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/thisispaulc 10h ago

Can a juror be punished for wilfully failing to follow an instruction like that?

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u/Frequent_Opportunist 10h ago

Yes. You can be sent to jail for contempt of court. I don't think there's any limitation on it either.

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u/Flip_d_Byrd 10h ago

Banned from serving on future juries?...... Hey, I have an idea...

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u/sylentshooter 10h ago

Technically they could be found in contempt of court and charged. 

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u/Flip_d_Byrd 10h ago

Ya... That would make more sense.

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u/Stereogravy 10h ago

For jury nullification? I don’t think they can make you vote guilty…

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u/myothercarisathopter 10h ago

The violation was watching the news, not the refusal to convict.

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u/sylentshooter 9h ago edited 6h ago

Like the other person said, it would be contempt of court by intentionally breaking the impartiality of the jury (ie, watching the news).

Thats why they are generally sequestered or have a strict list of rules they need to follow if they do go home.

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u/Zangorth 8h ago

Juries are rarely ever sequestered, not “generally sequestered.”

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u/sylentshooter 6h ago edited 6h ago

"generally sequestered OR have a strict list of rules to follow"

Is what I actually wrote. Please learn how to read better...

The word "generally" modifies the broad concept of being restricted, not the individual likelihood of sequestration versus going home. Even if being sequestered is rare, the group as the subject of the sentence is still restricted in some way.

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u/Expendable_Red_Shirt 27m ago

Having genuinely apply solely to sequestered is not an incorrect way of reading that sentence. I'd argue it's the standard way. If you wanted the word "or" to clearly apply to both options you'd include the word "either" as in "they are generally either sequestered or have a strict list..." Not including it would indicate that generally applies to sequestered only and that the or would be for the cases that they're not sequesterd.

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u/delphinous 9h ago

they can be held in contempt of court, possible multiple times, which has escalating penalties and could result in potential jail time.

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u/TacTurtle 5h ago

Yes, they can (and should) be immediately ejected from the jury and replaced with an alternate juror that has also sat through the trial.

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u/asher1611 10h ago

Yes, that can be held in contempt of court (which in my state (USA) can put you in jail for up to 30 days)

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u/Party-Cartographer11 9h ago

Contempt if provable.

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u/PyroBob316 2h ago

Yes, it’s absolutely possible. It’s been done before. Not too long ago one juror was prosecuted after posting details of the jury’s discussions on social media. Just decided their addiction to sharing every shopping trip, internal thought, conflict, meal, and hefty fart was more important than obeying the law.

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u/Stereogravy 10h ago

I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure you can’t, believe it’s called jury nullification

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u/Dangerous_Bid2935 9h ago

This has absolutely nothing to do with jury nullification. If a judge tells you to not watch the news because you're a member of a jury, and you willfully decide to watch the news anyway, you are in violation of a court order and can be held in contempt.

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u/TheFaithfulStone 8h ago

I'm pretty sure the way this works is that deliberations are privileged - so if she only said "Oh I watched news" in front of the other jurors then there's no evidence for contempt.

It's the same reason that jury nullification works: they don't know (and can't use against you) what you talked about in the jury room.

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u/Dangerous_Bid2935 6h ago

"Oh I watched news" isn't what we're talking about here, we're talking about "I watched a news broadcast directly about the defendant's actions and that's why I'm voting guilty/innocent". The issue isn't whether the juror was convinced to convict/exonerate based on a news article, its that they brought external prejudicial information into deliberations. There is an explicit exception to the general rule that jurors can't be compelled to testify about deliberations regarding this exact situation, meaning a judge could launch an inquiry and someone on the jury could testify about it. If its found to be true, the judge could then hold them in contempt or declare a mistrial (or both).

Source

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u/TheFaithfulStone 6h ago

Okay, I stand corrected - although that seems to be worded to allow jurors to testify about jury _tampering_ the case law pretty clearly supports the distinction. Also not a lawyer - was just trying to point out that “jury nullification” isn’t a _thing_ it’s a consequence of jurors not being allowed to testify about jury deliberations.

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u/pogulup 9h ago

I thought jury nullification was you understand the law, you understand they broke said law, but you feel said law is unlawful or wrong itself.

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u/Right_Lengthiness266 9h ago

Exactly. Even though you're 100% convinced the defendent is guilty of the crime they are accused of, an individual juror can still refuse to say they defendent is guilty.

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u/Ok_Historian_1066 8h ago

Like say you were on a jury and the accused cut down 10 flock cameras…

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u/CraftyPackage 9h ago

Pretty much, it's a not guilty verdict which cannot be appealed, and the jury cannot be punished for their verdict.

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u/CraftyPackage 9h ago

They can't be punished for the verdict, contempt of court they can absolutely be punished for.