> do you have confidence that 12 people chosen at random will reach the same interpretation you do?
The first time I sat on a jury, all of my idealism about juries went out the window.
The first time I sat on a jury, all of my idealism about juries went out the window.
The (very serious criminal case) jury I was on was encouraged to report anything like that to the bailiff, who would relay it to the judge.
There's no avoiding defenestration.
For what it's worth, I probably could have wriggled out of jury service on medical grounds but made sure to do the opposite.
There are some people - oftentimes very literate people - that mistake having no opinion for being stupid. It's very far from that. Oftentimes being neutral and keeping your mouth shut is the smartest thing you can do. There's frequently a popular image of someone who is smart as someone who is very quick to form judgments and articulate them with little information; this can be a useful skill in certain situations but is the opposite of what our legal system wants in a juror.
Having a degree is not an attribute that you can be dismissed "for cause" for, and the attorneys have a limited number of preremptory challenges available. At least in my area, where > 50% have college degrees, if they tried to strike everyone with a college degree they wouldn't have a jury pool left.
They're selecting for neutrality. What both lawyers and the judge all want to see is someone who doesn't have an opinion on the case before it begins. That neutrality could be a product of them being easily swayed by arguments, or it could be someone who is coldly logical and makes a decision purely based on the evidence presented.
I watched about 65 people get dismissed, and what they all had in common was they were visibly emotional before the trial had even begun. That is what gets you dismissed. Meanwhile, about half the folks in the jury box didn't even realize that the fact that we were still sitting in the jury box meant we would probably be serving on the jury, we were still like "Oh, I'm probably going to get dismissed because I'm X kind of person and the lawyers aren't going to want X kind of person." If you can think of it that dispassionately, you are the type of person the lawyers want.
The person was the oldest or second oldest in the room. I don't think that was a coincidence.
(I was definitely not the oldest in the room - I think I was like the 2nd or 3rd youngest.)
May I ask in which state?
In every state I've been on a jury, the foreman was chosen by the other jurors.
The person was the oldest or second oldest in the room. I don't think that was a coincidence.
This was never the case in any of the juries I was on.
Reminds of it's stance on insanity defense (it's 1 of 5 states where prosecutors have to prove the defendant was sane).
How do you know this, when in the previous sentence you admitted:
I have never been called for jury duty
I've been on juries three times so far. The lawyers absolutely did not filter for people who could likely be swayed.
Or perhaps you confused "people who are likely to be swayed" with "people who have an open mind."
You will feel like an intellectual titan.