r/law • u/bendubberley_ • 15h ago

Legal News The judge in the Lindsay Clancy case is admonishing jurors who are refusing to follow his instructions

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u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO 14h ago

I'm no great supporter of jury trials, but at some point you have to accept that the citizens you have placed this responsibility on have made their decisions.

567

u/Fun_Trip_Travel 14h ago

I’ve been on a jury. Half of the folks I saw were dumber than me. And I’m pretty dumb myself.

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u/choicemad 14h ago

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u/bearbrannan 14h ago

I feel this in my soul

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u/Borgmaster 13h ago

I dont think ive ever seen truer words. A lot of us wont claim to be geniuses but its scary how many people I see that are straight up drinking mercury and calling it a cure levels of brain dead.

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u/IAMA_Ghost_Boo 7h ago

My new life poster

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u/BlazingSapphire1 14h ago

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u/TheKyleDunbar 12h ago

This has been my motto for very long time

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u/Ok_Drummer6282 12h ago

100% of people think they are in the "above average" category of smartness 

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u/VelvetOverload 10h ago

Ur so smart

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u/_gonesurfing_ 12h ago

It should be “median person” as there’s some really dumb people out there pulling down the average.

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u/Popular-Row4333 10h ago

Yeah, but a comedians job is to translate the joke to land as best as possible.

Average lands with more people, and also flows better than median as far as the structure goes.

Jokes aren't meant to hold up as quotes, although they often do.

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u/Glitter_Penis 12h ago

Thank you, I think of this every time I see that quote posted…

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u/AnticPosition 11h ago

And every time, somebody points out that it's likely a normal distribution, so median = mean. 

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u/determania 9h ago

Well, rest easy knowing that median IS a form of average. Average is just a description of the central tendency of a data set. It does not necessarily have to be the mean. Calling mean, mode, and median all averages is perfectly cromulent.

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u/LaunchTransient 11h ago

IQ is fitted to a normal distribution, and in a normal distribution mean, median and mode are all the same value - the average, whichever average you choose, is the same.

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u/Glitter_Penis 11h ago

The quote refers to intelligence as a general construct, not a specific operationalization like an IQ score

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u/determania 9h ago

The median is an average, though. So are mean and mode. No one measure has a monopoly on the term.

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u/iuseemojionreddit 41m ago

no need to be mean.

0

u/BillyCromag 11h ago

But then only a few people would understand the statement

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u/Only_Bee_3056 4h ago

Shouldn't it be the mean person ?

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u/Lepelotonfromager 3h ago

I live by this quote. The average person is genuinely just an idiot.

You see videos where people in America are asked to name a country beginning with U, and while I understand they select the worst responses for comedic effect, there should simply not be 10+ people getting it wrong. Especially considering it looks like they film these segments in an afternoon.

There's just too MANY of these stupid people.

0

u/KaLeMoJe 13h ago edited 13h ago

Is this a self-referential/meta joke? If so, that's hilarious

35

u/P0Rt1ng4Duty 14h ago

Yes but you're smart enough to realize that so I'd say you're well above average.

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u/AbueloOdin 14h ago

Fuck. ...

Oh. Oh fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!!!!

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u/KgMonstah 13h ago

Well that certainly illustrates the diversity of the word.

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u/richardcraniumIII 7h ago

It's a verb, a noun. That's all I remember about sentence structure. What were we talking about?

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u/Radioactiveglowup 14h ago

This is by design. I was on Jury selection once for a violent criminal case. Both sides immediately went out of their way to remove anyone who had experience, education or knowledge on: Law. History. Sociology. Engineering and Hard Sciences. Questions for the pool were based around quite a bit of that, along with things such as 'Have you ever handled a firearm'.

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u/Rock_Creek_Snark 13h ago

Questions for the pool were based around quite a bit of that, along with things such as 'Have you ever handled a firearm'.

Questions invariably relate to the facts of the case. I served on a jury. The defendant was accused of stabbing another person for $50 to buy crack. We were asked if we had ever been the victim of a stabbing, were closely related to someone who had been the victim of a stabbing, etc.

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u/MerelyMortalModeling 12h ago

My wife got was in jury pool and got picked for 3 cases one after the other. In all three cases she answered that she had "some law study at college level" and in all three she was eliminated from the juries.

