Will you be seated on a jury?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
The defendant was accused of stealing a car and I had been the victim of car theft before, so I figured I was out quickly. After I told them about the theft the defence lawyer just asked 'were you traumatized?' and I laughed and said 'no, just annoyed. I got my car back a week later undamaged'.
Couldn't believe it but I was seated on jury for trial, and I got to see how the police worked it and learned about 'shaved keys', etc. Fascinating. I'm not really pro-police but I remember wishing the detective who caught the defendant had worked my case, where the thief was never found.
The personality dynamics of the deliberations are really interesting, too. The defendant was a young Hispanic man and our foreman was an old white guy whose first words were 'Well, he's guilty why waste time talking about it?' Total shocker, the others were furious with him and shouting and arguing, etc. Great stuff. I grabbed the evidence bag and looked through everything, deciding that I'd be pretty good at stealing cars if I ever needed to.
The tl;dr of this is that if you are a fan of short stories (like a good Kurt Vonnegut story) then jury duty is definitely for you. After doing it I'm certain I would go do it again and I highly recommend it.
The first three weeks were sort of interesting. The week in seclusion for deliberation was awful. It was so stressful I couldn't sleep, I was a complete wreck. You spend 14 hours a day cooped up in a small room along with people you slowly start to hate. I get really angry just thinking about it.
They happen, but they are far from the norm. (IIRC, most trials last, including deliberations, less than a week, and many are done in 1-2 days, deliberation included.)
A couple weeks later I did have to sit on a trial for 2 days for a traffic offense because the person decided it was a good idea to let the police chase him back and forth between Maryland and DC.
That said, I'd do it again for sure. Partially out of civic duty and partially because, despite mine not being altogether exciting, it was still fairly interesting for my curious mind.
After the verdict was read the judge explained more about the case and more info came out which 100% confirmed his guilt. It was good to know we got it right.
I took the obvious rational choice of using every trick in the book to successfully get out of it both times. The alternative would be a potentially unbounded chunk of my time gone, and that much farther behind on my goals. Large companies can get a kind of diversification, but I'm sure jury duty hits small companies hard as well.
The system is broken. I get the need for civilian juries, but the cost should be more fairly distributed by encouraging jurors to show up by paying jurors a reasonable wage rather than the pittance of a couple dollars a day that is currently paid in most jurisdictions, and at the same time, let people opt out by just saying "I don't want to" without having to give a reason (or better yet, opt in instead). We'd raise wage high enough to get some target percentage (like, say, 50%) of called citizens motivated enough to show up, or possibly compensate jurors pro rata based off of 120% of their average declared income on the previous 2-3 years of tax returns.
We'd have to raise taxes by a small amount to cover these payouts, but that's completely reasonable as we're shifting the burden from randomly chosen individuals of whom unreasonable demands are made today to a more broad and even and shallow tax base. It's the same reason we pay road work crews a wage rather than randomly selecting every week who cleans the roads. And if we pay enough to still get 50% of jurors showing up completely volitionally, we'd still avoid the problem of "professional jurors" who would try to game the system by serving on many juries.
You correct that they won't accept any excuse but the system mails summons more or less at random and so the summonses go to many non-existent persons. Moreover, a letter isn't legally binding by itself - you can always say you never got it but since they get to so non-shows, the system never bothers to hunt-down those who never show.
I think that a better solution would be for small companies, independent contractors, students, etc., to buy into an insurance pool; such that when they are selected for jury duty, they can be fairly compensated.
(I believe in Jury Nullification - meaning I think the jury has the responsibility to judge whether the law itself is unjust and if so refuse to convict under it - and I object on moral grounds to a fair number of existing laws. As a result of having these views, I have never been able to serve on a jury. I would only be able to serve if I lied to the judge about my beliefs.)
Failing that the magic words are 'can you please explain about jury nullification and whether it is legal?'. It is my understanding that the jury nullification issue is toxic and will almost certainly get you dismissed.
On the other hand, let's look at somebody working a salaried position who gets paid the same either way, whether he goes to work or serves on a jury. That's great for him, except he's also my employee, and now my (small) business takes the hit in identical expenses with less productivity.
I've heard the trick about jury nullification, and I would probably pull that card if I ever actually got into the courtroom, but I shouldn't need to go through all that effort, and what about the people who don't know about it?
