Federal 7th Circuit Hosts Complimentary Jury Program—Not Too Late to Participate
On this morning, the Seventh Circuit Bar Association Foundation will present “A Symposium on the American Jury: Realizing the Promise of America’s Anchoring Right.” The all-day symposium will consist of five panels, beginning with the “History and Goals of the Jury System” and covering the various stages of the jury process, including “Assembling the Venire: Issues in Calling Participants to Jury Service,” “Selecting a Fair Jury in a Divided World,” “Instructing the Jury,” and “Jury Deliberations.” Speakers will include judges, law professors, jury consultants, and other jury experts. The program begins at 9:00 a.m. (CDT). Readers in Chicago are invited to attend in person (at the Jenner & Block Conference Center, 353 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL) or online. (Recordings will also be available.) To register, email Debbie Groboski at admin@7thcircuitbar.org.
Parsing the Split Verdict in Carroll v. Trump
Richard Lempert, the Eric Stein Distinguished Professor of Law and Sociology (Emeritus) at the University of Michigan, shares his reasons as to how and why the jury in the rape trial in NYC convicted the defendant of sexual assault but not rape. On the Brookings Institution website, he starts with: “Juries have been likened to black boxes. Observers know what goes into the box (the evidence) and what emerges (the verdict), but they know little about how the jury went from the admitted evidence to the verdict. The Trump civil jury was a blacker box than most. We don’t even know who the jurors are. While windows into the box are often opened through post-trial juror interviews, at least to this point, no windows have been opened, and the judge has urged the Trump trial jurors to keep things this way.” Lempert draws on a half century of jury research about how juries deliberate and reach verdicts to surmise how these jurors tried to make a coherent story about what happened 30 years ago between two people alone in a department store dressing room.
Juror Who Caused Mistrial in Rape Case Apologizes to the Court
The Australian Associated Press reports that the juror who did private research during final deliberations in a notorious, aborted trial of a Parliament staff member has apologized to the judge. The juror admitted they had conducted their own research to "clarify a point" for themselves, specifically saying, “I brought it in to show where the clarification came from and we agreed that . . . because it was research that it shouldn't be discussed and I didn’t, we have not discussed it. . . . Can I say I give you my sincere apologies. I wasn’t aware that . . . doing this was in any sense a wrongdoing. I was just purely doing, finding out what it meant, certain words, and in case I mentioned it to the jury, I want to make sure that I wasn’t inventing anything. No one has read it, no one knows anything about it. I just thought I would mention that.” The presiding judge, Chief Justice Lucy McCallum, took steps to protect the anonymity of the juror, referring to the juror as “they” and reminding them it would be an offense to disclose the deliberations.
UK Cop Sacked for Claiming He Was on Jury Duty for Two Weeks
According to the BBC, a “well respected” police officer, who took two weeks off from work after lying about having jury service, has been fired following a misconduct hearing. The record shows he was due to sit on a jury for two weeks starting on 12 August 2022 but was stood down by the courts on 17 August. He then failed to attend a night shift on August 22. The police disciplinary report found that when he spoke to his line manager, he lied to say he attended jury service, but not that he had been stood down. He did not attend work or contact his supervisors further for the next two weeks. Clearly, honesty during voir dire is not the only time to tell the truth.
Former Juror Shares Harrowing Capital-Case-Sentencing Experience on Apple Podcast
In 2008 Sven Berger was chosen to serve as a juror in a murder trial. He says the sentence that he and his fellow jurors handed down “felt like a mistake right away.” Haunted for years by the case, Mr. Berger broke through his silence (and loneliness) and did some research. That led to his realizing he misunderstood the jury instructions—making him even more disturbed by the case. He talks about what happened thereafter in a moving podcast named “Heavyweight” on Apple Podcasts.