Jury stuff from around the web in the last couple of weeks includes:
1. The listener and the liar. By now you've heard about the British juror who hid an MP3 player under her Muslim headscarf, and the Cape Cod juror who tried to get out of jury by claiming he was a racist, a homophobe, and a liar. The stories are interesting not just because they happened, but because of how far and fast they spread. The Muslim music story is being reported in South Africa, and I had to turn off my Technorati "jury duty" search because it seemed like every personal blogger in America wanted to talk about the racist liar. In case we needed a reminder, racism, homosexuality, and Islam are very hot topics -- and so is the idea of a juror rebelling against the system, whether by tuning out or by spouting off.
2. Whom do jurors dislike more, lawyers or corporations? Robert Ambrogi at Legal Blog Watch was one of the first to report a survey commissioned by the American Association for Justice (the plaintiff's bar organization, formerly ATLA), and released on the occasion of their annual meeting this week. The survey concludes that trial lawyers, unpopular as we are, have the edge over corporations:
Americans believe that the civil justice system provides essential safeguards for them at a time when corporate misconduct is such a serious problem.
Ken Shigley at the Atlanta Injury Law & Civil Litigation Blog reports the survey in more detail and considers what it means for jury selection.
3. More juror blogs. I wrote yesterday about listening to jurors' thoughts as expressed in their blogs, and I owe thanks to Concurring Opinions for their kind words about that post. (Welcome, new readers from CO.) For more jurors in their own words, there's a great post from music-business blogger Bob Lefsetz called "What I Learned At Jury Duty." It's a great list of lessons big and small ("19. Sudoku rules. Everybody was doing it.")
Or you could go to the social networking site Vox.com, where the "Question of the Day" last week was "Have you ever served on a jury? What was your experience?" There are dozens of responses.
4. More Scott Greenfield. His Simple Justice is strong as always. In "The Appeal to Common Sense," he takes on the familiar appeal that prosecutors and other lawyers make to juries: "Use your common sense." Scott thinks the argument keeps juries from seeing what might be possible in the life of a criminal defendant whose world is different from the one most jurors inhabit; and he explains how he tries to turn it on its head in his own closing argument. Meanwhile in a post called "The Home Of The Compliant," Scott notes how hard it is for people to disobey rules, any rules, and applies the insight to juries:
So as you argue to a jury of twelve that there is some possibility, no matter how remote, that one individual's failure to abide the rules that the government tells us required and expected of all good citizens, think about what you're asking them to do. Noncompliance in a compliant society is unthinkable.
I know I keep saying this, but civil trial lawyers, read the criminal defense blogs. Both those posts, for example, apply fully to civil trials.
5. Jurors under pressure. Jon Katz of the Underdog blog had a long and thoughtful post after the July 3 mistrial of Alfredo Prieto. The mistrial came when a holdout juror wrote the judge that his colleagues were pressuring him like "a pack of lions protecting their kill." "[O]ne is left to wonder," Jon says, "if, in a one-phase trial, juror psychology would make jurors less likely to reveal improprieties in jury deliberations with increased passage of time. The answer likely is yes."
(Posts on pressured jurors here include "A Jungle In There" and "I Wanna Go Home.")
6. Good blog finds. In other blogs:
- J.D. Hull What About Clients? has "Sensitive Litigation Moment No. 17: Informal Discovery," on the wealth of investigative information on the Internet that many trial lawyers miss: "Next time a new case begins, resist rushing into written discovery and depositions. Step back from the discovery routine--you'll get into that bubble soon enough--and learn a few things on your own."
- Mary Whisner at Trial Ad Notes points to a study by Duke's Neil Vidmar, one of the leading jury researchers anywhere. This paper is Medical Malpractice and the Tort System in Illinois, and it concludes "that the Illinois tort system does not appear to be the cause of the undisputed fact that doctors' liability insurance premiums showed dramatic rises."
- Elliott Wilcox at Winning Trial Advocacy Techniques Blog talks about referential questions we ask in depositions like “This blood here, is that from this general area here, or is that from another area?” There's nothing like a deposition answer you know would convince the jury -- if anybody could figure out what you and the witness were talking about. He gives good (in fact, good/better/best) suggestions for how to fix the problem.
- Evan Schaeffer's Illinois Trial Practice Weblog has a quote from the great trial consultant David Ball, from his book David Ball on Damages, on how juries get damages wrong because lawyers forget to explain how to get them right. If you do civil work, it's worth posting where you'll see it often.
