Comments on: Polluting the jury pool

By: Gideon

Gideon — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:14:54 +0000

There’s a difference between a judge telling the jurors that the defendant had a record and a juror doing independent investigation.

The first is passive – the juror has to do nothing. The second is proactive. Also, criminal records aren’t easily available online. The juror might have to go to the police dep’t to find it. I don’t think many would bother.

As to the further “curative” instruction, that’s putting an awful lot of trust in the judge, who’s the one revealing the information in the first place.

It is unavoidable? Perhaps. Which only strengthens the need for us to be better prepared and alter our questioning keeping this in mind.

By: Gideon

Gideon — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:11:54 +0000

I think given the proliferation of news and the increased accessibility, it would be a good idea to questions jurors about not only whether they’ve served before but also whether they know anyone who has, whether they’ve read anything on jury duty, etc.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:39:09 +0000

this is a tuff one. but as far contaminating the jury pool i really think that’s putting it a little harshly. for the most part it’s public info. so if they really wanted to know there’s really no way to stop them getting that info. so to say that a judge should not share this info. is a bit of… (well i’m not sure what it is) but telling judges that they can’t fill in the details is going a bit far. in the example of the woman said… well had we known about the defendants past history… she should have been reminded that even though the defendant has rob many banks in the past he’s not on trial for those he’s only on trial for this one bank robbery. it’s your job to determine if he robbed this bank on this day and not what he has done in the past.

By: LJS

LJS — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:21:32 +0000

A number of years ago, I was a juror in a criminal case. In Mass, the sentencing can be held immediately after the verdict. After the judge thanked us for our service (and refused to say anything beyond the facts of the case), he invited anyone who was interested to the sentencing.

And yes, there was the prosecutor’s discussion of the defendant’s past. That might have affected things had it been known, on the other hand I was amused that my fellow jurors had correctly inferred that the client was “frequent flyer” because of testimony by his family about not going to the jail after he was arrested that night, and first seeing him at arraignment court the next day — which they inferred meant the family was quite familiar with what to do post arrest. (Their testimony was admitted on the issue of injuries to the client and whether he had lawfully defended himself from excessive force or whether he’d assaulted the officer during the arrest.)

I don’t like the idea of a judge commenting on anything that’s not in the record, tho I can see a judge explaining the legal rules behind certain rulings. On the other hand, an interested juror could find out all of this the next day with a quick google search if the case has gotten any press.