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Comment by kevinmchugh | Hacker News Reader

Positive feelings about the justice system don't seem to survive jury duty. A friend of mine got selected for a jury in an armed robbery case when he was 18, the summer street graduating. He was one of two votes to acquit, there were six votes to convict, and the remaining 4 people were just trying to find the quickest way to go back to work.

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> Positive feelings about the justice system don't seem to survive jury duty

That's one anecdote, but I've often heard the opposite: even in charged cases where jurors were obviously interpreting the evidence differently, people took the job seriously and were respectful to one another. Not saying normal cognitive biases don't occur, but even though my only experience was with jury selection (and I wasn't selected), and even though we didn't really want to be there, from the conversations I felt that everyone took the duty seriously.

You get all sides. For me, with a lot of experience in this area, I find juries almost borderline random. Completely unpredictable. One jury to the next will have a completely different attitude.

I've seen juries several times acquit people who, based on the presented evidence, were so totally and completely guilty it defies rational sense. I would love to have been in the jury room for those ones.

I served on a jury and you described it perfectly: imperfect people took the job seriously, interpreted our understanding of the law and the facts of the case, and listened to each other, both lawyers, and the judge.

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