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u/xavPa-64 11h ago

One line from King of the Hill that lives rent free in my head is Peggy Hill lamenting that her IQ is “average” because “average is so low”

2

u/Typical_Response6444 13h ago

I hated my experience on a jury, I hope to never do it again

0

u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO 13h ago

I'm glad I'm exempt.

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u/Relicc5 13h ago

Heard this all the time growing up… “Why would I leave my fate up to people that are not smart enough to get out of jury duty?”

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u/Doxun 12h ago

To be honest this has always struck me as a dumb, cynical joke. As if a smart person couldn't be motivated to participate by values like duty or justice, or even curiosity.

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u/mcb89 11h ago

Who picks the jurors? The defendants attorney right?

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u/beetnemesis 10h ago

Both sides need to agree

1

u/WrongdoerRelative896 9h ago

 If you are of exactly average intelligence then it is likely half of them would be less intelligent then you.

1

u/zberry7 8h ago

Someone who can admit when they don’t know something isn’t dumb imo

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u/Sad_Mouse_8251 14h ago

There are a huge number of innocent people who have been convicted because the situation is too complex or nuanced for a jury to understand, and they understood that (or were pushed by their lawyer) and ended up taking the plea deal for probation, but they still live with a false conviction. Dumb juries are an unethical/incompetent prosecutors dream. Dumb juries are more common than not. They are selected because of their ignorance or likelihood to agree with the state. Yes I understand voir doir, I'm talking about how things actually work in xyz county you've never heard of.

Its happened to me. I was innocent, the DA was extremely aggressive. My plea deal went from 7 years of prison to 1 year of probation. My decision was 1 year of probation vs. a jury trial and potentially 7 years (or more) if I didn't just take the plea deal. My lawyer said I had a 90% chance the jury would acquit me, but the 10% was a huge gamble, and I may just happen to get a jury who will convict me either way depending on voir doir. Years of my life, away from my young kids, ending my career, or 1 year of probation. What choice would you make? Bear in mind I was innocent the entire time.

The fairy tale of proving your innocence is rare. Its more like you are punished unless you have concrete evidence of you innocence. It's the opposite of how justice is actually supposed to work.

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u/JooseTheGuice 12h ago

An incredibly similar thing happened to me and I was forced to make a very similar choice. Sending you love, it's fuckin rough. I've literally lost housing and jobs over some shit I didn't do.

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u/Sad_Mouse_8251 11h ago

My hope is that the whole criminal justice system gets reformed, top to bottom. Starting with prosecutorial misconduct. Literally I want to take down the system and hold everyone accountable.

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u/BangBangTheBoogie 10h ago

It should also be noted that judges are given tremendous leeway on how they run their courts, and outside of public trials can often wield that to whatever bias they may have. Then there is the cooperative relationship with Law Enforcement, even when the LEOs have a history of fabrication or overreach. Every personal account I've had or heard of had the judge unquestioningly taking police testimony as undisputed fact, and relaying to their jury that they are not allowed to question such facts, even if there is good reason to question it.

I don't know if it's for expediency or just precedence, but actual justice is woefully rare in our courts. I understand that practicing law is a complex thing, but I also think it's fairly safe to say that corruption is present and prominent in our courts, and that this dogma of "do not question me or the facts presented" does nothing to ensure consistency or prevent corrupt/apathetic enforcement of said laws.

And all of THAT is still predicated on the laws actually being sound in their intent, which is extremely doubtful given the situations we find ourselves in.

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u/PeppermintEvilButler 13h ago

They want idiot jurors. If you sound competent or intelligent they will dismiss you. Lawyers want you confused so that either the other side is forced to cut a deal or can assure it will end up in a hung jury. Over half of the citizens of America cannot read beyond a 5th grade level. Now take half of those and understand that they don't come close to understanding any words beyond a kindergarten level. The majority of the population is beyond stupid, more stupid than you can comprehend because usually those morons don't make appearances online because they are busy at their local spot with the other morons complaining about things that could be answered with a 10 second internet search. 

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u/NewEnglandHeresy 10h ago

I'm a trial attorney, and you, like most people on this subreddit since moderation became lax, are talking profoundly out of your ass. No. We don't want a jury full of idiots. We can accept some, but that's not a strategy the way you seem to think it is. Also—I can say this because this is anonymous and therefore not a representation of skill—I have never had a jury return a verdict against any of my clients.