It's been said that the only people serving on the jury are people who can't figure out how to get out of it. Having successfully gotten out of it twice with little to no effort, I don't believe that's true. Rather, I think the people serving on the jury are those who have nowhere else better to be. I don't mean to be immodest, but I think I'm a bright person, and I think that I would be a constructive addition to jury, but I and people like me just have better things to do.
The flip side of my situation is that, as a rather recently hired engineer at a young and quickly moving startup, it's not really a replacement for my job this month, as it is for most of the others I sit with. It's a second job, unless I want to fall behind and lose a lot of what I've worked for.
As a scientist, I appear to be essentially banned from being on a jury. The last time I was there, my experience consisted of wasting two days sitting in a courthouse, surrounded by people trying to escape from jury duty, only to be dismissed from a jury by the prosecution immediately after stating my profession. In total I said less than ten words. Everything I have been told by others in academia seems to go along with this: scientists are immediately dismissed.
So what's the point of my going? I'd like to be on a jury, and think it's an important civic duty, but the end result is an utter waste of my time that achieves nothing, for which the court insultingly tries to "compensate" me with $15 per day.
It was an interesting experience, and I was heartened to see that pretty much every juror in the group really took to heart the whole "presumption of innocence" idea and the notion that the State really had to prove guilt, not just hint at, or suggest, guilt.
Uhhhhh. There wasn't a single thing that sided me with the plaintiff. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.
It's a bit disappointing, given that at face value I'm very sympathetic to the plaintiff (think the parent/family/long term "that could be me" angle) and I'd consider siding with her except in specific cases such as one where she willingly agreed to high-risk investments.
- Blue collar - 30 or older - Household income < 50k - employed part time/unemployed - social services, left-leaning causes - don't like puzzles or games w/ rules/concentration
The last 4 are about how likely you are to influence other jurors, which increases your risk score.
Also, from the "do you like crosswords" question, if you say "no" you get this:
> This is a question about your cognitive style. The plaintiff lawyer believes you may be more likely to respond to the plaintiff's more emotional theme of victimhood rather than looking deeply at the legal and financial details.
I read that as "we don't really have a case, but if our jury identifies with the old woman, they may rule in her favor out of compassion".
The most common scenario in this situation is that investment adviser did not make her aware with risks. Someone at that age generally would not want to risk everything they had.
Of course if it is obvious that she was aware of the risks associated with it and the adviser was honest then I would side with him.
I believe the point of jury is to rule in a way that seems most sensible (based on ethics and not necessarily having to agree with the law).
Post-trial after talking to the defense attorneys it seems likely I would have been dismissed by the plaintiff (they were dismissing 'engineer types'), but because of the rules of selection the plaintiffs were basically out of arbitrary passes (I don't know the legal terminology but at a certain point they can appeal to the judge to pass on a potential juror, but only if there is a very specific reason (like I know somebody on the case), but there's a limit on how many arbitrary passes they get ("we don't like this guy, he won't see things our way"). So I guess my point is, you may be selected even if you are not ideal for one side or the other just because of the rules of the dance of voir dire and random luck of the draw (I was the last one seated, if they had avoided on passing one less person I would have walked out on day 1).
The trial ended up being about cold therapy devices and a guy who was suing a local corporation saying the device caused problems in his knee. I was initially surprised the defense (who still had passes) kept me around because in the original juror questioning I'm sure I came off as the liberal/borderline-anti-corporate-socialist lefty that I am.
In any case, the defense did a really good job of rationally showing that the device didn't cause the harm and the harm was the result of medical malpractice from the actual doctor; but the plaintiffs had a way more charismatic law team and almost won the case; in the end it was a mistrial with me and a few others holding out for the defense, plaintiffs would have won with one more vote (since it was civil it wasn't required to be unanimous); 3 days of very painful deliberation, trying to calmly explain to others on the jury how badly they misinterpreted the testimony and evidence and how they were manipulated by the plaintiff's attorneys (but, you know, not saying it outright like that).
The whole experience was actually pretty interesting though 6 weeks was at least 5 weeks too long. At least we had Fridays "off" (though I went to my regular job on Friday and worked a lot on the weeknights on days I was at court to keep up).
He went through a similar process like the one in the article. In the end, the judge asked a question like, "is there anything else you feel we didn't cover that may introduce bias in this trial?"
