Some lawyers are tougher on jurors than others. Yesterday's news brought two examples:
1. A sobbing juror.
She had reason to cry. A British television actor named Chris Langham is being tried in England for sexual assault, and the prosecution decided to show the jury video clips of child pornography allegedly found on Langham's computers.
The story I'm reading says the judge had ruled that the jury need not be shown any clips rated five on a one-to-five scale of seriousness. The prosecution started playing the rest. They were on the third clip, rated three (an earlier one was a four), when the juror broke down and fled the room. The judge relented and said they didn't have to watch any more: "You can take it that the rest of the images are of the same quality as the ones you have just seen."
A moment like that is bad for the defense, of course, but it's not necessarily great for the prosecution. If you're willing to sear those images into jurors' minds when the images aren't even direct evidence of the crime you've charged, at least a few jurors might wonder what else you would do to win.
Jurors do have to see awful evidence, of course, too often. Sometimes it seems like there's a dismemberment trial going on somewhere in America on any given day. It's a complex topic, but if there's one thing to say about it, it might be this: whether you do it out of concern for your case or for your soul, show compassion for jurors when that evidence comes out. The rule applies no matter which side you're on.
2. The nosiest voir dire ever.
When your client is charged with masturbation, you have to ask about it in voir dire. How Appealing relays a Miami Herald story about Terry Alexander, a Florida prison inmate charged with indecent exposure because he masturbated in his cell and "did not try to hide what he was doing as most prisoners do."
Imagine showing up for jury duty and being asked, in open court, whether you masturbate:
Defense attorney Kathleen McHugh faced 17 prospective jurors and asked point-blank who among them had never done that particular sex act.
No hands went up.
Why they didn't strike the whole panel right then is a fair question.
I'm presuming that Ms. McHugh was smiling when she asked, and that the question was rhetorical -- even though How Appealing quotes the story as saying she then "went one-by-one, asking each prospective juror if he or she had ever masturbated. All nine men said yes, two of the 10 women said no." (This detail isn't in the current version of the story.) If you really wanted an answer to a question like that, you'd try to use a questionnaire -- which you'd likely never get in a misdemeanor like this. (The State-of-the-States Survey by the National Center For State Courts reports that supplemental questionnaires add on average 227 minutes to voir dire, and this trial might not have taken that long.)
But this story too is more about the prosecution than about the defense. Why make jurors sit through a trial like this? "While most prisons deal with such an offense internally, Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne -- and Miami-Dade Corrections officials -- are hoping to curb the practice among inmates by prosecuting them," the Herald explains. The particular sheriff's deputy who observed Mr. Alexander has pursued charges in seven similar cases so far.
Whether or not it curbs the practice, Mr. Alexander was convicted
"'It was pretty straightforward,'' said juror David Sherman. "The prosecution's case was clear, and the defense did not dispute any of the major elements.'' . . . He also said that none of the jurors had a problem with the sex act, per se.
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Notes:
- I was already getting page hits from searches like "pictures of attractive men," thanks to earlier posts on research studies showing the impact of beauty. I hate to think what searches will lead to this site after today.
- More on the Florida case, on the decision to charge and the fun turns of phrase a writer gets to use to describe it, from Grits For Breakfast and Herald columnist Fred Grimm.
(Photo by Salem Eames at http://www.flickr.com/photos/great_sea/160996406/; license details there.)
