Eeeeeeevvvvviiill Lawyers, Stoooopid Juries

Lawyer jokes are a staple of humor going back to at least Shakespeare and perhaps even longer. So it is tempting to turn on them again when reading this:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15446658/

But is this really a “lawyer problem”? In part, yes. The legal profession is, by definition, at the center of all things, um … “legal”. Lawyers run for office and make law. Lawyers try cases. More importantly, lawyers become judges who run the mechanics of the courtroom and instruct jurors on the fine points of the law. So, yes, when we see obscenities like the one described above, the legal profession bears some of the blame. The failure of our laws to properly balance how civil law, especially, ought to be adjudicated when the plaintiff was mid-crime is simply … criminal.

But, it’s not that simple. In the end, it is jurors who hold the keys to the final findings of a court. And jurors are not doing their jobs. I had the honor to serve as jury forman in a criminal case a number of years ago. What I saw in the jury room was terrifying. A young man’s life hung in the balance yet jurors could be seen sleeping during the testimony. Some jurors had their minds made up without respect to the facts of the matter. Virtually none of them seemed interested in the “common sense” test that ought to be a bedrock for all such deliberations.

The deliberation behind closed doors was unrelentingly depressing. To be sure, most of the jury took the job seriously. They just couldn’t reason all that well. Simple, logical discussion evaded at least half of this man’s “jury of peers”. We’re not talking formal logic and modus tolens here. We’re talking about fairly direct reasoning – the kind you use to find a shortcut to work in the morning. And this was no homogenous jury either. Both genders, several races, and many portions of the age spectrum were represented among the twelve of us.

In the end, we managed to agree on a Not Guilty verdict, but only upon consideration of a legal technicality. His crime? He had “sold drugs” under duress. His former dealer had threatened to kill the defendant’s mother and break his legs if he did not procure the drugs in question. What made the case maddening was that the aforementioned dealer was working for the state at the time in order to reduce his own sentence for a prior conviction. Our defendant – having only used, but never sold drugs in the past – was pressured into becoming a dealer by our own government. And many of our fine jury didn’t see much of an issue with that.

Juries, it seems, are often stupid. This should be no surprise. Juries are drawn from a larger population that has consciously gotten dumber over the past 50 years or so. Common sense, the spirit of law, the purpose of our legal system, and the responsibility they carry in the jury room evades them. It is much more important to be dressed stylishly, in tune with the latest pop fashion, and up-to-date on the latest entertainment figures and their nauseating “artistic” output. Reasoning crisply is taught by study, contemplation, and conversation, not by trying to ascertain whether Madonna’s howlings are art, commerce, or just bad manners.

So be afraid if you ever need a jury. Be very, very afraid. Unless, of course, you’re hurt while commiting a crime … in that case, you may just hit the jury lottery.