Juror Veto and Your Shadow
This week I had the joy of going to jury duty. Oh, I know, I should be grateful. I'm not totally against it. It's the waiting and waiting and waiting in the room all day long with total strangers that bothers me. And though all you do is wait, the boredom makes you tired!
I have to thank my friend, Kim. I called her the night before and begged to borrow a book from her. She's a library! That night I picked up four books and figured I'd bring two with me to the courthouse. Not that I thought I'd read both of them, but you never know which one would tickle my fancy.
It happened to be "Angels and Demons." (Yes, as in the movie, which I never did see.) But the book was great! Easy to read and constantly moving and surprise ending too. During my "wait" in the courthouse, I read over 300 pages.
You can always tell when someone is new to the system. They don't have anything to read. Not a magazine or book or anything to do. They look around, like, "Did I miss something? Was there a bulletin for me to bring reading material?" You can bring a book, but not knitting needles. Not even the bamboo ones. Want to know why? Because they are WEAPONS! I guess one too many knitting ladies got into arguments, huh... "that's MY yarn.." "no, that's MINE!"... cripes... anyway....
Three times a large group of jurors were picked to attend cases, but I wasn't in any of them. I didn't mind. Prior to jury duty, I did some reading up about jurors and people who didn't want to be picked. I came across a couple of things I thought I'd share with you. Most likely you already know these things, so pardon my ignorance, but I thought it was interesting :)
Thing 1) Juror Nullification or Juror Veto. Jurors have a right to return a "not guilty" verdict even though the person is guilty. It can be clear as day that the person is guilty, but you aren't ruling on the person's actions. With juror veto - you are stating that you think the law is immoral or wrongly applied.
Ok, for example... let's say the case is about two people in a marijuana exchange. One person sells and the other person buys. You might think, "Marijuana should be legalized. This is an exchange between two concenting adults. Nobody is getting hurt." Though the evidence obviously shows the people are guilty, you can use Juror Nullification to "nullify" the law.
It could be used for gun control laws if you disagree with such and so forth. Now, you might think, "Really, as if someone is going to do something like that." Just remember that we have a lot of laws out there and people have the right to disagree with the law. YOU have that right. Power to the People! Woot!
So, if the judge tells you, "it is your duty to apply the law as it is given, whether you agree with the law or not.." You can question this and the right to juror veto.
Thing 2) When you sit in the juror box, did you know that your shadow could be sitting as a curious spectator in the gallery (general public section)?
Your shadow will see and hear everything that you do during the case. Your shadow will have VERY close demographics to you, but ... it's not a shadow created by light. Your shadow was hired by one of the attornies and your shadow doesn't even know which attorney!
This is how it works. When the "real" jury is picked... a psychiatrist does a profile on each jury member. The psychiatrist develops "profile" questionnaires based on the real jury and gives the questionnaires to the attorney. The attorney hires a third party to conduct the interview for a shadow juror. The interview is based on the questionnaires to best match the real juror's profile. (Yes, your shadow had to go through an interview process!)
The third party doesn't divulge which attorney is doing the hiring.
The reason a third party is involved is because the shadow juror is paid. (A heck of a lot more than the real juror, I might add!) Thus, the shadow juror has a "boss." And we all want to make our bosses, happy, don't we? So, if the shadow juror knows WHICH attorney is hiring, then the shadow juror's perception will be tainted towards the boss attorney's side.
Your shadow is paid 1/3 each week. Just like how a regular juror can get bored with the process, so can a shadow juror. The attorney needs the shadow juror to stay through the end, so it's best to pay for the previous week worked. It's incentive to stick it out. (After all, it's a lonely world if we didn't have our shadows, right?)
Of course, the shadow juror has to sign a privacy form, stating that nothing will be disclosed about the case. The shadow juror has to attend and sit in the gallery, hearing and seeing all the same evidence and arguments that the real jury is presented with.
But unlike the real jury, a shadow jury agrees to be debriefed about his/her perception and understanding of the case at the end of each day! This gives the attorney information about how the "real jury" is thinking, reacting and understanding the evidence. The shadow juror offers a "mind's eye" into the real jury. Power to the attornies - because it's like the attorney gets a gage reading on the outcome of a real jury verdict.
The attorney can't poll a real jury, but they can use a shadow jury as a surrogate for the real jury to see how the case is coming along.
So, next time you see all those extra people in the gallery, wave nicely... your shadow might wave back.
I have to thank my friend, Kim. I called her the night before and begged to borrow a book from her. She's a library! That night I picked up four books and figured I'd bring two with me to the courthouse. Not that I thought I'd read both of them, but you never know which one would tickle my fancy.
It happened to be "Angels and Demons." (Yes, as in the movie, which I never did see.) But the book was great! Easy to read and constantly moving and surprise ending too. During my "wait" in the courthouse, I read over 300 pages.
