r/nottheonion • u/ArgentineBeauty • 19h ago

Reese Witherspoon Chosen as Jury Foreman After Jurors Thought She Went to Law School Because of Legally Blonde

https://www.fashiontimes.co.uk/reese-witherspoon-jury-duty-mix-1763528
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u/wayoverpaid 18h ago edited 18h ago

That was 100% my jury experience.

Me: Look the instructions we got from the judge says that we assess damages based on how much unjust enrichment actually happen when this fucker stole the other guy's business.

Them: Yeah but the business wasn't actually worth that much, and he should have known not to trust a handshake deal.

Me: But we're here to assess damages. That they stole the business was decided already.

Them: I still don't think we should award that much.

And like, cool, I guess the jury does get to toss out the law if they think the law is dumb, but I never heard anyone taking that explicit stance. Just gut feeling, and a few "whatever it takes to get this done."

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u/ty_fighter84 18h ago

This is why I never instantly fault people for taking a deal.

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u/Sawses 18h ago

It's also why we have 12 jurors and for criminal cases they all have to agree. Even if 90% of people are completely incapable of making a reasonable decision, statistically you're still very likely to have at least one person who would rather hang the jury than convict somebody wrongfully.

Fun fact: Attorneys don't like scientists and engineers on the jury because their bar for "beyond reasonable doubt" is usually very high compared to the average person.

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u/RandomMandarin 18h ago

Until 2019, a criminal trial in Louisiana only needed 10 jurors out of 12 to obtain a conviction. Needless to say, the results were consistently unfair and racist.

https://www.vera.org/news/unanimous-juries-bring-21st-century-justice-to-louisiana

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u/TheGloomyWoodpecker 17h ago

lmao when discussing judicial fairness, Louisiana isn’t even on the map.

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u/CatsBye90 17h ago

If Louisiana were an independent nation, they would rank second, globally, in incarceration rate. Only El Salvador has a higher incarceration rate.

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u/mfb- 16h ago

Being fourth after El Salvador, Cuba and Rwanda isn't exactly a great thing for the US overall either.

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u/CatsBye90 16h ago

I know, Land of the Free, right?

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u/superxpro12 15h ago

gotta exploit post-13th amendment post-civil-rights indentured servitude laws somehow. How else do you think they're gonna maintain their slave-base?

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u/Snow_Ghost 6h ago

Never forget - the United States has never outlawed slavery, we just added extra steps.

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u/Northern23 16h ago

Does that take into account federal incarcerations made in Louisiana? If not, that might push the bar a bit higher

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u/CatsBye90 16h ago

It does, and here is a link to the methodolgy.

Detailed data notes and sources

For the 50 U.S. states, we calculated incarceration rates per 100,000 total population that reflect our holistic view of confinement, which include:

  • people in state prison in each state,
  • people in local jails in each state,
  • people in federal prison from each state,
  • people held by the U.S. Marshals Service from each state,
  • people held in jails in Indian Country in each state,
  • youth held in “juvenile justice” facilities from each state,
  • criminal legal system-involved people involuntarily committed to other kinds of confinement in each state (i.e. people convicted of sex-related offenses held under “civil commitment” laws and people held in state psychiatric hospitals because of criminal charges or convictions.)

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u/VirtualMoneyLover 13h ago

This is a stupid stats. The US has the most incarcerated people both in relative and absolute numbers. No reason to pick on one state only.

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u/CatsBye90 13h ago

It's unfortunate that you can't grasp the concept that is being expressed here.

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u/VirtualMoneyLover 13h ago

Blessed are the meek...

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u/PraetorFaethor 12h ago

Why are you blessing yourself?

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u/Affordable_Z_Jobs 17h ago

I believe it's labeled as "thar be dragons".

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u/AlarmingAffect0 17h ago

It is on the map sadly.

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u/DirtyWriterDPP 8h ago

In the not that distant past they needed a map to even get close enough to see the map.

In all seriousness I don't think the people of Louisiana are any more racist than their deep south neighbors. Probably less so than Mississippi than Alabama IMO anecdotal experience. However, they have a long and deep history of blatant government corruption. That no doubt has led to thousands of unjust convictions.

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u/FUPAMagneto 15h ago

Careful, or you’ll have a bunch of Brits insisting that 10/12 jurors is completely fine to send somebody to prison for life

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u/Mr_MacGrubber 8h ago

I was on a jury in Louisiana for a serial killer. Thankfully the 10/12 wasn’t a factor in convicting him.

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u/gsfgf 5h ago

Iirc, the same year Florida Republicans were trying pass companion bills to make being visibly LGBT in public a death penalty offense, there was also a proposal to allow juries to return guilty verdicts without unanimous agreements. But that didn't even fly in Florida.

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u/Loggerdon 14h ago edited 6h ago

The off-topic but I was on a jury last year. A young policeman was accused of domestic violence and also of “Child Endangerment” (leaving his loaded service weapon on the playground in the back yard where his and the neighbor kids play daily). At first I thought the jury was going to be a typical cross section of the US, with at least 4 out of 12 people were imbeciles. I was not the jury foreman but I guess I was his right hand man. As it turned out when it came time to debate, EVERY SINGLE PERSON argued their points very vigorously. It was kind of reassuring because it seemed the system worked. Then we all reached a verdict to convict and I walked away feeling very proud of our group of 12 citizens.

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u/gsfgf 5h ago

That's actually the norm in criminal cases. There's a reason we keep using juries of ones peers, after all.

In civil cases, juries are fucking random. But that does provide a good incentive to settle.

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u/ruat_caelum 8h ago

Bro.... if everyone in the Jury pool was smarter than you I've got some bad news for you.

