CT jury selection takes longest: Why it is not a bad thing
A report [.pdf] released today by the National Center for State Courts and the State Justice Institute (both located in VA) has found that Connecticut takes the longest to pick juries for trials. According to the survey, CT (on average) takes 10 hours to pick a jury for a serious criminal trial and 16 hours for a civil trial. The next longest period is 5 hours for a serious criminal trial and that distinction to belongs to New York. The shortest time is half an hour (!!!!) and that dubious distinction belongs to South Carolina. Here’s the full table [excel file]
The NPR story I heard this morning said CT had the “dubious distinction” and this news story says “the wheels of justice…appear to move slower than any other state”.
Umm….what are you people smoking? Ten hours to pick a jury for a serious felony trial is too long? Please take away my license if I ever pick a felony jury in half an hour. Please. The more time you spend picking a jury, the better idea you get of the juror and whether you want that juror serving or not. I simply cannot see how or why this would be a bad thing.
Connecticut seems to be the only state that conducts voire dire on an individual basis. I like that. I like having the juror one-on-one, where I can take my time and ask them personalized questions. The system where they are all asked the same questions at the same time seems a bit…well, rushed.
Here’s another interesting find: In South Carolina, the judge asks most of the questions during voire dire and Connecticut is again at the other end of the spectrum, with the attorneys doing most of the questioning. Here’s the rest of that table [excel]
Sorry, I gotta say I’m pretty darn glad with these results. Keep up the good work, Connecticut.
PS: The report itself does not make any statements about what is good and what is bad; it merely reports the data. The data is fascinating, so give it a read. There’s much more than what I’ve touched upon here – how many jurors can take notes, how many do take notes, mean ratings of evidentiary complexity, mean deliberation time. When I’ve had more time this evening to read through the report in detail, I might add to this post.
What percentage of cases go to jury trial? And how does that compare to other states? If Connecticut is an outlier because it devotes twice the resources to give defendants a fair trial, it is a Good Thing (although of course those are resources not used elsewhere, etc, etc), but if it is an outlier because it devotes twice the resources to a handful of cases, then it’s a Bad Thing. The survey doesn’t address the question, although it certainly ought to have.
Given that, in some states, defendants are under tremendous pressure to waive their constitutional right to a jury trial, it seems likely (on the face of it), that Connecticut’s luxurious system is, in fact, depriving many defendants of a speedy trial by a jury of their peers. I don’t know if that is truly the case, but it is worrisome.
Thanks,
-V.
I do not have those statistics off-hand, but if my memory serves me right, the national average is that about 4-7% of cases go to trial. I’d also be willing to bet that CT is within that national average (as is SC).
So all states are devoting similar percentages of resources to jury trials.
I think you’re making the erroneous assumption that no one in CT is under pressure to plead guilty. The same pressure exists everywhere. However, when selecting a jury – the very people that will decide whether to deprive an individual of liberty, the more time we spend effectively choosing the right people, the better it is.
I noted SC takes 30 minutes on average. On average, that is barely enough time to get to know the names of each juror and ask basic biographical information. In Connecticut, you question each juror individually and get to ask them detailed questions about their biases, their preferences, their openness. That is what serves us all better, in my opinion.
I also don’t think calling Connecticut’s system “luxurious” is appropriate. I don’t think anything associated with a criminal trial is “luxurious”. “Appropriate” might be a better word.
Now that’s not to say that the average may have been pushed upward due to some cases where the attorneys are incredibly slow; but my basic point is more time > less time spent picking a jury.
More time is better than less time, sure, just like a Mercedes is better than a Yugo. Well, no, you are right, there’s no Mercedes here, but like a Buick is better than a Yugo. But it does not come without cost. I would like to believe that Connecticut’s system is paid for by simply allotting more resources from our comparatively affluent state; certainly we can afford a Buick. But the pressure to waive a jury trial (not just to plead guilty) is increased by the time a jury trial takes, by the limited amount of jurors (because of course the longer time ‘uses up’ more jurors, particularly in a state with one-day-or-one-trial) or other resources… well, my point is that it isn’t free.
My point of view is shaded by the experience of a friend who went through the system for a year in another state, and eventually was willing to waive his right to a jury trial in order to shorten his ordeal, and had the charges against him dismissed by the judge. So, happy ending and all, other than the year-long ordeal and the expense and so on. But his experience led him to believe that most defendants are under tremendous pressure to waive their right to a jury trial, simply because the system is not set up to provide jurors for more than 1 out of a hundred defendants. In his somewhat resource-based view of the system, which has largely influenced mine, Connecticut’s “appropriate” time spent selecting jurors may come at an inappropriate cost.
Myself, I don’t know. I want to believe that we are (mostly) giving defendants their Constitutional rights, and that the system isn’t set up to thwart them. But I can’t, quite.
Thanks,
-V.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “cost”, then. If you are referring to financial cost, then I’d have to disagree. I don’t think any cost is too great to ensure that all defendants receive fair trials by unbiased jurors.
As far as having to wait a while to get a jury trial; sure that’s the process, but I don’t think many defendants would complain that they want an immediate trial and that their trials were held up for lack of jurors. More often than not the trials aren’t held immediately for reasons of investigation, pre-trial negotiation, discovery, etc. A lack of jurors is hardly a concern.
Most defendants feel “pressure” to waive their Constitutional rights and plead guilty because they are all too aware that the sentence meted out after trial is almost invariably greater than the sentence they would receive via a plea agreement. The state holds that over them (in fact, the most common threat is “We’ll go to trial and you’ll get the maximum”) and wields that sword effectively.
If you want a trial, you’ll get one within a reasonable time period. The speedy trial act was enacted for that purpose.
I am biased. I have had very little experience with jury selection that didn’t include individual voir dire. I love being able to talk with jurors one on one. I’m so spoiled by it that I cannot imagine how anyone can pick a fair jury any other way. My concern is this – if you’ve heard the 6 people before you say they understand they have to be fair and impartial and that they can put aside whatever personal experiences they’ve had to do that, how many people are going to admit that they might not be able to do that? It’s very different when the only people listening are counsel, the defendant, and a judge, and you don’t necessarily know the “right” or popular response. The examples go on and on…
But I do see V’s point about pressure to waive a jury trial due to the length of time it can take. However, in my experience, I have not seen or heard about any pressure because a jury was unavailable (which isn’t to say it doesn’t happen). I have seen pressure, however, where the defendant has hired private counsel, who charges by the day. Then, if the attorney charges X dollars for each day of trial, and jury selection will take an extra 2-4 days (or shorter or longer, depending on the charges), the client is in the unfortunate position of weighing his/her right to a jury trial with however much extra money it will cost him or her. I, for one, hate to see any client waive a jury (or the whole trial, for that matter) because he/she can’t afford it, but I don’t think the jury selection process in CT causes this problem as much as the way we allow attorneys to charge clients, which may be unavoidable anyway.
Overall, I don’t see that the selection process has created any great or notable burden on our system, and I think it essential to ensuring that the people deciding the case are appropriate jurors for that particular case.
One more thing (and maybe those experienced in a group selection setting can offer a response):
In CT, jurors are advised even during the voir dire process not to discuss their feelings about the case, who they may know and how, etc. with the other venirepersons. The idea behind this, of course, is that the court should get all of this information privately, so no other potential juror is swayed or affected by what is said. For example, does the rest of the panel need to know I go to church with the victim? Or that I heard on the news that the defendant was out on parole when the crime was committed? Or that I have personal experience with sexual assault and feel that the crime is so terrifying and horrible that I can’t judge the defendant fairly? I could go on and on…
How does this work in a group setting?