You can always tell when someone is new to the system. They don't have anything to read. Not a magazine or book or anything to do. They look around, like, "Did I miss something? Was there a bulletin for me to bring reading material?" You can bring a book, but not knitting needles. Not even the bamboo ones. Want to know why? Because they are WEAPONS! I guess one too many knitting ladies got into arguments, huh... "that's MY yarn.." "no, that's MINE!"... cripes... anyway....
Three times a large group of jurors were picked to attend cases, but I wasn't in any of them. I didn't mind. Prior to jury duty, I did some reading up about jurors and people who didn't want to be picked. I came across a couple of things I thought I'd share with you. Most likely you already know these things, so pardon my ignorance, but I thought it was interesting :)
Thing 1) Juror Nullification or Juror Veto. Jurors have a right to return a "not guilty" verdict even though the person is guilty. It can be clear as day that the person is guilty, but you aren't ruling on the person's actions. With juror veto - you are stating that you think the law is immoral or wrongly applied.
Ok, for example... let's say the case is about two people in a marijuana exchange. One person sells and the other person buys. You might think, "Marijuana should be legalized. This is an exchange between two concenting adults. Nobody is getting hurt." Though the evidence obviously shows the people are guilty, you can use Juror Nullification to "nullify" the law.
It could be used for gun control laws if you disagree with such and so forth. Now, you might think, "Really, as if someone is going to do something like that." Just remember that we have a lot of laws out there and people have the right to disagree with the law. YOU have that right. Power to the People! Woot!
So, if the judge tells you, "it is your duty to apply the law as it is given, whether you agree with the law or not.." You can question this and the right to juror veto.
Thing 2) When you sit in the juror box, did you know that your shadow could be sitting as a curious spectator in the gallery (general public section)?
Your shadow will see and hear everything that you do during the case. Your shadow will have VERY close demographics to you, but ... it's not a shadow created by light. Your shadow was hired by one of the attornies and your shadow doesn't even know which attorney!
This is how it works. When the "real" jury is picked... a psychiatrist does a profile on each jury member. The psychiatrist develops "profile" questionnaires based on the real jury and gives the questionnaires to the attorney. The attorney hires a third party to conduct the interview for a shadow juror. The interview is based on the questionnaires to best match the real juror's profile. (Yes, your shadow had to go through an interview process!)
The third party doesn't divulge which attorney is doing the hiring.
The reason a third party is involved is because the shadow juror is paid. (A heck of a lot more than the real juror, I might add!) Thus, the shadow juror has a "boss." And we all want to make our bosses, happy, don't we? So, if the shadow juror knows WHICH attorney is hiring, then the shadow juror's perception will be tainted towards the boss attorney's side.
Your shadow is paid 1/3 each week. Just like how a regular juror can get bored with the process, so can a shadow juror. The attorney needs the shadow juror to stay through the end, so it's best to pay for the previous week worked. It's incentive to stick it out. (After all, it's a lonely world if we didn't have our shadows, right?)
Of course, the shadow juror has to sign a privacy form, stating that nothing will be disclosed about the case. The shadow juror has to attend and sit in the gallery, hearing and seeing all the same evidence and arguments that the real jury is presented with.
But unlike the real jury, a shadow jury agrees to be debriefed about his/her perception and understanding of the case at the end of each day! This gives the attorney information about how the "real jury" is thinking, reacting and understanding the evidence. The shadow juror offers a "mind's eye" into the real jury. Power to the attornies - because it's like the attorney gets a gage reading on the outcome of a real jury verdict.
The attorney can't poll a real jury, but they can use a shadow jury as a surrogate for the real jury to see how the case is coming along.
So, next time you see all those extra people in the gallery, wave nicely... your shadow might wave back.
I suddenly have the urge to sing and dance to...."Me and my shadow... we're closer than pages that stick in a book... we're closer than ripples that play in a brook... strolling down the avenue... wherever you find him, you'll find me, just look." hehe
Comments
I still remember the time a prospective juror in LA was asked if he understood the presumption of innocence, fallibility of the police, etc. The gentleman replied that he always figured where there was smoke, there was fire. The judge dismissed him on the spot, didn't even make the attorneys wast a peremptory challenge.
As for the jury thing, I tell them, when ask if I have an opinion about the case, I say "Hell yes! I think he is guilty and must be given the death penalty."
"But Mr. Coffeypot, this case is about a disputed traffic violation."
"Don't care. He don't need to be on the road driving, and killing him would aliviate that threat."
Then I get to go home.
Of course, I live in a little bity po-dunk town in the middle of nowhere, so maybe that's why. I never got picked, but a friend did and she didn't say anything about having to go through an interview process or anything like that with a psychaitrist. They just kind of polled around in that first hour with everyone in the room to make sure you didn't know or were related to anyone the case involved. That was the extent of their interviews.
Oh also, I don't know about there, but here, you can be excused from Jury duty for a number of circumstances including if you absolutely know that your family can't survive missing a chunk of your paycheck, you can relate it to the judge and he can excuse you from your duties.