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/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/VirtualMoneyLover 11h ago

Because I will inherit the Earth, the Moon and the Stars.

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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!

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u/brittneyacook 13h ago

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

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u/bradd_pit 17h ago

Settlement is not an admission of guilt

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u/Skill3rwhale 17h ago

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

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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u/20_mile 12h ago

but is nothing like you initially described

Exactly as I described, actually.

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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/20_mile 12h ago

but it's not at all what your original comment portrayed.

You misunderstood.

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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.