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u/Hamil_Simp4450 7h ago

When did they say everyone in the jury was snarter than them?

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u/Loggerdon 6h ago

How did you reach that conclusion?

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u/CobaltMnM 17h ago edited 16h ago

The number of jurors is location dependent. Florida it’s usually only 6.

Also bs on your fun fact. I was a prosecutor for years. I prayed for scientists and engineers. I prefer my cases being decided based on facts, not vibes. If I “lost”, so be it.

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u/Sawses 17h ago

Fair enough! I stand corrected. In your experience, do you think other attorneys generally shared your scruples?

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u/DustyRacoonDad 16h ago

As a fellow engineer who knows plenty of attorneys, they're going to agree with the prosecutor guy above.

They HATE when they have something legitimate, for or against, that's completely logical, and then the jury is still entirely illogical and dumb, running on vibes. I get to hear that gripe often.

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u/gsfgf 5h ago

Lawyer but not that kind of lawyer. I wouldn't necessarily consider that scruples. The problem is that engineers and scientists tend to make up outlandish scenarios that very clearly fall in the ambit of unreasonable doubt. Don't think Alan Grant; think a stereotypical redditor. Combined with often presenting as more intelligent, they can overly bias the jury. I'm about as defense minded as they come, but there are some people that do need to be put in cages in the interest of public safety.

A prosecutor should only bring a case to trial when they think the defendant is guilty, which is where scruples (at least should) come in. I wouldn't be surprised if /u/CobaltMnM wasn't the one that got to decide overarching trial strategy and had a boss that insisted on bringing iffy cases.

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u/Tigerballs07 16h ago

If the prosecutor has intent for public office than all they care about is winning. They generally don't do the trope of winning even if its an innocent person. But if they believe at all that the person is guilty they dont care how they get that verdict. Though there are more prosecutors than you'd think that want to make sure its fair.

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u/hardolaf 15h ago

Where I lived in Florida for 3 years, the prosecutors didn't want us "liberal" engineers and scientists to get in the way of their bad evidence. Over in Orlando, it was the exact opposite.

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u/CobaltMnM 15h ago

Yikes.

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u/Man_with_the_Fedora 6h ago

Yawohl! Nicht mehr Judenphysik!

*Ahem* Yay! No more Woke Science!

/s

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u/greenzetsa 17h ago

Good for you! I feel like that isn't always the case though.

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u/CobaltMnM 17h ago

Thanks. I tried really hard to be “one of the good ones”.

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u/WHTDOG 13h ago

If true, then honestly, genuinely, thank you for your service to society and humanity.

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

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u/the_scarlett_ning 16h ago

Idk if that makes it bs though. I’m in Louisiana and I’ve certainly heard lawyers (usually the prosecutors) that don’t want people who are too educated on the jury and they never want people who might know the law.

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u/Austinstart 3h ago

Wouldn’t that depend on whether the facts were on your side? If you’re a lawyer that had to argue a shitty case then I think you would want a jury of idiots.

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u/AlarmingAffect0 16h ago

If I “lost”, so be it.

You mean to tell me you weren't chasing the perfect conviction record and your career didn't depend on it? Or it did and you didn't care? If it's the second, my hat off to you. Sincerely. That is not what the system incentivizes AFAIK.

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u/CobaltMnM 16h ago

I was fortunate enough to have a boss who knew what our job was and had my back.

There is a great quote from a USSC case in 1935, Berger v. US, that I printed in large font and hung over my computer monitor while there to remind me what actually mattered:

"The [prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all, and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the two-fold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor -- indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one."

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/295/78/

A prosecutor is literally the only type of attorney who's "job" is not solely to "win" their cases.

(And sadly, I know there are plenty of bad apples out there.)

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u/AlarmingAffect0 12h ago

This is all excellent. I commend you and your boss. May your example spread.

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u/spakatieo 16h ago

The number of jurors who must agree to convict a defendant of a crime is dependent on the crime(s) with which the defendant is charged, in Florida and in most, if not all, other states in the U.S. Florida requires all 12 jurors to agree in order to convict a defendant of first degree murder.

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u/twitch1982 16h ago

LMAO

I prefer my cases being decided based on facts, not vibes.

You allow cops to testify?

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u/CobaltMnM 15h ago

Working that closely with them you’d get a good idea of which ones were good and which ones weren’t. Once they were on my shit list from any case, absolutely not. I’d drop cases if their testimony was required for a conviction.

Made a few enemies that way but such is life.

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u/Xminus6 14h ago

I was going through the Voir Dire process on a case once as a juror. I wasn’t trying to “get out of it” but I was answering truthfully as to my history with all of the subjects that that case dealt with. Yes I had experience with family ownership of a restaurant. Yes I invested money in securities and real estate. On and on. Surprisingly the defense still selected me. I asked him after the trial why he would select me since I had built-in biases based on my history. He just said he’s prefer someone with some bias who seemed reasonable than people with no bias who were ruled by emotion.

I thought that was interesting and counterintuitive.

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u/optifreebraun 12h ago

What about corporate transactional lawyers? Would you have wanted us on a jury?

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u/CobaltMnM 12h ago

I didn’t mind lawyers of any non-criminal kind. Defense attorneys I’d strike and the prosecution generally struck prosecutors.

I’d honestly prefer having a lawyer. Someone to help keep things on track from the legal perspective and applying the law to the facts that actually matter. Deputies would tell us some times about the bizarre things jurors would be heard through the door yelling at each other about and it was usually tangential stuff that had nothing to do with the crime in question.

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u/mongo_man 13h ago

Right. I thought I heard the Clancy case only had nine jurors.

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u/Scaevus 13h ago

Different places trained their prosecutors differently. I was definitely trained to avoid those professions.

