Jury Duty

ShannonEntropy
Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:50:15 +0000

Please forgive me for that quite insensitive Post #15 immediately supra … but the ‘inspiration’ for it came from a real life experience I had some yrs ago

As my faithful readers here at CC know, I am not only the parent of two succesfully graduated college students, but I was also a faculty member at Brown University for 24 yrs [ retired now ]

As such, and due to my area of expertise, I am occasionally asked to either provide expert testimony or consult in cases of litigation

People usually think of such ‘hired gun experts’ as willing to swear to whatever the attorney paying their fee wants them to say … but my ‘Ground Rule’ is that I’ll review any case for an hourly fee, and then give the client’s counsel my honest opinion … if they like what they hear, they’ll sign me on … but I personally would never commit perjury just to make a buck

Anyways, there was this case I was asked to consult on for a defendant in a lawsuit … IMHO the client had no liabilty whatsoever, and I was willing to testify to that … and the client wanted to fight this ridiculous lawsuit all the way to the SCOTUS, if necessary …

But the guy’s attorney wanted him to settle. Why?? Because the case was highly technical, involved ‘grey areas’ of both fact and law, and would be --shall we say – ‘difficult’ for the average laymen to comprehend

If this had been a criminal matter, I would have recommended a ‘jury-waived’ trial, where the Judge is the final “trier of fact” … but in civil cases, the plaintiff can demand a Jury trial, there’s no other option

So we’re all in this meeting with the client, who’s basically demanding to fight, fight! fight!!
… because he, and all of us, knows he’s in the right

But then the attorney drops this bombshell on him:

" Do you really want to put all of your assets — everything you’ve ever worked for in your entire life — into the hands of twelve people who were too stupid to get out of jury duty ?? "

After a loooong, pregnant pause, the client sez : “I guess not”

Case closed / settlement for plaintiff …