Source: https://jurylaw.typepad.com/deliberations/2007/07/index.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 15:47:34+00:00

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Gideon at a public defender reports on State v. Phillips, a Connecticut appellate decision in which four different jurors testified that a fifth juror was racially prejudiced. The trial judge held that any prejudice hadn't affected the deliberations, but the appellate court reversed because that was the wrong standard: "If the court does find that a juror is racially biased, through speech orconduct, such conduct is ipso facto prejudicial and the defendant is entitled to a new trial".
Meanwhile, Barry Barnett at Blawgletter beat me to Wednesday's opinion in Alcala v. Emhart Industries, Inc. where Chicago federal judge Amy St. Eve refused to let the lawyers ask voir dire questions about jurors' attitudes on lawsuits and tort reform. The Seventh Circuit said this was fine, since Judge St. Eve did ask the jurors about their experiences with lawsuits and whether they had any beliefs that would keep them from being impartial. Barry has a great time imagining the tort-reforming juror who might have "made his way onto the jury by denying, silently to himself, that he couldn't judge the case impartially."
J. Craig Williams at May It Please The Court adds thoughts on the California Peregrine trial, where witnesses have been barred and a juror has been dismissed for reading a trial blog written by a local lawyer who's being paid to cover the trial by an anonymous law firm.
Eric Turkewitz at New York Personal Injury Attorney Blog follows the malpractice case brought by Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis against two doctors. The trial was set for February, but that didn't work out; the judge had to declare a mistrial after a juror became sick and the defendant doctors rushed forward to save him. This week a new trial ended in a verdict for the doctors.
Adam Levin of Southern Criminal Law and Justice had a good idea, and sent a long list of questions about criminal defense practice to lawyers he admired. Mark Bennett at Defending People has started a series answering them (the first post is a reading list), and Jon Katz at Underdog Blog has his answers here. As always, civil lawyers can use their advice too. From Jon, for example: "Q. What is the most overlooked tool of investigation? A. Close and deep listening."
More good advice for civil and criminal lawyers alike: Steven Gustitis at The Defense Perspective starts a series on "building the persuasive case" with a detailed post on how to get the facts.
Finally, a tidbit from me: remember to ask experts what their opinion is "to a reasonable degree of professional certainty in the field of ________", and you'll save yourself the many minutes of agony I spent in front of one of my first juries, having objections sustained to one attempt after another because I didn't know that. This tip may not be needed much longer, though; Walter Olson at Point of Law reports on recent proposals to change the standard.
4. The high cost of trials.
Why are there fewer jury trials? Maybe in part because so many lawyers struggle to try cases within a budget that reflects their value to the client. Stephen Rosenberg at Boston ERISA & Insurance Litigation Blog reports on recent research suggesting that "the costs of patent infringement litigation actually exceed the economic value across all industries of patenting inventions." Eric Goldman of Technology & Marketing Law Blog reports on how Susman Godfrey prices plaintiff's patent cases here.
Meanwhile on the criminal side, the WSJ Law Blog reports on the eight-figure fees paid in the defense of recent prominent criminal cases. (Some were awfully close to nine figures.) Simple Justice argues here that big firms are the wrong choice for these cases; I don't think that's always true, but the post is good.
In a lovely post at Concurring Opinions, Melissa Waters points to a new Connecticut Law Review article arguing that "law's rhetoric - and therefore law itself - lags behind reality, due in part to out-dated assumptions about rural communities." For trial lawyers, the article is a reminder that we stereotype rural jurors in the same way. For Melissa Waters, it had a more personal connection: the article cites an opinion by her dad, who was a federal judge in Arkansas, and she tells a nice story about him.
Here's a California man who is requesting a deferral from jury duty, because the date doesn't work for him. His jury date is right before he leaves for Nippon, Japan, for the 2007 Worldcon -- that's World Science Fiction Conference. Don't laugh: over 6,000 people traveled to Anaheim, California for the 2006 event.
[W]e examine how jurors who responded to summonses for jury duty evaluated portions of videotaped testimony involving probabilities and statistics. Although some jurors showed susceptibility to classic fallacies in interpreting conditional probabilities, the jurors as a whole were not overwhelmed by a 99.98% exclusion probability that the prosecution presented. Cognitive errors favoring the defense were more prevalent than ones favoring the prosecution.