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u/rips_n_chel 10h ago

Oh well good thing you speak for all attorneys.

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u/My_Work_Accoount 17h ago

I prefer my cases being decided based on facts, not vibes. If I “lost”, so be it.

That explains why you're not a prosecutor anymore. /s (mostly...)

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u/CobaltMnM 16h ago

Unfortunately the pay was pretty terrible or I would have loved to stay as a lifer.

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u/My_Work_Accoount 15h ago

I've heard the same from public defenders. In many states the highest paid public employee is often a college coach, IMO they should get the same pay as a rank and file teacher (their pay is a whole other discussion...) and dole some of those millions out the the ones doing actual civic work.

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u/TheOutsideJoke 17h ago

Some states have changed or removed peremptory strikes, which means that attorneys can’t get rid of people without a reason anymore. I think that it has been good change overall in my state because certain groups of people are not automatically excluded from the process.

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u/Prometheus720 17h ago

They probably still are if your state uses voter rolls to find jury candidates

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u/mlc885 4h ago

Peremptory strikes should be silly in the modern day, if there is some obvious bias then the judge should be good enough to see it and do it

I did not ever think the intention of that law was to eliminate ethnic or religious minorities (or, heck, women) from ruling on cases where they might disagree with the white men.

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u/RegulatoryCapture 17h ago

Fun fact: Attorneys don't like scientists and engineers on the jury because their bar for "beyond reasonable doubt" is usually very high compared to the average person.

Really depends on the case (and which side is challenging the juror).

There are certainly cases where attorneys desperately want someone logical and fact-oriented on the jury.

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u/Clovis69 14h ago

A case where I know neither side cared if there were engineers or scientists or coders was that Terry Childs taking SF's municipal fiber optic network hostage

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u/Rotten-Roses 18h ago

Yeah this kind of thing is why I'll probably never actually end up on a jury for better or worse. My whole job can be described as forensic statistics with "beyond a reasonable doubt" having a numerical threshold for certainty. I have cousins who are prosecutors and defense attorneys and the defense side loves it at least.

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u/legal_stylist 18h ago

So … defense attorneys presumably like them just fine, then?

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u/Repulsive_Stock9400 14h ago

I think it's probably prosecutors who most want clear-headed jurors, because they're not bringing charges for no reason, they just need people who can see the violation that occurred, no vibes required.

I was a trial attorney for years on the civil side, mostly personal injury, and I never wanted smart jurors. I didn't want dumb jurors either, I just wanted regular ass people who were smart enough to understand what I was saying but not so smart that they would resist it.

I was mentored in PI by a lawyer who was a big fan of "blood, guts and twisted metal," which means taking very graphic photos of injuries and very dramatic photos of the aftermath of auto wrecks, then waving them around like "When a jury sees these, they're going to freak out, so just pay me, boss!" To follow through on that threat, if the insurance company refused to settle, I needed to have some impressionable and emotionally-manipulable jurors, not a bunch of analytical science types, so I was in the opposite position of a prosecutor - I needed vibes and emotions to make my case, because there's no clear-cut definition of what an insurance company should have to pay in a particular situation. That's very different than proving that specific elements of a crime were satisfied by a defendant's conduct.

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u/legal_stylist 14h ago edited 13h ago

Im a personal injury attorney myself now, but I did some crim, and I can assure you, prosecutors do not want clear headed people.
On the contrary, the voir dire divisions were very clear: prosecutors want dumber, less educated people with conservative beliefs and our side wanted more educated liberals. Low educated rule followers who liked rigid distinctions versus educated people who gave thoughtful answers.
That’s it, that’s the whole divide.

Now, there were plenty of case specific considerations, but the last thing a prosecutor wants is a person who can engage in nuanced thinking and analysis; they want rule followers who cling to pre-conceived notions like the beut you spouted— the old, “they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t guilty.”

That’s dumb people thinking and it’s what they’re looking for.

Edit to add: Also, it’s very clear you’ve never done criminal work because the “didn’t bring it for no reason” trope ignores the actual reality of the situation. The overcharging is absolutely batshit insane. So, whenever people would ask me about how I could defend “guilty” people, I was able to remind them, that while, yes, very few of my clients were completely and totally “innocent”—the vast majority were, in fact, very much not guilty of many of the charges brought against them.

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u/Scaevus 12h ago

the last thing a prosecutor wants is a person who can engage in nuanced thinking and analysis

I have first chaired my fair share of criminal trials, both as a prosecutor and a defense attorney. People who are too dumb to avoid jury service are never going to actually be capable of engaging in nuanced thinking and analysis. In practice, what we'd get are people who THINK they are much smarter than they really are, and make up the law on the spot instead of following the judge's instructions.

You're not wrong that prosecutors prefer rules followers and defense attorneys prefer skeptics, though, that's just the nature of the game.

The overcharging is absolutely batshit insane.

Well, that is the proper strategy. You charge them with every potential crime since it's much easier to drop charges than to add them later on, and it's also a good way to negotiate. You start at a maximalist position so you have something to compromise with.

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u/Repulsive_Stock9400 13h ago

Huh. Have you engaged in training to address your own biases? That's a helpful exercise.

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u/legal_stylist 13h ago

I’ll ignore the implied insult and just remind you of what you said: “but not so smart that they would resist it”

That’s what prosecutors want; “clear headed” doesn’t enter into it.

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u/Repulsive_Stock9400 13h ago

There's no implied insult, I'm directly telling you that your bias is showing and it's not a good look. Whatever, I don't care what you do.

