Bible Humper

Because they are "swearing to God" to "indict no person through......... favor, affection or hope of reward" as it says in the oath.

As for the second point, I agree completely. The problem though is how does one tell who can or cannot put their faith aside and follow secular laws? It would be great fun to watch some politician try to explain to them that fervent Xinanity is a sign of someone unfit to make meaningful judgements!!

Buffman

B_H

(Just a few musings)

I believe that the attorneys' "voir dire" examinations and the various "jury charges" by the judge during and at the end of the trial are designed to help exclude emotional or pre-conditioned biases from the jury box as much as is humanly possible. Unfortunately, it seems that too many attorneys have become more interested in identifying potentially sympathetic jurors rather than relying on the evidence, or lack thereof, and their personal skills and dedication to aid the jury in determining the guilt or innocence of the accused. Why else would there be jury selection professionals for hire for those few attorneys that can afford them? The fact that any selection professionals exist would seem to confirm that jurors not only carry their biases/prejudices with them into the jury box, but that these, rather than the evidence, can be tapped by the clever attorney to produce a more favorable outcome for his side. (I got a first hand exposure to this possibility inside the jury deliberation room at the conclusion of a multiple murder trial.)

Bible Humper

Thank you Buffman, interesting post. This is the first I've ever heard of jury selection professionals, and they do indeed suggest exactly what you have concluded.

Your multiple murder trial experience sounds interesting, have you posted the story?

Buffman

B-H

Nope! I have not shared it in a public forum. It would be much like attempting to accurately chronicle the "O.J." Simpson trial. However, we were only sequestered for a week of motel life...under the watchful eyes of our keepers.

Buffman

B-H

I just did a Google search on "Jury Selection Professionals" and quickly found the following:

<a href="http://www.hierosgamos.org/juryselect-serv.asp" target="_blank">http://www.hierosgamos.org/juryselect-serv.asp</a>

Bible Humper

Thanks for the link, I was envisioning someone who hands out a questionnaire and knows how to interpret it. Then I saw the guy's credentials

Buffman

I was more interested in the various organizations listed below that fellow's self-serving curriculum vitae. I suspect there a good many like him in the legal, professional experts (for big pay), game. It is the nation wide distribution of these other offces that caught my attention. I didn't take the time to check states like NY, TX, MI, OH, CO, etc. for these "advisors."

ohwilleke

I've never known anyone who has used a jury selection professional, although I know that they are out there.

The first part of jury selection is to get rid of people who just really don't want to be there. You look for excuses to get rid of them and both sides usually readily agree on it. For example, in my recent trial, we had someone who was the sole employee of a feline labor hotline who said it was prime kitten seasons (gone), a communist who said he was biased against the judicial system and property owners (gone), a Native American who said he didn't know how to read and was opposed to sitting in judgment (gone), an arthritic women who didn't understand what was going on in the courtroom and couldn't sit long (gone), and a woman who worked at the same office as my client (gone).

Once the obvious candidates are eliminated you ask questions that relate to the case. A lot of it is gut feeling. Many people just obvious are biased one way or the other on issues that matter to your case (e.g. the main issue in my case was what constitutes a reasonable time to deliver kitchen cabinets, so the cabinet makers wife and the woman who though that a six month delay to deliver things from Sears was O.K. were both promptly eliminated by one side, and the woman who said she'd explode with fury if Sears delivered a refrigerator one day late because of a severe snow storm was eliminated by the other side).

Practically speaking, the people who get left are the people you have no clear read on even after lengthy questioning. The focus is on who you think is biased against you (or anyone you are worried is just too plain dumb to understand the case -- I eliminated one bus driver for that reason, even though I kept a nineteen year old waitress and a middle aged pizza delivery guy), rather than who you think favors your case, because you can only eliminate people, not put people in. Realistically, the other side takes out anyone with a clear bias towards you.

Indeed, while I'm getting way OT here, one of the facinating things about jury selection is that it is one of the only times in life I can think of, where people are not selected because they are the smartest, or the most skilled, or the strongest, or tallest, or prettiest, or most loyal. Absence of bias isn't well corollated with any of those things.

You often don't want people who are too educated (and many have thought too much already about the issues in your case), but you also don't want someone who isn't smart enough to be convinced. You end up through the process with mushy moderate people, rather than people with clear opinions. It is really quite fun.

Buffman

Thank you. Very interesting insights...even if somewhat of an unfortunate, though evidently realistic and practical, indictment of the jury system. It would also seem to confirm that guilt or innocence is as much a game of psychological roulette as it is of evidence or the lack thereof.
It almost makes one wonder if they should select their attorney based on the number of psychology and social studies courses they have had rather than the law school from which they graduated. Short of that, I guess the total win-loss record is the only other factor worthy of consideration.

ohwilleke

I wouldn't call it a game of psychological roulette, or an indictment of the jury system. Actually it works very well. Law is a fundamentally human process and juries are supposed to be more than simple blind implementers of the law. Juries bring broad human insight and experience to issues where the law doesn't provide clear answers (e.g. "what is reasonable", "was an act really intentional", "how careful is careful", "how much is pain and suffering worth in dollars", "who is telling the truth").

The fact is that trying to apply these often vague laws to real life events always involves judgment which can be clouded by bias. The only question is whether you want to have one judge's bias infect the system over and over again, or do you want to have six or twelve people who the judge and both lawyers agree are the least biased people you can reasonably find under the circumstances decide the issue?

Juries protect us from biased judges (especially in criminal cases, where the judge is selected by the same government that is trying to put someone in jail), in a very democratic manner.

Also, studies have shown that in most cases, judges and juries reach the same conclusions anyway -- which suggests that jury decision making is not a random as one might think.

As far as what that says about lawyers, yes, you should seek out a lawyer who has more than sterile book knowledge of the law. Law is basically about disputes that people get into and about the people who resolve those issues (as often by settlement as by jury). Both settlement and a jury trial (and a trial before a judge) all involve making judgments about what people will related to and accept internally. A lawyer can't learn that in law school, but a lawyer who lacks those abilities will never be a good lawyer. Being a lawyer is different than being an engineer. One famous lawyer said that in law an ounce of experience is worth a pound of reason, and its true. The foundations of law (what words mean and how "facts" like a person's intent are preceived) are sufficiently fuzzy that reason can only take you so far.

Finally, a win loss record is a poor way to choose a lawyer, at least in a vacuum. About 90%-95% of criminal defendants end up being found guilty, so a criminal defense lawyer is always going to have a losing record. About 96% of civil defendants settle for something, so a defense lawyer in civil cases will usually end up losing. The cases that go to trial are those so close that you could flip a coin to see who wins. A lawyer who wins at trial 75-80% of the time, is probably settling every case that could have gone against him on bad terms, when he might have won a trial and done better.