Juries

Virginia May Require Jurors to Produce ID

According to the article below, a Virginia Senate Committee just approved legislation to require that jurors show identification upon request.  The bill's sponsor, Republican Sen. Mark Obenshain says that this legislation is necessary because there is the possibility that the juror could be "scamming" the system.

Virginia Pilot: Is Virginia at risk of phony jurors? Lawmaker says yes

New Law Review Article

Richard Myers II, Requiring a Jury Vote of Censure to Convict, 88 N.C. L. REV. 137 (2009).

 

ABSTRACT: This Article proposes changing the way juries (and judges) render their verdicts in criminal cases by explicitly requiring a separate finding before a defendant can be convicted: censure. Under mandatory jury censure, the criminal trial jury (or judge, if serving as fact-finder) would be required to make a specific finding of censure in addition to any factual finding required under the law before a defendant could be convicted, as opposed to the current system of a general verdict finding the defendant guilty or not guilty. In this context, censure means an explicit finding that the facts proven in the case at trial are worthy of the moral condemnation of the community. The Article explains how a simple change in the way juries are charged and instructed can force new and useful information into the light, permitting lawmakers, law enforcers, and the public to determine which laws are in accord with public sentiment. Mandated jury censure will separate the currently ambiguous general verdict of guilty or not guilty in criminal cases into more specific factual and moral findings. Acquittals will be more likely to reflect actual innocence rather than mere failure to convict, and convictions will be based on firm juror commitments regarding the factual and moral guilt of the accused. The Article also incorporates comparative law lessons from the Scottish experience with three verdicts.

Astor Appeal

Anthony Marshall who was convicted of defrauding his mother, Brooke Astor filed his appeal yesterday.  A significant portion of the appeal is based on one juror's allegations of intimidation and fear brought on by another juror.  The appeal also includes nearly 60 e-mail messages among the jurors discussing how they plan to portray the jury deliberations. 

For the most part, judges don't like investigating jury deliberations much less overturning jury verdicts based on juror misconduct. This is one reason why jurors are polled after the verdict to ensure that this is really their true decision and not one based on fear or intimidation.  If judges were to accept the buyer's remorse that some jurors feel after trial there would be no finality to verdicts, especially with well to do clients who have the means to file numerous appeals.  With that said, however, the defense has a chance if it can show that the juror in question actually communicated her fears to the court and the court took no action.

For further discussion, see the following articles:

Astor Juror Says Her Fear Dictated Vote New York Times

 

Astor Case Focuses On One Threatened Juror Wall Street Journal (blog)

 

Astor juror's threat claim is basis for appeal WCAX

 

Appeal: Astor trial juror says she felt threatened CNN

Thaler v. Haynes

In a per curiam opinion, the SCT in Thaler v. Haynes overturned the 6th Circuit's decision to grant Mr. Haynes a new trial.  In overturning the Court of Appeals, the SCT found that the lower court read too much into both Batson v. Kentucky and Snyder v. Louisiana.  The SCT went on to say that those two cases do not require a trial judge to personally observe (voir dire here was handled by two different judges) a potential juror's behavior when ruling on a peremptory challenge based on demeanor.

For other reports on this case see:

ABA Journal: Supreme Court Rules Judge Need Not See Juror Demeanor to Rule on Batson Claim

SCOTUS Blog: Clarifying Jury Selection

Jury News

AP:  Benton, Ark., day-care center that fired juror violated US law, judge decides

Spokesman Review: Idahoan Jailed Over Jury Questionnaire

Detroit Free Press: In Riddle case, race goes beyond jury

Hartford Courant:Cumbersome Jury Process Wastes Time And Money

News Sentinel: Limiting juries in an Internet age

LA Times: Weighed Down by Recession Woes, Jurors Are Becoming Disgruntled

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Man accused of intimidating Toste juror proclaims innocence

The Guardian: Juries are fair, but newspapers are not

British Government Releases Far Ranging Study on Jurors

Here is a description of the jury study released by the United Kingdom's Ministry of Justice.

The full report can be accessed here.

Are juries fair?by Cheryl Thomas, Professor at the Centre for Empirical Legal Studies at University College London, is a two-year long survey of more than 1,000 jurors at Crown Courts and a separate study of over 68,000 jury verdicts.

In the report, sensitive issues about jury decision-making have been tackled for the first time.

It reveals that:

• all-white juries do not discriminate against defendants from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds
• juries almost always reach a verdict and convict two-thirds of the time
• there are no courts where juries acquit more often than convict.

It also shows that:

• jurors want more information about how to do their job
• written instructions improve jurors’ legal understanding of cases
• some jurors use the internet to look for information about their case
• some jurors find media reports of their case difficult to ignore.

Professor Thomas said:

‘This research shows that juries in England and Wales were found to be fair, effective and efficient – and should lay to rest any lingering concerns that racially-balanced juries are needed to ensure fairness in trials with BME defendants or racial evidence.