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u/richardcraniumIII 7h ago

I was super lucky to have jury duty on a criminal case of Cops vs Bad Guy. This was in the early 90s before the internet exploded. Twelve people of different ages, sex, and races. We deliberated with serious intent. We all agreed that the cops lied. Trust me that we took everything seriously. We got trashed in the newspapers for our decision. To this day, I believe we decided correctly. I would like to believe that jurors can be fair, no matter the intelligence level.

-1

u/sorator 9h ago

I have never had a jury return a verdict against any of my clients.

Did you mean to type "guilty verdict"?

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u/SoCalDan 12h ago

Oh I don't know about that. Most Americans are required to get past the fifth grade and definitely past kinniegarden.

This isn't the dark ages.

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u/PeppermintEvilButler 8h ago

When I was in college 20+ yrs ago I worked at a mall, across from my store was one of those Claire's type stores with a manager who when she saw me reading a book said proudly she never reads and didn't read the books in highschool either. There was this thing called Cliff's Notes back then and now the internet. There are a lot more idiots than you can imagine 

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u/optio_____espacio___ 2h ago

Were there long term consequences of that year on probation?

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u/GrabExternal8807 9h ago

So what did you do?

Edit: to be clear I'm joking and maybe that wasn't appropriate. Genuinely sorry you went through that 

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u/Ok-Store 4h ago

What were you accused of, if you don't mind me asking? Curious why the DA thought it was worth his time to nail you.

0

u/Doxun 12h ago

Was a bench trial not an option? A judge isn't going to be dumb or ignorant of the law.

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u/friend_jp 11h ago

No, but they’re still human.

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u/jellobowlshifter 6h ago

> Dumb juries are an unethical/incompetent prosecutors dream

No, dumb juries are the exact one and only reason that the defense would ever choose a jury trial.

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u/Ohitsworkingnow 13h ago

But you’re not supposed to prove your innocence? Why does it end up like this. How could the prosecution have any evidence against you if you were innocent.. 

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u/Sad_Mouse_8251 12h ago

When you have a mentally ill person making claims against you, it's not that easy. Unless you have $20,000 in trial lawyer cash to give away.

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u/Gunsensual 13h ago

Extenuating circumstances like tampering aside, if judges can second guess the jury's verdict, then there is no point in having a jury. A jury isn't a FISA court, it doesn't have to stamp anything put before it.

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u/vapordaveremix 12h ago

The founding fathers wanted jury trials specifically to stop corruption and government overreach that could be imposed on the populace from justices on the bench.

You want people to go back and forth for days deciding your fate. You want multiple points of view. You want multiple interpretations. You want argumentation until the jury can finally come to a decision. That is a feature not a bug.

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u/hesh582 8h ago

A bit, but also let's be real here: the founding fathers wanted jury trials because that was the english common law system they were used to and they didn't have a reference point for anything else. Inertia was responsible as much as political theory.

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u/veodin 21m ago

I don't think it was really inertia. Obviously they did inherit the system, and familiarity would of course make it a lot easier to keep, but it was still a hotly debated topic. They were well aware of alternative European civil law systems. Hamilton was fairly cold on the idea of juries being a right which is partly why jury trials for civil cases did not become a right until the 7th amendment. The founders were split on the idea.

Part of the American love for the jury trial was because a judge appointed by the British crown answered to the British Empire. A colonial jury was made up of local people and was therefore seen as independent. The British routed many colonial cases to juryless vice-admiralty courts. These were intensely unpopular and are partly why the US being deprived of the benefits of trial by jury is listed as a grievance in the declaration of independence. So the idea of a trail by jury became seen as important check on judges and government and a foundational element of liberty.

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u/JobInQueue 14h ago

That's not exactly true, though. Yes, if a juror is staying mum and not sharing their reasoning, at some point the system just has to accept their conclusion. But if, say, an angry old Trump supporter is vocally sharing how he is disregarding the judge's guidance because he just knows better, then that admission has to be listened to, and it's the foreperson's job to raise it.

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u/GFEIsaac 14h ago

What is your alternative to jury trial?