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u/almoooo 17h ago

That’s funny you say that about the Engineer because when I had jury duty, one of the gentleman in the jury pool was an Engineer. He was really cool and super smart and every time he answered one of their questions, you could tell they felt some type of way about it. Especially when it came to evidence. He’s like “We’ll I can’t make an informed decision without all the data available to me, id have to know this or that or etc. I’d also need to know the EXACT definition of the law” And I’m giggling because I felt like I was watching a conversation with my husband and I as a 3rd person.

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u/Scaevus 13h ago

Fun fact: Attorneys don't like scientists and engineers on the jury because their bar for "beyond reasonable doubt" is usually very high compared to the average person.

Correct, this is how we were trained as prosecutors. The reasoning is also because these are professions where people look for problems and are inclined to be more skeptical than the public.

Other professions to avoid included attorneys (you don't want people to second guess what you're doing by thinking they could do a better job), and teachers (people whose job it is to grade other people).

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u/Nukemind 15h ago

It's also why we have 12 jurors and for criminal cases they all have to agree. Even if 90% of people are completely incapable of making a reasonable decision, statistically you're still very likely to have at least one person who would rather hang the jury than convict somebody wrongfully.

Ironically when I did criminal defense we didn't like them for the reverse reason: they often did exactly what you said, but were less emotional, and frankly it wasn't uncommon to have cases that relied on emotion more than susbtance (despite only being able to present facts). Sometimes cases were just stinkers.

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u/LordBeric 14h ago

Ha, I served on a jury a couple years ago and was elected the jury foreman. I kept insisting the other jurors that I was pretty certain the guy did it, but there were reasons that left me with a "reasonable doubt" so, as instructed, I thought we should find him not guilty.

I am an engineer.

Other anecdote that relates to dumb jurors: The trial was for if a guy committed 2nd Degree Robbery. We were instructed that this meant he assaulted someone while committing theft. We all agreed that him shoving his girlfriend amounted to assault, and most people agreed that he committed theft. One older lady that agreed with both of these findings insisted that she just couldn't call that a robbery. I repeatedly tried to explain to her that there is a difference between what we would conversationally call robbery and what is legally considered robbery, but she just refused to hear it.

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u/Barraco_Barmer 14h ago

What if jury panels had hundreds of people and you could vote with a button

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u/Money4Nothing2000 12h ago

I'm an engineer and during voir dire the attorneys never brought up that fact when they questioned me. They were just all on about whether I trusted a cop's testimony or not. When I said I don't trust cops, I was dismissed pretty quick.

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u/Named_after_color 15h ago

That just made me think that if we take a standard spread of people, 4/12 jurors would have voted for Trump. And we expect them to make a complicated, nuanced opinion about the guilt of someone. Wow the justice system blows.

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u/LeastCoordinatedJedi 15h ago

Fun fact: Attorneys don't like scientists and engineers on the jury because their bar for "beyond reasonable doubt" is usually very high compared to the average person.

Speaking as a scientist, I actually can't fault them for being annoyed about it, because like, I don't know if I know anything beyond a reasonable doubt.

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u/Hosni__Mubarak 17h ago

Engineer here.

The lawyer in my jury did not like me. She was also a scatterbrained moron.

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u/Tricky-Ad7897 17h ago

I had jury duty 3 years ago, I was literally the only man wearing a suit which I believed to be the only appropriate dress for a courtroom, but I believe it instantly filtered me out of selection for both cases I was in the pool for. I'm not even particularly smart or successful, at the time I had just graduated with an associates in accounting and hadn't even found a job yet. I just got my second questionnaire this week which means I will be put into the pool again sometime next year, and again I will likely get filtered out based on vibes. Not complaining though, I really got no interest in being a juror, especially if it's with a dozen other idiots.

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u/TheGloomyWoodpecker 17h ago

How are you a boomer and just now getting into life, soon to have a job maybe.

Here’s a hot tip. The people summoned for jury duty don’t need to dress up like a defendant lmao

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u/BionicTriforce 17h ago

If three years ago, they had just graduated with an associates degree, then they're not a boomer, they're more likely a late millennial or a gen z.

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u/TheGloomyWoodpecker 17h ago

Can you not read, or what is your disability so I can properly answer?

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u/BionicTriforce 17h ago

You commented "How are you a boomer and just now getting into life?" The person you replied to didn't mention their age at all, but nothing about them indicated they were a boomer. But, assuming they went to get their degree right after high school, if they only graduated in the 2020s, they definitely aren't a boomer. So I'm confused by why you thought so.

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u/TheGloomyWoodpecker 16h ago

Do you know what the phrase “How are you X” means? It might answer your questions. But don’t overwork that ant inside of your head, I’m sure they’re used to all the empty space.

They’re acting like a boomer and I’m asking them why they’re acting like a boomer for fucks sake

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u/BionicTriforce 16h ago

That phrase typically means, "You've just described yourself in a certain way, and I can't believe it." Like seeing someone who looks really young but they reveal they're 60. "How are you 60?"

They’re acting like a boomer and I’m asking them why they’re acting like a boomer for fucks sake

Well that very much wasn't clear in your initial comment. But thank you for clarifying.

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u/mjtwelve 13h ago

Engineers will also end up as the foreman nine times out of ten.

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u/cutapacka 12h ago

This was my uncle's experience when he sat on a civil trial. Plaintiff was suing the city for falling on a sidewalk, but according to him it was abundantly clear based on the evidence they were just looking for a payday.

More than half the jury wanted to award the plantiff damages just to "stick it to the city" to which he replied, "you mean stick it to YOU, the taxpayer?"

Thankfully our state requires unanimous verdict....

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u/translucent_steeds 11h ago

my dad was literally dismissed from jury duty because of this. the case was a lawsuit involving an electric dog fence company and a homeowner whose house burned down.

the FIRST question they asked the juror pool (?) was "is anyone an electrician or an electrical engineer?" dad raised his hand. "sir, you are dismissed."