‘But it is also clear from the research that jurors want and need better information to perform this crucial role. The study recommends that all sworn jurors be issued with written guidelines explaining what improper conduct is, including use of the internet, and how and when to report it. The study also recommends that judges consider issuing jurors with written instructions on the law to be applied in each case. Both changes will help maintain the integrity of the jury system.’

The study tackles racial discrimination, jury conviction rates, juror comprehension and improper conduct, juror use of the internet and media coverage of jury trials.

PA Allows Jurors to Take Instructions into the Jury Room

As the article below discusses, the state of Pennsylvania recently changed its court rules to allow jurors to take the judge's instructions into the jury room during deliberations.

The Times Herald:High Court Changes Jury Rules

Beginning Feb. 1, a trial judge “may permit the members of the jury to have for use during deliberations written copies of the portion of the judge’s charge on the elements of the offenses, lesser included offenses, and any defense upon which the jury has been instructed,” according to new rules set by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court...

Epithets by Juror Leads Missouri SCT to Reverse and Remand Verdict

In Fleshner v. Pepose Vision Institute, the plaintiff (Michelle Fleshner) sued her former employer, Dr. Jay Pepose for wrongful termination.  The jury ruled for Fleshner and awarded her $125,000.  However, shortly after the verdict was announced the court discovered that one of the jurors had made derogatory comments about Dr. Pepose's wife. Specifically, the juror in question referred to Mrs. Pepose as a "Jewish witch" and a "penny-pinching Jew" during deliberations. On appeal, the defendants argued that these statements demonstrate that they were denied the right to an impartial and fair jury.

The Missouri Supreme Court in siding with the defendants held that "if a juror makes statements evincing ethnic or religious bias or prejudice during jury deliberations, the parties are deprived of their right to a fair and impartial jury and equal protection of the law.”  As support for overturning the jury's verdict, the Fleshner opinion cites several supreme court decisions from other states in which verdicts were overturned because jurors during deliberations expressed racial or ethnic prejudices.  However, this view is not universal, some courts have been hesitant to police jury deliberations regardless of whether or not inappropriate comments are made.  In fact, some courts are torn over whether a juror may even testify about prejudicial racial statements made by other jurors during deliberations, see for example, United States v. Benally, 2009 WL 738393 (10th Cir. 2009).

New Law Review Articles

Boudreau, Cheryl and Matthew D. McCubbins. Competition in the courtroom: when does expert testimony improve jurors' decisions? 6 J. Empirical Legal Stud. 793-817 (2009).

Abstract: Many scholars lament the increasing complexity of jury trials and question whether the testimony of competing experts helps unsophisticated jurors to make informed decisions. In this paper, we analyze experimentally the effects that the testimony of competing experts has on 1) sophisticated versus unsophisticated subjects' decisions and 2) subjects' decisions on difficult versus easy problems. Our results demonstrate that competing expert testimony, by itself, does not help unsophisticated subjects to behave as though they are sophisticated, nor does it help subjects make comparable decisions on difficult and easy problems. When we impose additional institutions (such as penalties for lying or a threat of verification) upon the competing experts, we observe such dramatic improvements in unsophisticated subjects' decisions that the gap between their decisions and those of sophisticated subjects closes. We find similar results when the competing experts exchange reasons for why their statements may be correct. However, these additional institutions and the experts' exchange of reasons are much less effective at closing the gap between subjects' decisions on difficult versus easy problems.

Cunningham, Mark D., Jon R. Sorensen and Thomas J. Reidy. Capital jury decision-making: the limitations of predictions of future violence. 15 Psychol. Pub. Pol'y & L. 233-256 (2009)

Abstract: The U.S. Supreme Court in Jurek v. Texas (1976) affirmed that capital juries are able to identify those capital offenders who will commit serious violence in the future. The capability of capital juries to accurately make these judgments as a means of deciding which capital offenders should receive the death penalty has been widely endorsed in both statute and case law, as well as embraced by jurors. A growing body of research on rates and correlates of prison violence, however, points to this confidence being misplaced. Prior investigations of the accuracy of these capital jury predictions, though limited in number, have found alarming error rates. The current study retrospectively reviewed the post-trial (M = 5.7 years) prison disciplinary misconduct of federal capital offenders (N = 72) for whom juries considered "future dangerousness" as an aggravating factor at sentencing. These jurors' predictive performance was no better than random guesses, with high error (false positive) rates, regardless of the severity of the anticipated violence. In light of prior studies, it is concluded that juror predictions of future violence lack sufficient reliability to play a role in death penalty determinations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved

New Jury Legislation Introduced in Massachusetts

As the article below highlights, Massachusetts is looking for ways to modernize its jury process.

State House News Service: Bills on the move to modernize juror summons process

Citing potential savings in the tens of thousands of dollars, the state’s jury commissioner says a pair of bills advancing in the House would help modernize the way the state interacts with prospective jurors...to continue reading go here.