Trial diary: A journalist sits on a Baltimore jury | Hacker News Reader

Trial diary: A journalist sits on a Baltimore jury

propublica.org

82 pointsdanso46 comments

I sat on a jury for a violent crime and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the jurors. I expected a much less savvy and less logical group of people and found the opposite - they understood the process, how the law is applied, the nuances between different charges and most importantly the presumption of innocence. The lawyers were playing all the games you'd expect, but every juror saw through it 100%.

I sat on a jury for a personal injury case, and I was surprised at how absolutely stupid, and unable to absorb basic concepts about the case my fellow jurors were. They wanted to give a huge settlement to “stick it to the man” whether there was a reason to or not. I’m pretty anti-corporation but there was no evidence to support the claim!

I had the opposite experience: There were itemized compensatory claims that hadn't even been specifically contested by the defense (e.g. preliminary medical assessment for injury), but they still gave nothing. They really seemed to just want to get out of there by lunch (they also made me foreman because I was the only one wearing a tie).

Similar experience here. If I'm ever on trial, I'd be happy for the people I sat with to be my jury.

The American public is underestimated way to often IMO.

> I expected a much less savvy and less logical group of people

Why did you expect this?

I would expect people like the people I went to high school with, since that was a pretty random selection of society. That would not be a group where you could describe an abstract concept like the criteria for applying a law and expect them to get it the first time. More likely you'd explain it many times from many different angles over a couple of weeks and then give them a test and they still wouldn't get any part of it entirely correct. And that's on average; you also have the low end of the range, people who managed to put the right words in the right boxes to pass world history but came away not sure if there's an ocean between France and Germany or not. And then at the very bottom there were the ones who couldn't pass high school classes at all....

Because a lot of legal concepts aren’t that intuitive. And people are often emotional in their decisions particular when it comes to violent crime.

And not to say those didn’t exist in my jury experience, but usually some juror stated their opinion and moved the thinking forward.

Given a random selection of 12 people on the street, one might reasonably expect that their educational background may be... less than optimal. For Germany for example, a quarter of the population only has the utter basic level of education [1].

[1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/197269/umfrag...

Education =\= intelligence

#1. The people st jury duty either want to be there or are too stupid to get out of it.

#2. I interact with the public from time to time. As a rule people can not understand compound sentences let alone be able to string enough facts together in their head to be effective on a jury.

My experience with #1 was it actually really hard to get out of jury duty.

The lawyers and judge have seen all the tricks. The people who were able to get rejected had to hold pretty extreme opinions and hold to them under a lot of questioning. I saw many people break and admit they could be impartial.

It's remarkable that a local journalist covering urban crime didn't get bumped off the jury by one side or the other, but it means we get this very well written inside story

For run-of-the-mill trials I think judges are less tolerant of games, and the attorneys less motivated--they're more likely to be repeat players who don't want a reputation as a**holes.

The public (through media and punditry) has developed an opinion of juries as fickle, but having recently served on one it seems apparent this is mostly undeserved. And I'm sure judges understand this. (Second data point: I've also heard a trial judge explain that in all his years on the bench only once did he worry a jury might return a patently unjust verdict. He said he was prepared to reject the verdict in that case, but in the end the jury acquitted.)

As a young lawyer long ago, I was "picked" for the jury (that is, I wasn't struck) for a two-week capital murder trial. Also "picked" was one somewhat-older lawyer, who ended up as foreman.

Each prospective juror was interviewed individually by the lawyers and judge, with no one else in the courtroom. From their questioning, I had the distinct impression that both the prosecutors and the defense counsel were OK with having a couple of lawyers on the jury, to help make sure that the non-lawyer jurors followed the judge's instructions about the burden of proof, etc.

And that's how it turned out: A couple of times during deliberations, a juror would say, "Well, I think what happened was X," and either the foreman or I would gently ask, "um, do we have any evidence of that?" Another time, a juror said, "But we heard so-and-so testify that Y happened," and the other lawyer and I had to remind everyone that the judge had instructed us to disregard that testimony.

(I was very pleased to see that after just a few times, we two lawyers didn't have to provide such reminders, because other jurors would do so first.)

Do lawyers ever "play dirty" with the idea that a jury can't just disregard something? It is ineffectual recourse for bad evidence being introduced to ask people to pretend they didn't hear it.

They sometimes deliberately do so, yes. But the problem is that the jury may realize what the lawyer is doing, and it may bias the jury against that lawyer's side of the case. If one side is playing it straight, and you can tell the other is trying to manipulate you, that makes it easier for you to agree with the side that's playing it straight.

