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/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.

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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.

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u/KaLeMoJe 13h ago edited 13h ago

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

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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”

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u/Typical_Response6444 13h ago

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

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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

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u/WrongdoerRelative896 9h ago

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

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u/zberry7 8h ago

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