Recent writing on juries at other sites has been great. It includes:
1. A great technique for opening statement. "When I open, I like to start the story in the middle," says Eric Turkewitz of New York Personal Injury Law Blog. It's a compelling way to begin a story, and Eric explains it more clearly than I ever have.
2. Fearless thinking on secrets. Picking up on a post here about the secrets jurors carry and are unlikely to share, both Stephen Gustitis and Mark Bennett suggest: share yours first. "[A] person responds to what is given to them," says Stephen at The Defense Perspective: "Sad for sad. Fear for fear. Slow for slow. Secret for secret." At Defending People, Mark relates the discussion to a wonderful series he's doing on the Tao Te Ching, and says, "Sometimes you have to show the jurors yours -- reveal your own secrets -- to have even a chance that they'll show you theirs."
This is advanced stuff. If you have the intuition and awareness these guys do, your authentically open voir dire might elicit stories jurors have never told before. (The voir dire in the James Seale trial is a striking example of jurors trusting their questioner enough to tell some of their most painful memories.) If you're clumsy or faking, it won't work.
3. The trouble with juries. Scott Greenfield was already asking tough questions about juries (he always starts with "I really like Anne Reed's blog, but . . . ") when Ken Lammers at CrimLaw described a trial where the jury took an inexplicable turn. Scott was right there, blunt as usual ("That great old saw about the jury system, 'it may not be perfect, but it's the best there is' is a load of crap"), but making valid points. If anybody tries to tell you she has a foolproof approach to jury trials, reread these posts.
4. "Lie acceptability." One of Scott's questions was "When we catch a witness [lying], we exploit it as much as the judge will allow. Will [jurors] think it's such a big deal?" It depends, says Emma Barrett at Deception Blog, reporting on a new study. "Different types of lie may be more or less acceptable, depending on the motivaton for telling them and the context in which they are told." She gives details.
5. More on law professors on juries. Prof. Michael Dorf at Dorf on Law is concerned about the jury system too, after he reported for jury duty and was "peremptorily challenged again." He thinks the lawyers must have assumed he'd favor prosecution, and he's not so sure he would have. Either way, he says, "By providing lawyers with just enough information to make wild guesses about a juror's sympathies, our system of voir dire and peremptory challenges shows itself to be worse than useless."
6. Farther down the collision course. A post here awhile back wondered if two Supreme Court cases were heading for conflict: Witherspoon v. Illinois, which says a juror must be removed for cause if his religious views prevent him from applying the law, and Batson v. Kentucky, which holds that jurors may not be removed because of their race -- and, the Court may eventually hold, their religion. Karl Keys at Capital Defense Weekly wrote on this theme this week, citing a poll finding that 47% of Catholics believe they would be ineligible to hear capital cases, and noting a pending certiorari petition "that asks why should Witherspoon continue in light of the evidence that it hits members of minority communities and the religious the hardest."
7. Finding lawbreakers on MySpace in a few short clicks. The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel's Proof and Hearsay blog has an amazingly simple primer.
8. The vanishing jury trial. Beck and Herrmann at Drug and Device Law Blog are honest about it, when -- as they note -- a lot of trial lawyers aren't. "It matters because counsel should change their strategies when they're defending cases that they know will settle," they say, and explain how.
9. Make your message stick. Are you reading the marketing blogs? They're all about persuasion, so you should be. Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog has a podcast interview with Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the book Made To Stick, a wonderful resource on how to get your message across clearly and memorably. I keep coming back to Made To Stick.
(Photo by Ho John Lee athttp://www.flickr.com/photos/hjl/101443399/; license details there.)