[T]he most striking thing about jury nullification is that nothing is done to actually prevent or punish jurors who behave this way. In this paper, I explore three rationales for why jury nullification is an officially tolerated, if not necessarily welcome, element of Anglo-American criminal law jury trials.
The empirical results indicate that 6 person juries are no quicker than 12 person juries; as cases become more complex and/or more severe, juries deliberate longer; non-unanimous decisions take longer to reach than unanimous ones; panels that saw many potential jurors excused during voir dire end up deliberating longer than panels with fewer challenges.
Jurors rely heavily on witnesses' confidence and veracity when evaluating credibility. Three studies demonstrate that jurors will regard a witness's calibration - the relation between that witness's own confidence and accuracy - as more important than either confidence or veracity when calibration information is available. We have already shown (Tenney et al. 2007) that initially jurors prefer a high-confidence witness; however, when an error allows the evaluation of calibration, jurors prefer a low-confidence but well-calibrated witness to a high-confidence poorly-calibrated one.
This article proposes an approach to deal with non-testifying demeanor evidence that occurs outside the witness box. Given the problems with having jurors rely on demeanor evidence, courts should be carefully monitoring the use of non-testifying demeanor evidence. Appropriate jury instructions should be given, including those warning jurors on proper use of such evidence.
We asked a representative sample of 1,465 residents of Texas to state whether they would prefer a jury or a judge to be the decision maker in four hypothetical circumstances. Consistent with expectations, non-Hispanic whites favored juries over judges, particularly if they imagined themselves as a defendant in a criminal trial. By comparison, although African-Americans and some Hispanics generally favored juries, they showed a much weaker set of jury preferences. African Americans had markedly lower support for the civil jury, but support was higher among minorities with prior jury service. Among Hispanics, respondents who took the survey in Spanish typically preferred a judge to make legal decisions. We consider the implications of our findings for trust in the jury system and trust in community members as decision makers.
Don't print them all at once, or the sunscreen won't fit in your beach bag.
1. The listener and the liar. By now you've heard about the British juror who hid an MP3 player under her Muslim headscarf, and the Cape Cod juror who tried to get out of jury by claiming he was a racist, a homophobe, and a liar. The stories are interesting not just because they happened, but because of how far and fast they spread. The Muslim music story is being reported in South Africa, and I had to turn off my Technorati "jury duty" search because it seemed like every personal blogger in America wanted to talk about the racist liar. In case we needed a reminder, racism, homosexuality, and Islam are very hot topics -- and so is the idea of a juror rebelling against the system, whether by tuning out or by spouting off.
Americans believe that the civil justice system provides essential safeguards for them at a time when corporate misconduct is such a serious problem.
Ken Shigley at the Atlanta Injury Law & Civil Litigation Blog reports the survey in more detail and considers what it means for jury selection.
Or you could go to the social networking site Vox.com, where the "Question of the Day" last week was "Have you ever served on a jury? What was your experience?" There are dozens of responses.
So as you argue to a jury of twelve that there is some possibility, no matter how remote, that one individual's failure to abide the rules that the government tells us required and expected of all good citizens, think about what you're asking them to do. Noncompliance in a compliant society is unthinkable.
I know I keep saying this, but civil trial lawyers, read the criminal defense blogs. Both those posts, for example, apply fully to civil trials.
5. Jurors under pressure. Jon Katz of the Underdog blog had a long and thoughtful post after the July 3 mistrial of Alfredo Prieto. The mistrial came when a holdout juror wrote the judge that his colleagues were pressuring him like "a pack of lions protecting their kill." "[O]ne is left to wonder," Jon says, "if, in a one-phase trial, juror psychology would make jurors less likely to reveal improprieties in jury deliberations with increased passage of time. The answer likely is yes."
J.D. Hull What About Clients? has "Sensitive Litigation Moment No. 17: Informal Discovery," on the wealth of investigative information on the Internet that many trial lawyers miss: "Next time a new case begins, resist rushing into written discovery and depositions. Step back from the discovery routine--you'll get into that bubble soon enough--and learn a few things on your own."
Mary Whisner at Trial Ad Notes points to a study by Duke's Neil Vidmar, one of the leading jury researchers anywhere. This paper is Medical Malpractice and the Tort System in Illinois, and it concludes "that the Illinois tort system does not appear to be the cause of the undisputed fact that doctors' liability insurance premiums showed dramatic rises."
