Time: Fri Apr 25 05:39:30 1997
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Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 05:29:14 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: NYT: I think, therefore I am not a juror (4/5/97) (fwd)
<snip>
>
>New York Times
>April 5, 1997
>Email: letters@nytimes.com
>
>I Think. Therefore I Am Not a Juror
>
> By LAURA MANSNERUS
>
> As jury selection in the Oklahoma City bombing case began in
> Denver last week, some unsolicited advice about the process of
> finding good jurors came from Philadelphia. In an old training
> videotape for young prosecutors, a man who is now running for
> district attorney urged his charges to avoid blacks from poor
> neighborhoods, and he had this additional tip: "You don't want smart
> people."
>
> Many Americans suspected as much. Some people wonder whether the
> nation's sales reps and bus drivers, however competent and sensible,
> are up to the task of deciding complex cases. Others aren't that
> generous.
>
> "The entire American legal system is upside down," the comedian
> Dennis Miller said a few years ago. "We have people's lives being
> determined by 12 people in a room whose main goal in life is to wrap
> it up and get home in time to watch reruns."
>
> Even people who find beauty in the justice wrought by ordinary
> citizens acknowledge that recent high-profile cases have been a
> public relations disaster for the jury system. "What's worth
> pondering is this boomerang effect of democracy," said Jeffrey
> Abramson, a professor at Brandeis University and author of "We, the
> Jury" (Basic Books, 1994). "The more we see of ourselves on the
> jury, the more we doubt ourselves."
>
> So it's a sour public that watches while the federal district court
> in Denver looks for the dozen people among hundreds who can best
> weigh the evidence against Timothy J. McVeigh, the man charged with
> the bombing that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City two years ago.
>
> Acknowledging the absurdity of looking for anyone who hasn't heard
> of McVeigh, the judge and the lawyers are simply probing to find out
> who has been exposed to the most prejudicial flashes of publicity --
> asking prospective jurors, for example, whether they saw the
> bleeding children at the scene, or the defendant in his prison-issue
> orange jumpsuit.
>
> If there's a principle at work here, it's not that ignorance is
> good; it's that partiality is bad. But sometimes it seems to amount
> to the same thing. If the best the system can do is use knowledge as
> a crude proxy for prejudice, doesn't ignorance then become a crude
> proxy for impartiality?
>
> "I'm of two minds about this," said Abramson. "I love that we go to
> such epic lengths for impartial jurors. But reserving one cheer, I
> think we've gone too far in this notion that the only open mind is
> an empty mind."
>
> "Too far" is sometimes an understatement. When the jury was selected
> for the 1989 trial of Oliver North, a search went out for 12 people
> who knew nothing about Oliver North, which produced, well, 12 people
> who knew nothing about Oliver North.
>
> One person who qualified for service said she had seen him on
> television, but added, "It was just like I was focusing on the Three
> Stooges or something." Another woman, who was asked what she knew
> about North, replied, "I don't know, something about overseas."
>
> And even in the vast tide of cases that present no problem with
> publicity, pretrial or otherwise, lawyers are looking for malleable
> minds. Naturally, that also screens out informed and articulate
> people.
>
> It is common wisdom that prosecutors, seeking conservative and
> conformist jurors, try to weed out analytical types. Jack McMahon,
> the would-be district attorney in Philadelphia, put it more directly
> in his 1986 videotape, now infamous for its warnings against poor
> blacks as well as smart people.
>
> "Smart people will analyze the hell out of your case," he said.
> "They have a higher standard. They take those words 'reasonable
> doubt' and they actually try to think about them. You don't want
> those people."
>
>
> "I'm not surprised that that's what they train them to do," said
> Thomas Nolan, a criminal defense lawyer in Palo Alto, Calif.
> "Prosecutors, many of them, say to the jury, 'So the evidence wasn't
> that strong, but use your common sense.' "
>
> Defense lawyers are not above using the same tactics. "In a case
> that's heavy on scientific, forensic evidence, the defense is going
> to favor people who are less sophisticated about scientific matters
> and who are prone to conspiracy theories," Abramson said. "That's
> the classic defense approach."
>
> But even before the lawyers can toss them out, people with
> responsible jobs are constantly escaping jury service.
>
> While Judge Richard P. Matsch, who is overseeing the Oklahoma City
> case, is turning out to be an exception, experts say most judges
> commonly excuse people with anything at all to do.
>
> Donald Vinson, a jury consultant based in Los Angeles, said the
> supply of available jurors is typically "pathetic." While surveys of
> jurors show that their education levels are a bit higher than the
> national average, and while many states have eliminated jury-service
> exemptions based on occupation, Vinson says he sees evidence of
> neither: "I've heard judges say: 'This is going to take 10 days. If
> any of you have anything pressing or important, I'd be willing to
> excuse you. Anybody have a dentist appointment?' "
>
> Complaints of low-energy, low-watt juries are nothing new. In
> "Roughing It," Mark Twain griped 125 years ago about the jury
> selection for a murder case in which anybody who had read the
> newspaper was disqualified. "The system rigidly excludes men of
> brains," he said.
>
> Judge Jerome Frank, one of the century's most influential legal
> scholars, was fiercely contemptuous of juries. And in a 1963 report,
> Erwin Griswold, then the dean of Harvard Law School, wrote, "Why
> should anyone think that 12 persons brought in from the street,
> selected in various ways for their lack of general ability, should
> have any special capacity for deciding controversies?"
>
> Sure, ordinary people have rendered thousands of reasonable
> verdicts, sometimes showing extraordinary judgment, since "Roughing
> It." But litigation is not what it used to be. It is much more
> complex.
>
> These days lawyers drill themselves for months on DNA analysis and
> laboratory procedures, chemical manufacturing processes and aircraft
> engineering, foreign banking statutes and securities transactions.
> Then they hire experts who have devoted years to these narrow
> channels of inquiry.
>
> In other words it's possible that if there is a problem with juries,
> it's not that jurors have gotten any dumber, but that the questions
> have gotten harder. Maybe.
>
> In his 1994 book "The Jury" (Times Books), Stephen J. Adler tells of
> an antitrust case involving the computer industry that stalled after
> three weeks of jury deliberations. The judge, questioning the
> jurors, asked one, "What is software?"
>
> The answer: "That's the paper software."
>
> Asked to define "interface," the juror said: "Well, if you take a
> blivet, turn it off one thing and drop it down, it's an interface
> change, right?"
>
> The judge asked a second juror, "What about barriers to entry?" --
> to which she answered, "I would have to read about it."
>
> The judge declared a mistrial.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>New York Times
>229 W. 43rd Street
>New York, NY 10036
>Phone: (212) 556-1234
>Fax: (212) 556-3690
>Email: letters@nytimes.com
>Web: http://www.nytimes.com
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Donations to support Laura's appeals can be made to:
> -- Laura Kriho Legal Defense Fund --
> c/o Paul Grant (defense attorney)
> Box 1272, Parker, Colo. 80134
> Email: pkgrant@ix.netcom.com
>
>
>
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