If I were ever in a jury box, I would treat police testimony as less trustworthy then that of any other witness, because there is no censure for perjury by them.
Of course, this would disqualify me from ever sitting in a jury box.
Of course, this would disqualify me from ever sitting in a jury box.
I sat on a jury that included testimony by a police officer.
Many months had passed since the incident and the cop said a bunch of things, then the defense said "You just said X, but in your incident report you wrote Y."
One of the jurors was stuck on "We should believe the police officer because he is a police officer" for about 60 minutes, before eventually becoming convinced that nothing he said added up.
> juror picks one
"But a police officer produced [the other one]! We should trust it!"
I know many of us dread jury service, but really, if we don't go, then we're leaving all of these decisions to people like that, who are willing to blindly believe the police.
A trial that largely relied on eyewitness testimony (all of which differed from individual to individual in important details) for evidence. I knew from my Psych studies that eyewitness testimony is a smidgen better than bullshit (see: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-...) but I was unable to hang the jury (the rest of whom wanted to throw the book at this kid, and yes the jury was all white and the kid was black and this was Boston, one of the most subtly-racist places I've ever lived in) because the defense did not present the inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony as evidence/argument. You are (paradoxically and incredibly frustratingly) not allowed to use outside knowledge to inform your decision... Only what was actually presented at the trial. I literally left that jury in tears, being consoled by the older women on the jury who applauded my valiant but unsuccessful defense (yeah, I'm a guy, but I give a shit).
While I can't go back to that guy and apologize for being a part of the system that let him down, I do now contribute monthly to https://www.innocenceproject.org/causes/eyewitness-misidenti... ... "Eyewitness misidentification is the greatest contributing factor to wrongful convictions proven by DNA testing, playing a role in more than 70% of convictions overturned through DNA testing nationwide."
There is some effort to reform the system going on based on the evidence that continues to emerge, but it will take years.
From what I understand (I'm not from US), you are told this by the judge, but in fact you can (and are allowed by law) to use anything you want to form your decision.
People do it anyway, and it's highly unlikely that they'll be found out, but the problem is it's a double-edged sword: in this case, justice might have demanded it; on the other hand, a Klansman could use the same approach to get another member off the hook for an obvious murder conviction.
If I could do it again I would have hung the jury. Let's just say the system in place makes it veeerrryyy difficult to do so... which is of course a perverse incentive.
I'm still kicking myself (this is years later) because normally I'm a person who sticks my neck out for my own principles, and that time I succumbed. I won't make the same mistake again.
It's along the lines of jury nullification. The people have some recourse in overriding court rules and court rulings when the court is not behaving in accordance with justice.
I have great respect for most parts of our justice system. This is not one of those parts, therefore I choose civil disobedience.
Do they get punished if they say yes to that and somehow it becomes obvious they're not doing that?
Jurors are asked if they will treat the word of law enforcement as always true. Jurors are disqualified if they don't say yes. Jurors are sworn, as you say, to tell the truth. Presumable jurors get punished if they end up acting counter to their previous word?
Thus, jurors that end up on the bench are forced by law to act as if every word by law enforcement is true, even if it contradicts physical reality. No?
If a juror stated that they believed that the word of law enforcement were always true, the defense attorney would almost certainly challenge them for cause, as that is clear bias, and they would not be selected for the jury.
In practice it's a balancing act, where the prosecution wants jurors who trust law enforcement and the defense wants jurors who are skeptical of law enforcement.
It is illegal to punish a juror for the decision they make during a trial. This is often referred to as "jury nullification" (or rather, is an important part of jury nullification).
Realistically, jurors will instead be challenged for cause by the defense if they do say yes to that question.
They might be challenged by the prosecution if they indicate a bias against police testimony (either for cause or as a peremptory challenge, depending on the details and the prosecutor and the judge.)