Elliott Wilcox at Winning Trial Advocacy Techniques Blog talks about referential questions we ask in depositions like “This blood here, is that from this general area here, or is that from another area?” There's nothing like a deposition answer you know would convince the jury -- if anybody could figure out what you and the witness were talking about. He gives good (in fact, good/better/best) suggestions for how to fix the problem.
Evan Schaeffer's Illinois Trial Practice Weblog has a quote from the great trial consultant David Ball, from his book David Ball on Damages, on how juries get damages wrong because lawyers forget to explain how to get them right. If you do civil work, it's worth posting where you'll see it often.
We recognize that there is a power differential between a United States District Court judge and a juror. Generally, a juror would be hard-pressed to disagree with a premise stated by the district court with which the district court asks the juror to agree. The better practice is for the district court to ask non-leading questions when examining a juror for bias.
Sounds like another trial lawyer blogger, complaining about judges who browbeat jurors into denying their biases. But wait: it's the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in an opinion yesterday called United States v. Sloan. I promised I'd talk more today about lawyers on juries, and I'll get back to that soon, but this might be a big deal.
It's not the judge's leading question that's surprising. Some fine judges read this blog, but it has to be said: judges ask leading questions in voir dire all the time. They're famous for their skill in rehabilitating jurors who admit prejudice. What's surprising is that an appellate court noticed it, and didn't like it.
The district court: Hold on just a second and let me say out loud what I was told; that you thought it might—when you got to thinking about it more, you thought it might have been Christian, although we covered it several ways, and you apparently were concerned because you’re a deacon in your church, that you might have some conflict of interest or something?
Juror Propes: Yes, I don’t know if I just didn’t catch it the whole time or exactly what it was, but I have an issue with making money with churches. I’m a member of a church, I’m a faithful member of a church, and I know we have different ways of acquiring money, and it’s not through anything like this. I just totally disagree with this.
The district court: All right. You can tell now from having heard both the opening statements and more of the evidence that the issues of the Christian religion are really tangential to this dispute. So I don’t foresee any way in which there would be a conflict of interest. And I just wanted to raise that with you and make sure that you were of the same way of thinking, that it shouldn’t conflict with your religious beliefs. Do you agree with that?
"There is little doubt that the district court’s colloquy with Juror Propes was leading," the Seventh Circuit said. "[T]he district court asked Juror Propes to agree with its own opinion."
You will have observed that the defendants in this case are African-Americans. I do not have to tell you, but for purposes of this question I will tell you, that race is not an issue in this case. It cannot be. It must never be an issue in deciding the guilt or innocence of a defendant.
“[T]he group voir dire setting can impede honest statements of opinion or bias.” 1 JURYWORK § 2.11 at 2-72.30. It is not surprising that the jurors, confronted with a demand for a public response to a closed-ended, non-leading question, following the district court’s admonition, provided only a socially acceptable response. See 2 JURYWORK § 17.03 at 17-53. The district court then took the lack of any negative response to its question as an affirmation or pledge that the jurors would give the defendants a fair and impartial trial “notwithstanding their ancestry.” Trial Transcript at 56. However, closed-ended questions, such as the one and only one propounded by the district court, encourage jurors to deny their true feelings and opinions about race, effectively ending the voir dire before it has begun. See 2 JURYWORK § 17.03 at 17-54.
That being said, there was no indication during the questioning by the district court that Juror Propes had any bias. Juror Propes was selected as a juror because he swore that he could be impartial and base his verdict only on the evidence that was presented. After expressing his concerns and having them assuaged y the district court’s explanation, he agreed that there was no conflict. The district court was satisfied by Juror Propes’ response, as are we.
It's not easy to be satisfied with Mr. Prope's response. What he said, after only opening statements and a little evidence, was "I just totally disagree with this," meaning Mr. Sloan's business model. But defense counsel hadn't objected at trial, or asked that he be removed, or moved for a mistrial -- which made it easier for the appellate court to be satisfied.
It's worth remembering the case, though. If you haven't yet, take a piece of paper, write "Trial Notebook: Voir Dire" at the top, and start a list of cases you want handy reference to, beginning with "leading questions -- United States v. Sloan." Let me know what happens when you use it.
It's not catchy, I'll admit. But it's the most useful technique I know in voir dire. And I should have included it in a post last week.