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u/Canotic 14h ago

Lots of places don't have "jury by peer" trials. Here we have a judge (sometimes a few assistant judges, iirc) and a sort of professional jury, which is composed of laymen who get some education on procedure and are politically appointed in proportion to how much votes the local political parties got.

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u/Harrythehobbit 13h ago

That's just having bench trials with extra steps.

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u/hesh582 8h ago

It has a crucial difference from a bench trial: there isn't a single point of failure.

One of the biggest flaws of a bench trial is a single person making the final decision.

Most non-common-law countries use some form of tribunal or panel, at least for serious cases, and that's what the professional jury is meant to accomplish. Bench trials US-style put too much power in the hands of one person if a serious sentence is on the line.

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u/Canotic 13h ago

Difference is we vet our jurors and they get experience since they do lots of trials. It's their job. We don't get new ones for every trial.

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u/Harrythehobbit 13h ago

Politically appointed professional jury members goes against the basic concept of a jury. They wouod be as much a part of the judicial system as the judge is.

People who you think are unqualified morons need to be eligible for jury service for same reason they need to be allowed to vote. Democracy is the equal distribution of state power between all members of a society. That means all members, not just the ones that are found qualified or deserving or even sane.

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u/Canotic 13h ago

They're politically appointed random people. They're not lawyers, they have day jobs as well. They're politically appointed so that the jury will match the political power distribution of the last election. Remember that we have eight parties, not two, so it's a bit more nuanced.

You're imagining some political appointee who will vote as the party decides. The real situation is Jim the grocer and Jane the school teacher who get a day off a week to go to court.

0

u/GFEIsaac 13h ago

DIfference is you do away with the "reasonable person"

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u/Canotic 12h ago

No their job is literally to be the reasonable person.

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u/West-Western-8998 13h ago

I cannot even imagine everything being a bench trial. People would be up in arms-the educated judging the mostly uneducated.

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u/GFEIsaac 13h ago

Basically what is happening in the UK now

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u/vapordaveremix 12h ago

Sorry but that sounds like an awful system. Politically appointed professional juries sounds like a great method of corruption.

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u/hesh582 8h ago

They're really not describing the german system very well. There's more to it than that, and it's not "party bosses pick the jurors for ideological commitment" at all even if that's what that person made it sound like.

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u/Physical-Builder-553 14h ago

Coin flip. Or maybe way more vetting than taking some random voter?

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u/hoserb2k 13h ago

Many systems (including the US for some crimes) do trial by judge or semi-professional jury.

0

u/GFEIsaac 13h ago

That is trial by State, not trial by peers. Our whole system was built on being skeptical of State power.

1

u/PeppermintEvilButler 13h ago

Combat by trial

1

u/Senior-Housing-703 13h ago

Bust a deal, face the wheel

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u/LoquaciousTheBorg 11h ago

Two enter, one leaves!

1

u/Relatovely 12h ago

How about decisions being made by majority? That's good enough for the supreme court to strip away rights and protections from a whole nation with only the narrowest majority, so why isn't that good enough for a regular jury?

A whole trial shouldn't be held hostage by the single dumbest member of the jury.

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u/lazercheesecake 12h ago

What is the alternative to a jury trial though? 

The system of using a jury of your peers is not that it’s expected they make the “correct” legal choice all the time. It’s that they less corruptible to a biasing system.

1

u/hesh582 8h ago

I dunno, take a look at literally the entire non-Anglophone world.

There are a lot of other viable systems. There are a lot of ways juries can be get things wrong too. When your freedom is on the line, I think you might find that a jury failing to make "the correct legal choice" is a big deal. Corruption is not the only weakness of a judicial system, and juries are not immune to corruption by any stretch of the imagination (just ask any black person from the Jim Crow south...).

All of Europe outside of the UK does not use juries for the most part. Many of those judicial systems have higher ratings from human rights orgs than the US does.

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u/keekspeaks 11h ago

Not a supporter of jury trials?!? What kind of trials or punishment do you support? The right to a fair trial tops my list as one of my favorite constitutional rights

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u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO 10h ago

I wouldnt trust 12 random people to give me a fair trial.

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u/keekspeaks 10h ago

What would you prefer?

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u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO 10h ago

A professional jury or just the judge.

