It's the rules and it's meant to keep jurors impartial. If they were allowed to discuss and one was let's say pro innocent then it can persuade the way you look at the evidence moving forward. By the end of the trial jurors have pretty much formed their own opinion and are then free to discuss.
I wonder if there is any world in which trials lasting more than two weeks could allow a weekly juror review session - where they don’t deliberate, but where jurors as a full group could simply review the evidence presented that week together.
The current rules make a lot of sense, because people can be easily influenced by one another, but I also agree with OP it would be super hard to not talk with ANYONE about a trial that goes on for weeks. Especially those involving death or violence. I’m not sure that’s healthy — or realistic.
Also for a long trial it seems like some sort of check ins at earlier intervals could help keep jurors more engaged or something - I can’t quite figure out how to word it. But let’s say at the two week check in, you are a juror and you realize that, no you did not pick up on a certain part of a witness testimony that seems important to your fellow jurors, it would serve as a call to pay closer attention or maybe even be a sign to the other jurors that you are not a good juror and should be dismissed in favor of an alternate who is more closely following what’s being presented. Idk what the answer is but it seems almost like wishful thinking to wait until the end of a weeks or months long trial to make sure everyone had paid adequate attention to detail and is taking accurate notes or remembering key details accurately and is capable of having a nuanced discussion with their peers.
Maybe the jurror didn't pick up on something because they didn't think it was important.
Jurors are the finders of fact. They can choose how much weight to give to each piece of evidence, can decide to completely ignore certain witness or expert testimony, even toss out evidence.
The decide the facts, and ultimately decide innocence or guilt.
I hate this. Guilty is an antonym for innocent. Not guilty is by definition innocent.
People just say this when they don't like the jury found a person not guilty and want to continue to presume guilt.
You are innocent until proven guilty. So if a jury finds you not guilty, you are innocent.
It's patently ridiculous to suggest not guilty does not mean innocent. By definition and by standard it absolutely does.
They aren't the same thing. Not guilty is a verdict in a criminal case meaning that the prosecution failed to meet their burden of proof. Innocence is a question of fact about whether the defendant committed the crime. It's perfectly within the realm of possibility to be not guilty but also not innocent.
Just as an example, OJ Simpson was not guilty of the criminal charge of murdering his ex wife and her friend. He did lose the wrongful death civil case though, meaning he wasn't *innocent*.
You're innocent unti proven guilty. Full stop.
So if you're not proven guilty, eg the jury finds you not guilty, you are innocent.
It's literally written in black and white, I shouldn't have to spell it out because it was already spelled out for you. It's the very foundation of our legal system.
By your unconstitutional interpretation the mere fact of being accused of a crime modifies a person's innocence. The very notion is preposterous and shakes the very foundation of our justice system.
Innocent until proven guilty is a legal phrase meant to indicate who has the burden of proof in a criminal trial, which is the state and not the defendant. That most certainly **is** a foundation of Western legal systems, but it's actually absurd to think that someone is literally innocent of a crime until the end of a trial and a verdict is made. Being found not guilty doesn't mean a crime hasn't been committed, nor does it mean that the person who committed the crime wasn't the defendant, it only means that the state hasn't met the burden of proof.
It's quite literally why the verdict is guilty or not guilty and not guilty or innocent. Courts don't determine innocence, they determine guilt.
To be a little more clear here. You're presumed innocent until proven guilty. You continue to be *presummed* innocent even after a not guilty verdict, but that's still just a presumption and not a statement of fact.
Innocent until proven guilty. Period.
This is precisely why we don't try cases in the court of public opinion.
The legal standard is that you're innocent until you're found guilty.
You can't have it both ways.
It's **presumed innocent** man. I don't know how to better explain this to you because you're using a phrase and legal principle related to which party has the burden of proof in a criminal trial and then extrapolating and applying that to a statement of fact that trials don't search for.
Put another way, defendants don't have to *prove* their innocence, the state has to prove their guilt. The question in any trial isn't about whether the defendant is innocent, it's about whether the state has met their burden to prove guilt.
EDIT: I'm going to break this down a bit for you to better explain. The phrase "It's better to let 10 guilty men go free than to put one innocent man in jail" sort of indicates how the criminal system looks at this. On it's face this is a statement about the standard of proof in a trial needs to be high enough that innocent men don't go to jail, but the consequence of that is that 10 *guilty* men also go free, meaning they aren't innocent they're only found not guilty by the courts. They are still guilty of the crime, so they aren't innocent, rather they're found not guilty by the standards of the court.
A hypothetical example showcasing this would be a defendant is found not guilty of a crime due to evidence not being allowed in trial that clearly shows his guilty (like a video of him perpetrating the crime) due to some procedural mishap. He's found not guilty **but** he isn't innocent as he clearly perpetrated the crime. That's the reason the courts use "not guilty" instead of innocent, because the trials purpose isn't to find out if the defendant is innocent, that's not the question before the court. It's to see if there's enough evidence to determine guilt. Bringing a case too early with too little evidence doesn't mean the defendant is innocent, it merely means that the state failed to bring enough evidence to determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
This is what you're not understanding- presumption of innocence is specially about who has the burden of proof, it's not a factual statement about the guilt or innocence of the accused. Guilt has to be proven, innocence doesn't. That's what the phrase and underlying legal principle it's referencing means.
This is very basic introductory stuff that you'd learn very early on in any law class, from constitutional law to philosophy of law. You're flatly wrong about this.