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u/FutureFreaksMeowt 8h ago

They should filter out us autistics too, then, bc I also have a high bar for reasonable doubt, mostly because i understand what words mean when other people don't seem to...

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u/Professional_Echo907 2h ago

I would absolutely be the asshole who holds out if the evidence isn’t there and that’s probably why I have never gotten freaking jury duty.

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u/24-Hour-Hate 16h ago

I'm pretty sure that they dislike other lawyers even more because lawyers have knowledge about the law the average person does not. In my province lawyers (and judges, who must be lawyers) aren't even allowed on a jury by law.

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u/tmobilekid 18h ago

But if 11 people all agree on what is reasonable, then statistically, the odd man out is the one incapable of making an unreasonable decision.

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u/Sawses 17h ago

If reasonable means "what the majority thinks is reasonable", then sure.

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u/Repulsive_Stock9400 14h ago

That's literally what it means. Our legal system largely revolves around a "reasonable-person standard" and what's reasonable is determined by juries, it's not black-letter law that we can just look up in a book.

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u/knotallmen 17h ago

Yeah. On the other hand if the 1 person is someone with a background in probability mathematics and they are prevented evidence with a poorly calculated probability and they call it out as being calculated incorrectly. What I am getting bad probability math being presented as evidence has gotten people convicted when their two children dying had genetic disorders and it wasn't a one in a million chance squared but a couple who had a one in a million genetic disorder when having children and had two children who both got that disorder.

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u/tmobilekid 17h ago

Well, reasonableness is a societal standard

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u/Sawses 17h ago

I don't entirely agree, I think "common sense" would fit that better. I think reasonable requires a component of rationality, though I acknowledge there's probably a community-centric element to it, too.

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u/NoCardio_ 18h ago

As an engineer, I’m going along with the crowd if it means that I can make it home before lunch. I have zero interest in sitting on a jury.

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u/NakedZombieWolf 17h ago

Skipped ethics class

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u/happy2harris 17h ago

  I'm not talking about ethics, I'm talking about morals.

(another Reese Witherspoon movie)

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u/SpartanFishy 18h ago

What if the crowd is convicting someone to years in jail for a crime that it is very clear they didn’t do? Is your lunch break worth more than someone’s life?

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u/EthanielRain 18h ago

He already said yes, let him eat his Roast Beef & Cheese in peace

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u/sighthoundman 18h ago

Take a look at r/insurance. "Of course the insurance company settled for $8000. It would cost more than that to defend and they still might lose." But the plaintiffs accepted $8000? Prima facia evidence of a fraudulent claim. (Counting "stretching the truth" as fraud, which is a whole other question.)

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u/brittneyacook 18h ago

My firm is settling a bullshit slip and fall case because it would cost waaaaay more to try it. They’re only asking for like $10k (versus the $50k+ a jury trial will cost, and that’s not including pretrial billing)

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u/Repulsive_Stock9400 13h ago

That surprises me. Slip and falls used to be easy money for personal injury lawyers but that dried up in most of the country decades ago. Juries just aren't as generous as they used to be, so assumption of risk and contributory negligence zero out a lot of PI claims that would have been cash money back in the day.

I say fight it!

5

u/brittneyacook 13h ago

I don’t disagree, but ultimately it’s up to our client the insurer lol

12

u/bradd_pit 17h ago

Settlement is not an admission of guilt

5

u/Skill3rwhale 17h ago

The releases the insurance and attorneys have you sign explicitly state this.

3

u/sighthoundman 17h ago

Settling a case for a small payout is an admission that you have a weak case.

As Mark Twain said, "It is incredibly difficult to convince someone of something when their entire salary depends on them not understanding it." It may not be the facts of the case or the law, but all sorts of non-legal things that make a case hard to prosecute.

2

u/blogg10 16h ago

Legally, no. But how many people actually take that axiom to heart? The number of times I've read about someone being tried in court for a crime and heard people talking about it like they're already guilty, basically just because they made it to court...

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u/Rotten-Roses 18h ago

Yeah your alternative is being judged by "12 idiots too dumb to avoid jury duty" which is a terrifying sentiment, especially when a lot of the people you might want get specifically selected /against/ by the other side for obvious reasons.

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u/hairsprayking 18h ago

Where i live, Lawyers can't serve on a jury because they know the law too well lol

3

u/Tricky-Ad7897 17h ago

Even if they can serve if the lawyers doing the selection figure out you're a lawyer you're not getting selected. Their job is to find the dumbest, most gullible group of people possible so they can convince them of their story.

3

u/hairsprayking 17h ago

what if they're so dumb that the other guys convince them though...

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u/RegulatoryCapture 16h ago

Exactly. People oversimplify this without thinking it through.

Lawyers on each side have limited challenges they can use if they can't get a juror dismissed by the judge on more universal grounds.

You want a panel of jurors that can be swayed by the evidence you plan to present. If your defense is complex, you want jurors who can follow the logic. If your defense is weak, you might want jurors who will make emotional decisions and ignore facts. If your prosecution relies on cop testimony, you don't want jurors biased against cops.

-2

u/20_mile 17h ago

Lawyers

MSG also uses bots to troll law firm websites, download the photos, and then AI to scan for those faces trying to see a game or a concert, and these people are subsequently refused entry.

1

u/less_unique_username 13h ago

Sentient monosodium glutamate?! Chinese biolabs have gone too far!

1

u/Repulsive_Stock9400 13h ago

You're saying that Madison Square Garden is using law firm websites to ban lawyers from events?

Are you sure? Because that sounds pretty stupid...