I wrote about the California Supreme Court's decision in The Oakland Raiders v. National Football League, and how it teaches yet again that lawyers who serve on juries are going to lead those juries. Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice responds, very fairly, with a question. "In my last trial, the full panel of 45 had more than a dozen lawyers," Scott says. (Yikes.) When you stand up to voir dire that group, what do you do?
Let's strike all the lawyers?
[B]y allowing a lawyer on my jury, I must presume that I am entrusting my client's fate to one person, who will then bring the others around to his point of view regardless of whether that's his intention.
"So we resort to our own obvious lawyer prejudices in deciding who is the most evil lawyer on the panel," Scott concludes, but stereotypes aren't helpful either. "Any ideas?" he asks.
I do have ideas -- ideas I hope are helpful not just with lawyer jurors but with any potential juror, especially one who will clearly be a leader on the panel. When questions about biases and attitudes run dry, as they quickly will, you don't need to resort to stereotypes. There are two other, powerful, ways to learn about jurors' attitudes: Ask about experiences, and ask about behaviors.
1. Ask about experiences. You have attitudes. Where did they come from? They came from your experiences, from what has happened to you and what you have seen. Jurors are the same.
Our experiences shape our attitudes. Studies show it all the time. Clinical instructors in radiation therapy show more positive attitudes toward their students' evaluations if they themselves had good experiences as students. People who have been "exposed to prison," either because they've been incarcerated or they know someone who has, have less confidence in and support for social controls than do people who have been spared that experience. "People who have a close gay friend or family member are more likely to support gay marriage and they are also significantly less likely to favor allowing schools to fire gay teachers than are those with little or no personal contact with gays," a May 2007 Pew Research Center survey found.
So let's say I was on your jury panel, and you knew I'd been with the same large-ish Midwestern corporate law firm for 26 years. If you're a criminal defense lawyer, or a plaintiff's lawyer in a civil case, you could go ahead and reserve a peremptory strike for me, or you could ask more about my life -- in which case you'd learn that I'm married to a public defender and that through various friends and connections over the years I've had a good look at mental health issues, addiction, and the criminal justice system. If you asked me about civil topics, you'd learn that I've almost never made any kind of claim, and I've probably skipped lots of chances to get refunds, tax credits, and such. I've represented corporate defendants against some truly manipulative abuses of the justice system; but I've represented plaintiffs too, and co-tried a case that ended in one of the largest local verdicts a few years ago.
Do you strike me? That depends on your case and who's sitting next to me, but at least you have a sense of what you're getting.
When I work with lawyers to get ready for voir dire, we spend most of our time brainstorming experiences, listing what could possibly have happened to a juror that might resonate with the case we're working on. I've written more about that process here.
2. Ask what experiences mean. Experiences shape attitudes, but don't assume you know how they shape them. Say your panel includes a clean-cut white lawyer, male, late 30s, married, and when you ask about his experiences, you learn that his dad worked for the CIA. Don't strike him yet. He's Mark Bennett, the Houston criminal defense lawyer (and terrific blogger), and his e-mail address today ends in fightthefeds.com.
Our experiences affect us differently. Some people who lost loved ones on 9/11 emerged with hatred for all Muslims; others found themselves driven to better understand them. Some families of murder victims become fervent death penalty advocates; others become just as fervent in their opposition to the death penalty. When you learn that a juror's experience will be important to your case, then, your next question is what it means. What did he take away from that? What kind of meaning does he find in that experience? What does that experience mean to him now? You're on very personal ground here, so be respectful, but ask.
3. Ask about behaviors. The other way we display our attitudes is in the way we act. If you ask potential jurors how they feel about immigrants or companies with foreign ownership, you may get bland answers. If you ask which jurors make an effort to buy only American-made products, or if your bumper-sticker question turns up one that says "Build The Wall," you'll have learned something. Jurors who think of themselves as completely open on race issues may drive miles to avoid going through black neighborhoods.
Again, this comes from brainstorming. Make a list of all the ways that jurors might act out their perspective on your case -- donations, letters to the editor, radio call-ins, ribbons around their trees, year-round flag displays, and yes, bumper stickers -- and then ask about them, as much as you can.
Tomorrow I'll add some thoughts about techniques when lawyers end up sitting on the jury.
Other posts here on the importance of asking about experiences in voir dire include A Helpful Way To Think About Race and Tears, Pain, And History In The James Seale Voir Dire.
Is Mark Bennett "the best new legal blogger of 2007"? I'd never argue with Capital Defense Weekly, especially when it's giving out well-deserved praise.

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