That's interesting, I wasn't aware. I had guessed the reason was that the lawyers looked at the journalist's background and writing, and both the defense and the prosecution concluded that he was more likely to be favorable to their own side, and that their arguments would not be harmed by having a persuasive domain expert on the jury.

edit: and as you suggest, I'm sure my opinion is impacted by high-profile mistrials I've seen in the media

Both sides usually get a set number of unchallengeable juror rejections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peremptory_challenge Beyond those a request to reject is effectively at the discretion of the judge as it's relatively rare for a juror to unequivocally meet the legal standards for mandatory disqualification. So attorneys have to be judicious and, especially when they're nearing the end of jury selection, will often accept a juror they might have preferred to reject.

It's not just the judge with which attorneys want to maintain good will. Both defense and prosecution will often cooperate to winnow down the jury pool before voir dire.

I've been called for jury duty twice and been rejected for service twice by defense. I guess I'm too mean looking? I appreciated your explanation as it encapsulated my experience as well. I had very nice, even-keeled judge as well (for the jurors, not for the accused in particular) Much of our first day was spent with introductory speeches by defense and the prosecutor describing how "the courtroom isn't like TV"©.

I went in for jury duty on two separate occasions, in Austin, TX.

In the first occasion, we were told by the judge that the case we had been assembled for was settled out of court that morning, so we were going to be used for a different case, involving potential parole for a person who had been convicted, and therefore any police officers in uniform were automatically excused. We were then told that the two sides had agreed to the terms, so it was basically going to be a formality in front of the jury, and so the first twelve people plus the alternates were to stay, since there wouldn't even be any interviews of the jurors to see if either side objected to anyone. I wasn't in the first set of people, so I and twenty or thirty other people just left.

In the second occasion, we had a smaller group and only eight jurors were to be picked. The first thing the judge did was ask where a certain person was, and thanked him for his service as the chair of the law school for UT Austin, and noted that his term had coincidentally ended just that morning. He also excused the chairman emeritus. Serving military personnel were also thanked for their service and excused, due to the nature of the case. Then the lawyers started talking about the basics of the case. This was a personal injury case, and there were multiple parties being sued, who of course each had their own lawyers. All of the defendant lawyers seemed quite capable and very professional. However, the plaintiff lawyer was, to be kind, clearly an ambulance chaser. He kept saying stuff during the intro that he shouldn't be saying and some things were literally illegal to say, and the other lawyers and the judge kept calling him on that. After the intros were done, the judge asked if there was anyone in the room who still needed to be excused, and if so they would need to come up and explain it to him. I held up my hand, and was directed to approach the bench, along with the all of the lawyers. The judge asked me what was wrong, and since the guy was literally standing right next to me, I said "I'm sorry sir, but I have already taken a very intense disliking to one of the lawyers, and I'm afraid that I may not be able to be impartial with regards to anything they might say or do, to the detriment of their clients." The judge seemed quite surprised, and the lawyer for the plaintiff asked me if I could say who it was. Since he was standing right beside me, while looking straight at the judge, I said to him "with all due respect sir, I really don't think you want me to answer that question." The judge excused me, and I think I saw some light smiles on the faces of the other lawyers. As I walked out, I desperately wanted to tell the actual plaintiffs that they needed to get a better lawyer, but I kept my mouth shut.

So far, that's been it.

I will say, in that second case, I did actually want to serve. I wanted to be sure that everyone got fair treatment, and that if the plaintiffs deserved a good settlement, that they would actually get one. Alas, that was not to be.

Even judges and lawyers can be randomly selected for jury duty.

Yep. All the way up to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court - https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/15/politics/john-roberts-jury-du...

Slightly unrelated, but don’t avoid jury service. It’s your civic duty.

I was selected for jury duty once and got out of it as quickly as I could. I was working a nothing minimum wage job to get by and they would've given me $15 dollars a day for jury duty.

You want people to stop trying to get out of jury duty? Then make sure their job has to pay them while they are serving on a jury.

People (understandably) often lament how hard it is to make an impact in the world. Being a juror can have far more impact than every vote you’ll ever cast.

The problem is magic doesn't happen when people put jury duty on their CV

I consider the ease of getting out of jury duty one of the foremost parts of jury selection - Anyone who does not see it as their civic duty is worth dispensing with.

A lot of people view it with the opposite effect: you’re being judged by a set of people not smart enough to get out of jury duty.

I have been called to jury duty 3 times in my life and never been selected as a juror. I consider it an important part of citizenship and community engagement.

> A lot of people view it with the opposite effect: you’re being judged by a set of people not smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Having only recently served on a jury, I realize now that most people who hold this opinion probably have never been on a jury. I was never so cynical, but serving on a jury still raised my confidence in and respect for my fellow citizens.

