the headlines on it are a puzzle at first.
The government news release proclaims, "Juries and the jury system in England and Wales are fair, unbiased and balanced, according to a groundbreaking study today," and continues, "The new research shows in particular that the jury system does not discriminate against people from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds." Not against them, but how about for them? The Guardian's story begins, "Black and ethnic minority jurors show more leniency to black defendants than their white counterparts in court, research commissioned by the Ministry of Justice revealed yesterday." The Economist seems to play it pretty straight:
Contrary to widespread belief, no discrimination was found. In an elaborate case simulation at London's Blackfriars court, which involved more than 300 jurors on 27 juries, the verdicts were all remarkably similar, regardless of whether the defendant was black, Asian or white.
This does not mean that a defendant's race did not influence individual jurors. Black and Asian jury members tended to show more leniency toward black defendants (though not, interestingly, toward Asians), whereas white jurors were usually softer on white defendants. But these individual biases did not affect the collective verdicts of the juries, the report says. Ten of 12 jurors must usually agree for a verdict to be reached, so individual biases cancelled each other out.
3. New source for research. Empirical Legal Studies Blog reports on a new "journal" at SSRN, one of the main places to look for social science research on the Web. The new journal, called Law and Courts,
will distribute abstracts of working papers, forthcoming articles, and recently published articles dealing with judicial decisionmaking, including the determinants of decisions, the influence of outside parties and other institutions, and the societal impact of those decisions.
4. Getting what you paid for. Fellow Milwaukee law blogger David Lowe just won a case where his wheelchair-bound client claimed that a transit van driver failed to fasten the van's restraints properly, and David's client was hurt in an accident. His post on the trial offers this cautionary tale on how that decision you made on whether to pay for six or twelve jurors can come back to haunt you:
The main legal issue that arose at trial had to do with attrition of jurors after the trial began. Thirteen jurors were originally empanelled. On the second day of trial, a juror called in by cell phone to report that she could not find a parking place, apparently due to a large motivational speaker conference held near the courthouse, featuring Zig Ziglar, Bill Cosby, Suze Orman, Colin Powell, Ed McMahon, Chicago Bears head coach Lovie Smith and Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy. [It's true; traffic that day was a mess.] After waiting 45 minutes, the trial court excused her. The next day, a second juror became unavailable due to a death in the family. The defendant was unwilling to stipulate to proceed with the remaining 11 jurors, and moved for a mistrial. When the action was filed, the plaintiff had demanded 12 jurors but did not pay the fee at that time. The defendant filed an answer requesting only six jurors, and paid that amount. The plaintiff had later paid for the other six jurors. Because the defendant had not requested or paid for 12 jurors, the court denied the motion for mistrial. Finding the Wisconsin statutes unclear, and no applicable case authority, the trial judge relied upon the words of Mick Jagger: "You can't always get what you want. But you get what you requested." The court accordingly sent only six jurors to deliberate.
4. Judges, especially Robert Bork, acting silly. Eric Turkewitz at New York Personal Injury Law Blog has another fun post on judges whose antics in the news make the jury system look great by contrast. (This one is inspired by the judge who claimed $54 million against the dry cleaners who ruined his pants, and then cried at trial.) Eric also has a great open letter to Robert Bork on how he might salvage his slip-and-fall case against the Yale Club, which so far has mostly made him a laughing stock. It's a post that all big-firm litigators should read, whether or not a famous client is pressing you right now to file a complaint in an area you don't know anything about.
5. Mark Bennett and Scott Greenfield discuss juries. Mark Bennett at Defending People imagines a world where we are all reminding each other about juries' power to nullify. I wrote this week about a recent reminder I got that jury nullification isn't all freedom and glory; Mark's post sets out the other side strongly, and it's funny:
"Did you know that judges lie to juries in criminal court every day? Do you know why the criminal juror is the most powerful person in the criminal justice system? Did you know that jurors don't have to follow the law?"
"Dude, I just asked if you preferred paper or plastic!"
In another post, Mark features a comment from his reader John Gioffredi about the lawyer in Mark's trial who started voir dire with "Good morning! I said good morning, class!" and how opposing counsel might take that on. Scott Greenfield of Simple Justice joins in the comments. (They're talkative, those criminal defense bloggers.) I'll leave it to them to explain the response they were considering, with the warning that it's not for beginners, and that even a veteran should be careful. The jurors don't know you yet, and you have a lifetime's worth -- or in civil cases, at least several months' worth -- of anger they don't share.
6. The pick of the criminal defense blogs. Speaking of criminal defense lawyers, I'm very honored to find this blog in Jamie Spencer's survey of blogs you folks read often. Civil lawyers, look at the Top 11 list (I'm way out of that league), and add some to your reading list even if you couldn't find criminal court with a map. These people know trials.
Jamie had another post this week, with advice to a lawyer just starting a blog. It was familiar to me, and I bet to many others. Jamie was one of the first people to find this blog, and offered candid suggestions heavily sprinkled with encouragement. He's one of the most generous citizens of the blogosphere.