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u/AggravatingFlow1178 13h ago

I'm no great supporter of jury trials

I have literally never heard this take.

What you're proposed alternative?

1

u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO 13h ago

Judge alone. I understand the value of juries and the role they play in a common-law system ... I don't think I'd elect for one unless I was guilty.

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u/Charcole1 12h ago

You've never heard of any pushback against jury trials?

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u/hesh582 8h ago edited 8h ago

Did you know that the vast majority of the world, including most of the developed nations, does not use juries? Somehow they managed to have functional justice systems.

If you've literally never heard this take I think you might benefit from reading a bit outside of your bubble. There are a lot of alternatives. Hell, pretty much the entirety of continental Europe either does not use juries or uses them so differently than the anglophone world that they're not really comparable.

Juries are pretty much just a quirk of English common law and are used pretty sparingly outside of the anglosphere.

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u/ManitouWakinyan 13h ago

Except here, they haven't made a decision

0

u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO 13h ago

Each member of the jury seems to have made a decision.

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u/ManitouWakinyan 13h ago

Ya, but the jury hasn't. A jury has to make their decision by consensus. The point at which you accept that they've made their decisions is when they provide a verdict. 

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u/LeftHandedScissor 13h ago

Consensus and unanimous are distinct. Consensus is widespread or general agreement across the group. Unanimous is every person reaching the same decision. Similar but for purposes of a jury decision they are different, pointing it out it's a bit pendantic but it is an important distinction here.

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u/ManitouWakinyan 12h ago

You're being pedantic and wrong. In the context of a jury trial, the jury has to come to a unanimous consensus. Every member has to agree. 

0

u/LeftHandedScissor 12h ago

Nope it has to be a unanimous decision. Go look up the dictionary definition of consensus, it's a general agreement by most of the group. Ie there is a growing consensus = more people are reaching the decision of most others but not all, just most. Consensus is most. Unanimous is all. Unanimous consensus is a misnomer and doesn't make sense.

1

u/ManitouWakinyan 12h ago

Consensus is the common term used to describe what a jury arrives at. In criminal trials, those must be unanimous consensuses. In other trials, the consensus may be a different threshold. 

For example, when you look at consensus in Merriam-Websters dictionary, here's one of the example usages they provide:

If the jury cannot come to a unanimous consensus about Clancy’s guilt after more deliberations, the judge will declare a mistrial.

N'dea Yancey-Bragg,  USA Today, 2 Sep. 2026

0

u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO 13h ago

And when do you decide that they won't make a decision? You can't compel consensus. Even if you could, that would defeat the purpose of an "impartial" jury.

2

u/ManitouWakinyan 12h ago

You declare a mistrial and the trial happens again with a new jury. But the judge will do everything possible, including directing the jurors as we see here, to avoid that. 

1

u/zeekayz 12h ago

When it's stuck like this it's always a single person not following instructions or saying something dumb like "my horoscope says guilty" and the other jurors are complaining to the judge. The court is trying their best to unfuck the situation without a mistrial which means everyone wasted weeks of their life because of a single moron.

When there are several people on opposite sides, they don't bother prolonging so much.

1

u/Introverted_Extrovrt 12h ago

If their decisions run contrary to their jury instructions or the law, then the courts don’t need to accept that

1

u/Professional-Tailor2 9h ago

There's no way to analyze how the foreperson came to the conclusion that the juror is not following the law. This is a sticky situation

1

u/Both-Doctor-2427 7h ago

Think how stupid an average person is. And then consider that 50% are below that and even more stupid.

1

u/transneptuneobj 7h ago

They didn't indicate they were deadlocked, they indicated that a juror is refusing to follow the law, which is something different

1

u/nascent_aviator 2h ago

Indeed. That time, in Massachusetts, is after the third time they tell you they're deadlocked, absent an exception (like if the jury is asking questions about the law). So if they're still deadlocked after this time, the judge has to declare a mistrial.

1

u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO 1h ago

This is the first response I've seen with the specific timeframe for this state. Thank you.

1

u/Kriem 2h ago

I'm a Dutch Law student, so probably biased, but I think jury trials are no good.

0

u/InsideScientist1999 13h ago

Judge should have called it instead of just sending them home, ridiculous