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/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.