2

u/20_mile 13h ago

If you don't believe me, just ask these people: https://jipel.law.nyu.edu/the-power-of-exclusion-madison-square-garden-uses-facial-recognition-technology-to-ban-the-owners-enemies/

The ban applies to members of law firms engaged in suing MSG.

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u/Repulsive_Stock9400 13h ago

Right, that's not a blanket ban on lawyers, that's a very specific group of people who are being excluded for what might be a sketchy reason, but is nothing like you initially described.

-1

u/20_mile 12h ago

but is nothing like you initially described

Exactly as I described, actually.

1

u/Repulsive_Stock9400 12h ago

They're not trolling random law firm websites and banning lawyers for being lawyers, they're using facial recognition to ban lawyers associated with ongoing litigation. That's stupid, but it's not at all what your original comment portrayed.

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u/1738_bestgirl 17h ago

You also don't have to have a jury trial. You can just have a judge, which is it's own barrel of fun depending on locality.

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u/20_mile 17h ago

I guess the jury does get to toss out the law if they think the law is dumb

My brother was on a jury for a POC accused of selling drugs. Upon arrest, the cops threw him into the back of the cop car and filled it with pepper spray and let the guy choke for twenty minutes.

My brother and a couple of other jurors were able to convince the rest of the members that, even if he was guilty of the crime, he had already served his sentence, and shouldn't have to be punished a second time.

Not Guilty.

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u/wayoverpaid 17h ago

Legit.

In an ideal world "excessive brutality imposed by police has tainted this entire attempt at justice" would be a thing lawmakers would have to deal with, and confirm or deny if the cruelty is acceptable. We know it's happening, but now we have a clear instance, so sign your fucking name to it! No? Then let it be forever enshrined in case law that anyone who gets pepper sprayed in the back of a vehicle can use that as credit.

This is a half baked idea and I can see potential problems with it... but that guy was basically lucky he had the jury he did, and that should be made consistent.

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u/Shazzbot1 17h ago

I believe this is called jury nullification. They agreed the dude the crime, but they don’t agree that it should be punished.

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u/_thisisvincent 16h ago

Ohhh fuck jury nullification mention on Reddit

1

u/pleasedothenerdful 14h ago

You never see that!

7

u/Clovis69 14h ago

Shshshssssshhhhh...we can't use the JN words cause that makes the lawyers get all defensive and the judges act like it'll end the world

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u/Justausername1234 11h ago

Well, it's because mentions of Jury Nullification make reasonable people wonder about the opposite... What if the jury finds guilt in a person who they thought was innocent...

4

u/LeastCoordinatedJedi 15h ago

Based jury, thanks for the weirdly uplifting-depressing story.

2

u/SkyShadowing 16h ago

Working on a novel where this concept is touched on, shouldn't any lawyer worth their salt be trying to argue this is Outrageous Government Conduct?

1

u/20_mile 13h ago

It all depends on the jury makeup. Will the people sitting care about punishment already served, or do they care more about technicalities, or the alleged amount of drugs?

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u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 15h ago

the cops threw him into the back of the cop car and filled it with pepper spray and let the guy choke for twenty minutes.

That's stupid as fuck for a whole host of reasons. What happens next time the officer whose car that was is driving down the road with their hands on the steering wheel, when suddenly their eye itches?

7

u/MurderMelon 14h ago edited 6h ago

forward thinking

...

cops

pick one

3

u/Terramagi 14h ago edited 14h ago

They pull over and find another black person to brutalize.

Fire hot, water wet, bird fly, sun shine, cop beat

-6

u/WesternOk5765 14h ago

Yikes that's disgusting that your brother refused to uphold the law.

4

u/20_mile 13h ago

Yikes that's disgusting that your brother refused to uphold the law.

My brother was literally a member of the jury. Juries render verdicts.

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u/WesternOk5765 9h ago

Your brother is a dishonor to his country.

19

u/Translycanthrope 18h ago

This is exactly why most legal proceedings are handled behind the scenes. You cannot predict what a jury will do and they are known to make some dumb decisions.

4

u/c-9 16h ago

I've been on a few juries. People really don't take things that are their civic responsibility seriously.

And that's how we've gotten into the mess we are in.

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u/Maiyku 17h ago

I was lucky. We only had 1 juror going on “vibes” and another who was just too uncertain to say one way or the other.

The one going on vibes should’ve never been allowed on the jury in the first place. It was a gang related case and her mother had been in a gang involved shooting years prior.

She didn’t care what the laws were, she was actively looking for any little loophole she could to put our defendant away for life. Not because of the presumed crimes he committed (or didn’t) but because of a personal biases she held.

We were 10-2 not guilty and she refused to budge and is the reason the case was declared a mistrial. She refused to let go of her biases to the point that me and another juror actually took a stand and refused to change our votes so she couldn’t corrupt everyone to switching to her side and change the outcome of the case with her bias.

Thankfully, our stand didn’t matter and the other jurors didn’t budge either. Final vote was still 10-2 a full 3 days later.

The other vote wasn’t actually stopping us. She just wanted manslaughter, not murder.

5

u/wayoverpaid 17h ago

That's lucky? Sounds awful.

Fortunately for me it was a difference in value and I suggested we all agreed damages were between X and Y, and we could all pick a number and average it.

The guy who was wronged did ok in the end, but I did the math and he got something like an inflation adjusted return on what would have happened if the defendants had just been honest anyway. Shoulda got more for his trouble.

8

u/Maiyku 17h ago

Lucky in the sense that it was only one. So it’s not like it was a 50/50 split and we were warring in the jury room.

We were mostly arguing with HER. Trying to understand and see what she did. It was as she explained (by basically admitting her bias) that me and the other jury member locked eyes and just did a silent nod. We could not let her bias influence the outcome of the case.

