He has said that lawyers can «go way beyond what we're supposed to
know about jurors,» and that «It's very painless to do it.
Not exact matches
The gadfly's efforts were sparked by recent trial testimony, in which the star prosecution witness told Newark federal
jurors that Christie
knew about the politically - vindictive lane closings and did nothing to stop them.
About the
Juror: New York - based artist Mickalene Thomas is best
known for her elaborate paintings composed of rhinestones, acrylic and enamel.
About the
Juror: Helen Frederick is an internationally
known artist whose work has been exhibited at The Phillips Collection in DC, and the Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan; and is in the collections of the Whitney and Brooklyn Museums, including the Feminist Art Base, in New York, and the National Gallery of Art in DC.
Back in February, we brought you news of a new model jury instruction cautioning
jurors that tweeting
about a case was a
no -
no.
The team tracks down jury members to learn that one
juror who blogged
about the trial while on the jury, also «friended» the judge, who accepted the request, during the trial, a
no -
no to be sure:
Most lawyers want to
know as much as possible
about the
jurors on their case.
Juror education activists have been out several times already this year in Bellingham, Washington and elsewhere around the state to teach everyone
about the power
jurors have that prosecutors and judges don't want them to
know about.
Remember that
jurors got their job because they specifically do not really
know anything
about the subject matter of the case — those with extensive knowledge in the subject likely got dismissed during jury selection.
Credence plummets;
jurors no longer feel safe and confident relying upon this person for good input
about the subject matter.
In 1895, the Supreme Court ruled that
jurors had
no right, during trials, to be told
about nullification.
As you
know, courts in the US have been exercised
about jurors and even parties to litigation going online, using Twitter during trials, and so on.
But whereas rape trials may
no more be sullied by stereotypes
about victim behaviour than is the case with Saturday night GBH, race hatred, mugging, and mini-market shoplifting, the sensitive political issues surrounding the crime of rape may drive pressures for the introduction of sui generis measures aimed at removing myths from the minds of
jurors.
As can be evidenced from the transcript, the judge has specifically instructed the two
jurors working as engineers at the local tech companies that they'd have to «forget» what they
know about both the software engineering and the patent law itself, too, starting their work on the whole case with a completely clean sheet, using a very simple criteria for making decisions:
«Jury nullification» is normally practiced by individual
jurors, who
know about it.
Often everyone even
knows that the jury reached its verdict because it misunderstood the law or the facts, based upon interviews with the
jurors immediately following the trial, but nothing can be done
about that to reverse a jury verdict if a sincere jury following the instructions could have reached the same conclusion if they'd viewed the credibility of the witnesses differently.
As far as how would
juror's
know about jury nullification, they could have read
about the process before being selected for jury duty.