When I was on a jury, we were only allowed to interact with the clerk and the only questions we were allowed to ask was to either have part of the case transcript read back to us or ask a general question that was answered relevant to what was presented. And everything has to be in writing.
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I’m going to be super pedantic here and note that many jury trials are in fact civil, not criminal, and are not about “justice” but rather settling disputes. I was part of a voir dire for a civil case just last week. (I wasn’t selected, but i did receive a check today for $11.60. The system works!)
ETA sorry @Mindysan33 that was supposed to be a general reply, not specifically to you.
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That’s still part of the broader category of “justice” I’d argue. Especially since access to civil courts are just as if not more difficult for people with less means.
But plenty of things could be run via a civil court rather than a criminal court. We tend to use criminal courts like a hammer against the poor and POC.
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Ugh, yeah, basic jury reform needs to include minimum wage for jurors. Jury duty is a short term form of slavery - which sounds like an exaggeration, but but I think it is actually true. You have to show up for jury duty upon pain of imprisonment. You don’t get paid. And it can last for months of unpaid labor.
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I was on a grand jury a couple years ago and there were few times when someone in the jury would admit that they had some previous knowledge of someone involved in a case. But they were simply asked if they thought that they could still deliberate impartially and the answer was always ‘yes’ and we moved on. But in a case like this, when someone learns something through an internet search that was not presented in court, it’s assumed that they can no longer deliberate impartially. The degrees to which a juror has information not tailored and presented by lawyers seem similar to me. Sure, grand juries are more relaxed than trial; they are allowed to ask questions and open new avenues of investigation, but still, the difference in how people are trusted to compartmentalize their knowledge and make rational decisions in spite of some particular nugget of knowledge is interesting.
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you missed my point.
You say that jury trials give cover to systemic racism. But seeing judges, instead of juries, carrying out racism won’t result in people seeing systemic issues, it will result it the same “few bad apples” argument we see with cops.
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do serve on juries and do engage in jury nullification.
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IANAL also, but i thought there were no restrictions of jury nullification, as it is not an ‘official’ procedure regulated by the law.
I don’t see the jury service as the same as the others systems that require our compliance to say that things are working as the people want, because there is always an option to consider the defendant non-guilty to refuse to incarcerate another person, unlike elections with two very similar and awful candidates, where even if you don’t participate, someone else’s vote is enough to elect a candidate.
Brazil uses juries only for some crimes (murder, abortion, suicide instigation), but if i were called to serve on an abortion case, i would not excuse myself and just vote not guilty, even knowing that our justice system is completely broken, because the alternative is to let someone else be able to convict a woman due a horrible law.
It’s probably too utopian and naïve, but i think that jury nullification is a great tool to stop the mass incarcerations from inside the system.
Get enough people to signal that they would not excuse themselves and work actively to nullify the juries in drug and other petty crimes so the defendants don’t have to take a plea deal, and when the case goes to jury, refuse to convict them.
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How much does that ACTUALLY happen though. Anyone who expresses any skepticism of the system is likely going to be kicked off the jury by the prosecutor.
And how far are you going to get to actually serving on that jury if you express opposition to abortion restrictions? Will you lie under oath when asked about it? Because that’s breaking the law.
it is but far too many people aren’t familiar with it. And it’s been used endlessly to ensure that white people never serve time for crimes that they commit including murder.
It’s not just up to the juror, though. The prosecutor and defense attorney get a say in who is on the jury.
We need sweeping reforms if we want actual justice.
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Unfortunately not enough.
An unjust law (and system) doesn’t deserve any respect, and it is morally right to break them, even if it involves hiding the skepticism of the system and telling the prosecutor what they want to hear, because we don’t have to accept unfair rules just because someone said so.
If jurors take some precautions (not like the one in this topic), it is very unlikely that they could be prosecuted by not following the intention of the laws, even if they commit perjury to not be excluded.
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What’s more complicit with the system, getting on a jury and voting to acquit when you think injustice is done, or staying home and letting someone else take your seat?
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Everyone forgets how that saying actually goes…
ETA: LoDoBe beat me to it
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Here’s an interesting article on why it’s problematic when a jury is exposed to information outside of what is introduced in open court (even if it comes from one of the jurors). It’s a long one, but the introduction should suffice.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1106189
Here is the crux:
“Especially today, in an evidentiary system remade to require greater scrutiny of expert testimony, courts must be aware of the possibility that jurors will inject unexamined expertise into deliberations, thus subverting the adversarial model of proof we depend on for decisional accuracy and legitimacy.”
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I can get onboard with that.
So if the prosecution’s case relies on water boiling at 75 degrees and someone on the jury knows that’s not true, then it’s okay to get an acquittal. But if no one of the jury knows if that’s true, and they decide to look it up, then that’s a mistrial and an $11k fine?
I get that juries doing their own research has problems, but sometimes facts are facts and the jury should have a mechanism to have access to those facts.
But in American justice juries are there to adjudicate a boxing match between lawyers, not to find the truth or serve justice.
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There is an altitude (near the peak of Mt. Everest) at which that would be true (at least if measuring in Celsius), but I digress.
The failure to challenge that assertion on the part of the defense would be the real problem there, and would probably result in mistrial no matter how the juror came to know the boiling point of water.
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But that failure to challenge is exactly what I said, it’s a boxing match between lawyers. It doesn’t matter what’s true. And if the jurors find a poor person who got a bad lawyer guilty because they were misled about a basic fact there will be no mistrial.
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If a juror introduces new information in that way, then the jury is tainted and, if the juror’s revelation comes to light (ETA: I see now that you are assuming that it does not come to light, and you are correct, there will be no mistrial in that case), that is grounds for a mistrial. See the article that I posted above.
ETA: Imagine it the other way around. What if a juror knows (or is sure that he/she knows) something that helps the prosecution’s case. He/she convinces the jury that his/her knowledge supersedes what has been presented in open court, and so the jury convicts based on that. Because jury deliberations happen behind closed doors, the defense never hears about it and never gets a chance to challenge what one of the jurors was certain was a “basic fact.” As I said before, the boiling point of water varies depending on atmospheric pressure, so basic facts are not so cut and dry as one might think.
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When I served on the jury in a marijuana case, I walked a very fine line. In voir dire, the prosecution asked if I’d be able to convict if the evidence was clear, and honestly I would not ever send anyone to prison for a dime bag of weed. I don’t recall my answer exactly, but it was weasel-worded bullshit to avoid an outright lie without saying anything to be excluded either. (Still unsure whether it was the moral thing to do; case ended in mistrial due to a hung jury).
The honest answer would have been to say that I think that our drug laws are total bullshit and that in a working system not wanting to enforce an immoral law should not be disqualifying for a juror
Yes. That is my experience. And unlike in real boxing where both fighters are from the same weight class, in criminal trials its usually a very unfair fight the jury is asked to judge
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Therefore, we need the best people we can get on the juries, people who are good at critical thinking, have a good education, are willing to examine evidence and testimony from all angles and do the best they can. Leaving those duties to people who are “too stupid to get out of serving” guarantees worse results all around. (People with less education are more likely to be conservative, are more impressed by hierarchies and uniforms, etc.)
The thing about insisting on sweeping reforms is that they usually end up in a clusterfuck-the whole French Revolution lasted about 4 years and ended up with the monarchy restored. That guillotine some are so fond of was used just as much on the revolution’s founders as it was on its enemies.
Not to drift too far off topic, there are only three duties our society asks of us: pay our taxes, vote, and jury duty. It behooves us to participate.
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