He raised his hand and said, "Yes, your honor. The defendant is black and everyone in the jury is white."
He wasn't selected.
If the goal is to act as mere fact checkers and verify that the law is being applied consistently, I get the intention.
However, this is a narrow view of the role of a jury. Juries should also serve as fail-safe, exercising discretion and preventing grotesque aberrations, for instance those coming from minimum sentencing laws.
This is unlikely to happen with this kind of selection.
Similarly, while there are frivolous lawsuits, and lawsuits that are technically not frivolous but are very harmful, like patent trolls and SLAPPs, there are also domains where personal liability does not reach today, like police violence, that could benefit from bonded practitioners with their bond at stake.
No matter, the plaintiff thinks I'm too establishment. I've been dismissed.
The judge and lawyers are concerned about making sure each juror is unbiased. How you answer question A regarding topic B could be very revealing of your bias towards the case even if neither question A nor topic B have anything to do with the case. People often lie on question X on topic Y (questions and topics more directly related to the case), or their answers often don't reflect how they actually act in the jury room.
But, if you demonstrate that you're clearly prejudiced to one side or the other, you can be tossed outright, and that toss does not count against the allowed number of peremptory challenges.
When I've done voir-dire, one side or the other has always booted me (and you know which), so I have some idea what set them off. I think the analytical mind and the independent streak will usually be a problem for one side or the other.
Is that so bad?
> Do you believe that there are too many frivolous lawsuits in this country?
> Yes.
> The defense lawyer has now fallen in love with you.
I've never had be judged by a jury, but if I did, I hope the jury would be composed of intelligent, thoughtful and serious people.
I've done jury duty once. It was inconvenient but I would gladly do it again.
It is unfortunately likely that I will never serve on a jury because 1) I would never convict somebody of a crime if I believe that the law is unethical, and 2) would never lie about that.
What is your total household income?
But perhaps there are just as many people, who are not poor, who do not trust investment bankers as there are who do trust investment bankers.
poor? side with investor 100% of the time
rich? equally likely to side with either
Before they ask the question they think there's a 50% chance you're poor and will definitely side with the investor and a 50% chance you're rich and will side with either. In other words they think you're 75% likely to side with the investor. Then they ask you the question. If you say you're poor then they both update your probability upwards from 75% to 100%, if rich then downwards from 75% to 50%.
"More likely to side with X" => The lawyers believe that you are more likely to side with the plaintiff than with the defendant on the basis of this information (Pr(P | Over $50k) - Pr(D | Over $50k) > epsilon)
"No effect on either lawyer": The lawyers believe that this information provides no insight into your decision (|Pr(P | Under $50k) - Pr(D | Under $50k)| < epsilon).
Plaintiff Defense
Under 50k 75 25
Over 50k 50 50
If one of two answers gives "no effect" then so must the other.
A salary below $50k indicates a strong preference for the plaintiff, but the reverse is not true (i.e., that a salary above $50k indicates a strong preference for the defense). Rather, the table indicates that a salary above $50k doesn't provide any useful information one way or the other about a prospective juror's leanings.
I'm sure there's disgruntled people that will tell me it's all garbage, but it's certainly a lot better than I could have done.
Suppose you're accused of, say, marijuana possession. Far more than 1 in 12 people think marijuana should be legal, so an actually RANDOM jury would almost never convict - that jury pool would correctly reflect the sentiment in the populace at large that this law is stupid and shouldn't be enforced.
But a jury in which everybody who seems "biased" on the issue has been removed by the judge or the prosecutor, leaving only people who "had no opinion" or are willing to accept the law exactly as the judge interprets it...is hugely MORE biased towards conviction than a random group of 12 people would be.
I would give them money if it gave me some degree of power over what categories of articles they look into making, but I'd never give them 15$/month.
Now, I'm just curious to know what everybody else on HN select.
(I got "The defense lawyer has now fallen in love with you.")
My suspicion is that most of HN knows how much money is constantly risked in regards start-ups & investing; some people make it - most people don't... nobody sues because they lost. At least that was my mindset. As soon as I read the case, I was already on the defendant's side unless evidence was shown that the defendant straight-up just went on glamours vacations with the plaintiff's money and never invested at all.
(Also note, they explicitly state, Your responses will not be stored.)
If you open a profiler while you are filling out answers you can see there is no network activity (-> they are telling the truth).