That said, my case was a relatively minor misdemeanor battery case and it become apparent to me that the right to a jury trial for such misdemeanors is a ridiculous waste of resources. It incentivizes piling on felony charges, or conversely failing to prosecute misdemeanor cases at all if the defendant pushes back. Some of the pathologies in our criminal justice system are much easier to understand and appreciate in light of how extensive is the right to a jury trial in practice. (All 12 of us on the jury agreed that the only reason the case was even being prosecuted despite the rigmarole of a jury trial was for political reasons, though we deliberated seriously nonetheless. It took us 2 days to agree to acquit, but I don't think anyone would have considered it unjust if it had been a bench trial and the judge convicted.)

I had always dismissed criticisms of jury trials as unpersuasive, especially in the American context where we're so concerned with the risk of government oppression. But I always implicitly assumed that the right didn't apply to minor misdemeanors. Turns out that even though under Common Law and under U.S. Supreme Court precedent the right isn't provided for minor misdemeanors (definition varies but still includes risk of jail time), in practice most states guarantee a jury trial for all misdemeanors. Reasons vary--19th century constitutional reform, seemingly simple 20th century statutory changes, creeping judicial minimization of the definitions of "minor" or "petty"--but the end result has been the same. Though, reverting this would be easier in some states than others.

Your jury decided that the prosecution was because of politics, that you'd agree that the defendant was guilty, and voted to acquit, anyway?

It sounds like you learned a lot of the arguments that our founding fathers had for why the right to jury trial is so important.

Our decision ultimately came down to the facts, not the politics. The choice by the D.A. to take this particular case to trial seemed clearly politically motivated, but our only concern (as far as I could tell) was balancing justice for the defendant and the victim as it related to the incident.

Ah, yes, jury nullification.

Knowing about it is your civic duty, but if you let on that you've heard of it, they'll kick you off the jury

Fun fact: if you don’t register to vote you’ll very likely never be called, ever. Most cities/states use voter rolls for prospective jurors.

I once got as close as the first alternate before I was bounced by one of the lawyers as a “free kick” - can’t even remember if it was defense or not.

in india, the judiciary is all advocates and judges only. every case is decided by a judge/2 judges/N judges.

the reasoning is, a common person does not have the knowledge or skills to decide the case.

the lawyers here have to convince a judge for their arguments and facts, not a jury...

imo how can a common person decide a matter of facts or matter of law when they do not possess the skills ?

In the US the he jury is not tasked with interpreting what the requirements of the law are or tasked with producing/deciding allowed evidence on the case. In these matters the judge will run the court proceedings to produce allowed evidence + arguments and separately instruct the jury on matters of the law pertaining to the case. The role of the jury is just to weigh whether the evidence presented to them seems strong enough to meet the balance of probabilities or be beyond a reasonable doubt (depending on the type of case). I.e. the jury is tasked with answering questions like "based on the evidence presented is it reasonable to doubt the attack was committed by this person" but not tasked with answering/coming up with questions like "what laws would this attack break and how" or "is that question/evidence allowable in the case". Once the jury reaches a verdict it goes back to the judge to decide the sentencing.

Things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification do exist though, not by procedure but just because the rules can't prevent it, but it's more restricted than many realize and also extremely rare.

It's also true that the Jury isn't flying blind. The judge provides instructions as to how the law applies. It's of note a lot of appeals center around the judges instructions. And fundamental a jury places a hard limit on the states power. Which is to say a judge can and sometimes does limit it even further. Jury can say guilty on charge 4. Judge can say not guilty on charge 4.

Why bring in people with no experience to judge that sort of thing? Whether evidence is convincing is not so easy to decide.

Invent a class of legally informed people who can be paid to think about such things and gather experience in it over time.

Sure, make them separate from the judges so it's not all one guy deciding.

It doesn't necessarily help to be legally informed or not unless you change the role of the jury completely. The law is already set and interpreted by other parties, the only question is about if the jury feels an open ended threshold of doubt has been reached. One could argue to have a class of people that try to rigorously decide what is reasonable doubt based on additions to law that try to quantify doubt but one could just as easily argue finding what society finds to be reasonable doubt is something better answered by normal people instead of a special class and trying to codify what doubt is for every situation in every law unreasonable to do accurately and keep up to date.

I don't think one is inherently right or wrong, it's more a match to ideals. The important thing to note with the current jury system in the US is it's actually preferred they aren't specially informed in law (beyond their given role on the jury) as anything related to legal interpretation is supposed to be done by the rest of the court anyways.

>Invent a class of legally informed people who can be paid to think about such things and gather experience in it over time.

lawyers are legally informed people who are taught how to convince a judge about how the facts explain a certain fact. the judge has to accept the reasoning of one lawyer or the other so the judge needs to be equal to both.

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