Not only was she stating factually wrong things and grasping for straws that did not exist, but I also feared the defense could use her somehow. That the jury pool was tainted, etc because of her extreme biases, which would made retrial all that much more fun for them, might cause them to move districts, whatever.

6

u/Obi-Tron_Kenobi 14h ago

because of personal biases she held.

This is why it bothers me when people online use their past victimhood to weigh in on what punishment they think an alleged criminal should get.

I see it so often when someone says "I was a victim of [blank] and think everyone who does [blank] should get life in prison/the death penalty/cruel and unusual punishment..." when there's an article on someone who "only" got X years in prison

They use it to act as an authority on the subject, but don't realize their biases are clouding their judgment and are judging the perpetrator more harshly than what might be fair or necessary for rehabilitation

3

u/Scaevus 12h ago

The one going on vibes should’ve never been allowed on the jury in the first place.

Many attorneys aren't very good at jury selection. But that's also just an inherent danger of a jury pool. It's actually very difficult for people to let go of their biases, even if they're pointed out to them. If anything, that makes them defensive and hold onto those biases even harder.

I would never pick a jury trial if it were up to me.

1

u/Maiyku 12h ago

We mostly just… ran out of options.

They rejected so many jurors we went through everyone in the courtroom and actually had to come back the next day after they summoned a bunch more people.

We are a very small and rural county and to be honest was woefully underprepared for this case. I actually became angry with the prosecution by the end of it because I realized they had literally wasted all our time. They didn’t have a solid case against my defendant in any way shape or form and rushed to trial so he could be tried with another defendant together because it was cheaper than two seperate trials. They rushed the case because of fucking money. Put the victims family through that… for fucking money.

What made me angry is that personally I felt he was involved, but they did fuck all to actually prove it. The only witnesses were convicted criminals who were convicted… but still awaiting sentencing pending the outcome of MY case. Which is slimy all around. Those men had every reason to lie.

It’s been a few years now and I still vote against our local persecutor every election I can. She runs unopposed, so always wins, but I refuse to ever give her my vote again.

6

u/ShinyPatina 16h ago

Yup. Sat on a 1 1/2 week long murder trial where the evidence to convict just was not really there and there was SO much reasonable doubt that another person (who right before the trial began had been killed on the streets) could've also done the murder.

We were deadlocked for 3 days, 10-2, because two women jurors just kept saying, "We just FEEL he's guilty." The refused to engage with the rest of us pointing out lack of proof.

On the third day, after we told the judge we were deadlocked, he said, "I'll see you tomorrow and the next day and the day after that until you come to a unanimous decision. No one is going to hang this jury."

The next day we all came in a settled down with our books, and the two women huddled in a corner talking and finally came over to the rest of us and said, "FINE. We'll vote not guilty but we still FEEL he is but want to go home."

So we acquitted the guy and about 8-months later on a whim I looked him up and saw that he too had been gunned down on the streets and I thought, "Well, if we got it wrong that was the universe correcting us on that one."

But yeah, some people should not be jurors because they simply cannot look at the evidence or obey the judges' instructions and just want to go on what they feel or believe when that is not the job of a juror.

3

u/Interesting_Tea5715 17h ago

Same. I was part of a jury where there was crazy amounts of evidence against the person, it was an obvious slam dunk case.

People were still saying, we don't know how this will affect the guy we should reconsider.... Bruh, dude was drunk as fuck and broke the law several times (endangering others) he lost his chance at forgiveness.

2

u/wayoverpaid 17h ago

I said this elsewhere but this is where I wish juries could render a two part verdict of "yes as a decider of the facts, this happened" but also "the law here is super harsh and we have a problem with that."

If a jury protests the law (or maybe if enough juries protest) then make the lawmakers affirm the law stands as is.

As is people will bend the facts to fit their ideals.

3

u/DustyRacoonDad 16h ago

I mean, yeah, the jury does get to toss out the law if they think the law is dumb. That's jury nullification, and sometimes it's a great thing.

The problem is that the jurors are dumb.

2

u/Eyevis 17h ago

But we're here to assess damages. That they stole the business was decided already.

bruh why tf is a jury deciding that and not an accountant? USA is insane.

5

u/wayoverpaid 17h ago

Well, which accountant?

To add more detail, after we were released I looked it up, turns out the case was originally decided about a decade ago. Liability was found but damages were very low because the forensic accountant for the guy suing was blocked from testifying.

So that went to the appeals court, and it was found that the accountant should not have been blocked, so we were remanded to a new trial to assess damages, but that meant more or less going over everything, and some jurors were unconvinced any wrongdoing had actually happened... long story but in short one person was gonna buy someone else's business, got their full client list in due diligence, backed out of the handshake deal, but used all the stuff they gathered to call old clients and say "oh we're your new provider now). Some shady shit.

So we got to listen to two accountants, one from each side, argue why the damage done was a LOT or a LITTLE, meanwhile the juries are like "Well if nothing was signed whats the problem" when that was not in the scope of what we were asked to decicide.

Yeah.

I also found out that the people being sued kept trying to dodge the process servers during the original case, which is a fact that absolutely would have prejudiced the shit out of me if I had looked it up during the trial.

0

u/Eyevis 17h ago

Well, which accountant?

I'm sure theres enough of such cases to justify a contract from the court with a random accounting firm to impartially handle all such cases.

its just maths.

4

u/wayoverpaid 17h ago

The question "how much money came from a client sourced from this list" is pretty cut and dry. "How much money came from a client sourced from this list that wouldn't have come over anyway given that the original business shut down" is up for debate. Each side had some pretty high qualified accountants, but they had some clearly motivated differences in their starting assumptions.

Maths give you output based on your input.