Both sides look for jurors who have bias where they will come with a pre-shared opinion. The last jury I was on included a former US Attorney, an insurance investigator and a NAACP regional director. We were asked to answer questions honestly and nobody had access to our process.
I’ve been on 3 juries, and in 2/3 we partially or fully acquitted a defendant based on many factors. Frankly, in each case I walked away with an appreciation that the system can work.
No. If that were the case, there would be no need for evidence, a judge, a jury, or a trial. "Just ask the cops" is not how this system works.
My own limited experience on a jury is that, because of the way jurors are selected, they tend to be fairly deferential to authority (especially the judge's authority). Arguing for jury nullification or any similar concept is at a minimum going to freak your fellow jurors out, and I wouldn't be surprised if in practice they might ask the judge to kick you off the jury and use one of the alternates (regardless of whatever the legality of the situation calls for).
That's not my experience, and mere reservations about the credibility of police wouldn't usually justify a challenge for cause, and prosecutors have a finite number of peremptory challenges. (Now if you say cops are all liars and everything they say must be disregarded, sure, that’ll probably get you tossed.)
The bare minimum I'd need would be "yes, so long as they're not contradicted by less inherently unreliable evidence than that which relies on human memory".
In my experience, the defense asked specific questions related to this exact topic and sought out jurors who agreed that police testimony is not guaranteed to be factual. I have to assume this is common. They had no problem filling the juror box with jurors approved by both sides.
That question came up the last time I was called for jury duty. But it was the people who affirmed that they believe police are always truthful who were excluded.
The risk here is that there are people fighting to get out of prison for things they're not guilty of. If you have realistic expectations that police and their representative prosecutors can and do lie, please exercise caution.
If you say "You shouldn't believe anything a cop testifies to" will get you booted pretty quickly.
If you say this you won't be selected. Engineers and Scientists routinely get denied because of the application of logic.
And guess which answer got people dismissed?
Remember the prosecution have a limited number of dismissals and statements like that are desired by the defense.
You'd be surprised. The DAs/lawyers on the other side can see right through this, and don't want it. They want someone that is more likely to show blind trust to the law side.
If the system considers police testimony as ground truth, why bother with judge and jury?
There's no such thing as impartial. Unless you either have no emotions or have omniscient knowledge of everything (robot or God, basically), you'll always view a set of facts through an emotional lens that's been tinged by your past experiences, which are a tiny subset of everyone's past experiences. Part of the reason we put multiple people on a jury is to average out those differences.
Then again, I brought up unconscious bias and implicit association tests last time I was called for jury duty, and was excused by a very impatient and skeptical sounding judge. Questioning the whole premise of the legal system doesn't go over very well with the legal system.
The criminal justice system _does not think_ jury nullification is a legitimate use of the powers of a juror. Rather, the criminal justice system more views it as something of an unfortunate trade-off.
Why not? That's often by far the best case scenario.
I’m not saying our system is perfect but where’s the better alternative?
In my case, I'd have liked to think that I'm not particularly biased for or against police, though news stories like this one don't help in that regard. But when I sat in a jury box, I don't recall it coming up. The only question from voir dire that I can immediately recall was the defense attorney making sure I understood accusation != guilt.
With that said, I did up having to consider the police witness testimony unreliable. Not because I thought they were lying because they could get away with it, but because it was too inconsistent from one officer to the next. That was one of the first things we agreed on in the jury room, that the police testimony was too inconsistent to be useful, and that we would need to focus on the other evidence (video, DNA testing, call records, et. al.)
Being skeptical of witness accounts is fine, but you admitted partiality specifically based on their occupation - I assume they want people who as much as possibly will evaluate the account based only the facts at hand.
i served on the second jury; the police officer was blatantly lying but there was no evidence which corroborated their story anyway.
Probably not; I've been on a criminal jury where virtually all the testimony was from police, and the questions in voir dire wouldn't have he really revealed that attitude unless it was so extreme that the prospective juror themself felt it would prevent them from fairly evaluating the evidence.