Belatedly noted: Reader’s Digest gives us another generous mention (latest in a long series of such) as part of a wider project cataloguing ideas and proposals that could make the country better (Sacha Zimmerman, Reader’s Digest, posted Sept. 14). For another generous mention from the Digest, see Jun. 12, linking to an article by reporter Michael Crowley. And we’ve also been slow to link another good piece from Digest reporter Crowley, on the problems introduced by jury consultants “paid to stack the deck” (Michael Crowley, “Jury Riggers”, Apr. 2006). Sample:
A recent guide published by the Association of Trial Lawyers of America warned lawyers about jurors who may show “personal responsibility bias.” These jurors, the guide said, feel that “people must be accountable for their conduct.” Now there’s a chilling outlook! The guide advises: “The only solution is to exclude them from the jury.” That is, get rid of anyone who might actually care about seeing justice done.
One Comment
The judge and only the judge should select the jury.
No attorneys present at all!
That seems to be a somewhat sane method of jury selection.
I was requested to serve on a case once. It was basically a product liability case. Oh goody!
Well you sit around and listen to plaintiffs then defense attys while they introduce all their sob stories and basically present an outline of the case.
This case was about a 14yr old boy that got hurt on an ATV. Him, his mother and an Uncle were the plaintiffs. They were suing Honda motor, the local Honda shop, (my business client).
The defense were of course HM, local Honda shop, The boys father and his Aunt!
Guess where this was headed?
The judge then asks each prospective juror if they knew either party, I did. If they owed you any money or you owed them any money, biz relationship if you had one. I did have one, and told the judge such as well. He gave me a pretty hard time over it.
So I offered him a final verdict on the spot.
I got excused.
A friend of mine sat as a second for three weeks of this BS!
Verdict?
NO liability, the plaintiff got nothing, and neither did the atty that took the case on! I grinned! But my friend related something to me that I was for sure shocking to him, and I was having difficulty believing even.
Seems after the verdict the plaintiffs atty berated the jury members! DAT boy is lucky I was not sittin in da box! He would have gotten an ear full and hopefully such would have been it.
I have not bothered to keep tabs on the families to see if maybe some formal spousal swapping ever occurred or not, but I can only imagine how much fun life must have been.