Don't get me wrong I think an impartial business analyst would be better than a jury but this wasn't a situation where three random accountants would agree on the same number.

2

u/Hosni__Mubarak 17h ago

I was on one where the owner of a restaurant set his restaurant on fire for the insurance money, and was suing his real estate agency for letting him buy a shitty restaurant.

A dentist and a prosecuting lawyer for the state of Alaska on the jury wanted to give him money because they felt sorry for him, and the real estate agency had a lot of money.

Everyone else on the jury were… people of the land. I ended up in a full day argument with the dentist and lawyer until they gave up and everyone sided with me.

1

u/unsaltedbutter 17h ago

I just think of the stories people will instantly conjure in their head when they just look at a picture. Completely still image on r/pics and people are crafting all sorts of nonsense and posting about it.

1

u/Capt_HawkeyePierce 15h ago

This is why lawyers on business deals for all parties usually agree that disputes will be resolved by something other than a jury trial (arbitration or judge only trial).

1

u/wayoverpaid 15h ago

Yeah that would have made sense for everyone involved but the defendants were shady fucks. This was not a legitimate point of disagreement. I looked them up after the case and in the prior appeal that happened before reassessing damages, they were called out on having dodged the process servers to try to run out the clock on some things.

1

u/Zebidee 14h ago

Juries are filled with people not smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Same as opinion polls are done by people not smart enough to avoid people with clipboards.

1

u/Ferelar 14h ago

Yeah, being judged by a jury of your peers sounds great at first but becomes increasingly more terrifying the more "peers" you meet.

1

u/gbbmiler 13h ago

Luckily my jury experience was almost 100% the opposite.

I sat on a 6 day domestic violence trial, and 11 jurors were seriously engaged with the testimony, matching testimony to evidence, and the technical details for whether the various higher charges were or weren’t satisfied.

1 juror was just trying to get out of there as fast as possible.

I walked out of there feeling pretty good that if I were ever on trial, 11/12 jurors would be smart, civic-minded people trying to do their best.

Sorry to hear your experience was different.

1

u/1866GETSONA 13h ago

Genuinely what are we doing on this rock and how do we get back on track towards a proper society?

1

u/userhwon 13h ago

This is exactly why the time I had jury duty, I campaigned to be foreman. I knew I couldn't trust anyone else in the room to run a meeting efficiently, and there were some charges that were clear and others that weren't, and the thing could have ballooned without keeping focused. If I hadn't had the implicit authority in the room it would have been much, much harder to do that. We got it done in a couple of hours instead of possibly days. Some charges guilty, some not, and we all agreed on every count, with nobody appearing upset or disturbed about it.

1

u/Lovat69 12h ago

A jury is usually allowed to decide just that. If they want to toss out the law when they make judgements they can. Depending on local law of course but it's usually allowed.

1

u/WordWordNvmber 11h ago

Weird opinion: The fickleness of juries can make for a more efficient, and possibly fairer, legal system.

Because actually bringing a case to a jury trial is such a crapshoot, parties tend to settle. Especially large corporate defendants, who know the jury will usually be biased toward a sympathetic plaintiff.

Another solution is to cap the damages juries can award. A $139 million verdict against Company X because one of its truck drivers killed a plaintiff's family member in a negligent (but not grossly negligent) traffic accident is too much, and creates huge distortions in things like the insurance market. Plus, it can put a lot of small businesses out of business, and the verdict often turns on how much the jury likes the victim.

1

u/Artistic-Salary1738 11h ago

I’m happy to say that the only time I was on a jury we were all pretty sure the guy was guilty but almost found him innocent because we couldn’t hear his supposed admission of guilt on the police tape. Managed to get the copy of the tape with better audio and the guy did admit it to the officer. Traffic related, not anything high stakes, but I’m proud that we had a good discussion on reasonable doubt and followed the evidence.

1

u/EmmEnnEff 11h ago

I guess the jury does get to toss out the law if they think the law is dumb, but I never heard anyone taking that explicit stance.

A jury is the only time that you actually make direct decisions in your country's government.

Ignoring a law because you think it is unfair, in fact, a desirable feature of the jury system.

1

u/xxHailLuciferxx 10h ago

I was a juror for a kidnapping/false imprisonment/rape trial where the defendant and the "victim" were both self-proclaimed crackheads. The victim was a 5'2" white woman. The defendant was a 6'6" black man. They had hooked up at a crack house because he had money.

She stayed with him for three days. His door had no lock from when the police had previously kicked down the door. In those three days she willingly had sex with him. They went back to the crack house for more crack half a dozen times. She waited in the car while he went in to buy it. He took her to meet his sister and nephew for ice cream. He took her to Wendy's. He took her to a Chinese buffet. In those three days, she "never had an opportunity to escape."

On the fourth day, she called her dad for a ride home. Her welfare check was coming in the mail and she wanted to get to it before her dad stole it. He refused to pick her up because he knew she'd been "shacked up" with some crackhead for three days. So she told him she was raped and kidnapped and he agreed to come get her at a Walgreens. Her "kidnapper" drove her there so she could get picked up.

Great. Open and shut case, I'll be home early today, and an innocent man won't have this additional strike. (The judge told us they'd both be spending time in jail for drug charges). I get to the jury room and seven of the jurors think he's guilty. It took two days to make them see reason.

1

u/bitch_it_is_530 5h ago

Some of my fellow jurors were falling asleep during trial.

0

u/WhyMustIMakeANewAcco 16h ago

People who think the law is dumb get weeded out during jury selection. Jury selection very often intentionally wants idiots on the jury.

3

u/wayoverpaid 16h ago

I literally wrote "I know about and believe in jury nullification" in my reasons I might not be a fair juror.

Apparently that was not enough. It was a civil trial after all.