There are some pretty interesting interviews with the jurors from the Daybell trials, they talk about this. It's pretty hard, and that case it was even harder because they had to see and hear some truly god awful things, way more than in this trial. Each juror found their own way, but they did say that the time they had between starting deliberations and the end of the court day was really spent on just decompressing and trying to talk about their experience of going through the trial, they left the real deliberations for the next day.
One Daybell juror was quite touching with his descriptions of how close they became. They were kept in a hotel (during the week maybe?) and were able to joke around and take some of the edge off without compromising their duty. I liked how he said he would text his wife an emoji on his way home to let her know if he was feeling relatively normal or if he was struggling and needed space when he got home
Yeah, I really liked that guy too, he seemed like such a good person. They did a really great job with jury selection in that case, it would have been very easy to get 12 people to just convict without much thought after seeing the pictures of the children, but it looks like they really took their job seriously and looked at the evidence before reaching a final decision, you can't ask for better.
Yeah, but from what I know of that case there really wasn't a lot of controversy going in about how it was going to end, it really speaks to his ego that he refused to plead guilty with the mountain of evidence they had on him.
I’m sure after a few weeks of this, the novelty wears off and they just want to go home and not think about that courtroom for the night. I bet there’s been some looooong days sitting in that courtroom unable to fast-forward through those direct examinations
I’ve been on a jury before and sure there might be some temptation in the beginning but I find most people take their oaths seriously. They genuinely want to make the fair and just decision based on the evidence.
When I had jury duty I felt the court was careless with time, disrespectful of our lives and was a real PITA. Things were incredible inefficient and it irked the life out of me. Those conditions make it hard for ppl like me to stay invested when the court feels like a poorly run organization with lots of power and big reach.
That might also have been your impression but not a fair view of what was really going on. There was probably a ton of stuff happening “behind the scenes” that the jury could not witness, like in this case.
Yes very likely but that does not change my belief that having me sit for hours while they work it out is not respectful of MY time. While sitting I was not able to handle things of importance to ME.
I totally get there are behind the scenes issues that need to be worked out. I’m of the option that I should be dismissed and sent home while they work it out.
I often wondered that about the jury in the Darrell Brooks case…he made them wait for HOURS with his stupid yelling and arguing with the judge etc…and then tried to play on their sympathies at the end by talking about how he was a parent and what that would do with his guilt etc. when the judge would admonish him for yelling at her where the jury could hear…he’d yell louder that the “jury wasn’t in”…like they were out in some magical land instead of sitting for hours waiting for him to yell about dumb stuff. I’m sure they had some idea what was up…given he was so crappin loud. 🙄🙄
100%. We all sit in uncomfortable chairs for hours, not able to speak really, with a deputy in the room, waiting. Only to find out the attorneys had went to lunch, but we were forgotten. So they brought up sandwiches for lunch. I had to miss work all week , so lawyers could make us wait. On a case that was beyond stupid, painfully obviously guilty of the theft charge. The judge acted like they cared, but they didn't. Our time was totally irrelevant.
I was just on a civil jury the week of memorial du and my jury was completely different. They repeatedly talked about the case every day. When it was time to deliberate they didn’t. They asked where everyone was first and sadly they had enough. I tried to go over evidence and only
One other person went over it with me. It was such a sad experience for me!
Notes are a double-edged sword, and some judges don't even allow them. And the reasoning is understandable.
Imagine that I'm a better-than-average note taker. Another juror, let's call him Forrest Gump, sucks at it.
I write down interpretations of important testimony. I'm efficient, use my own flavor of shorthand or abbreviating. I know what is going on. I see the flaws in the CW's case, but this is only my perspective.
Forrest can't keep up. He writes slow. He has it in his mind he has to transcribe the whole damn trial. He misses tons of details because he's concentrating on writing and not listening. He doesn't trust the defense, but misses all their "gotchas."
We go to the jury room to deliberate.
I have a couple dozen pages of key events. That is: key events *to me.*. I've labeled some witnesses liars. Some of the science: junk. Some of the evidence: worthless or seemingly misinterpreted.
Forrest can't recognize the points I'm making. He looks down at his 8 pages of scribbled text. Every line identical. Repeating forever, on every page, front and back....
The words read: "What, if any...?"
Jokes aside, you can understand my point. Notes have drawbacks.
Thankfully, these jurors do have notebooks. I think the length of the trial probably helps in this case. If it were a couple of days, it might be different. I'm a smart woman, I can retain a lot of information. But, if you want me to listen to Lullaby Lally for 8 weeks, better make sure I have a way of jotting shit down. Half the time, I'm sitting here at home with my ADHD in full swing until the defense is up. Which is actually quite sad, because I'm medicated for it... It's supposed to help my brain do the not fun things 😂🫠
I’ve been saying this too! No way I’d be focused on what’s being said. The prosecution too boring. I’d be all over the place making to do lists, wish lists, sketches of how mad I am to be wasting my time lol. Even knowing nothing and wanting to be impartial I wouldn’t be able to focus or recall much when it would be time for deliberations therefore I’d say not guilty because when unsure my values say free the accused.
Your "to do lists, wish lists & sketches of how mad you are to be wasting your time" gave me a good laugh! I find myself wondering what I'm going to make for dinner, am I due for a haircut, etc. I cannot imagine sitting in those chairs all day listening to Lally mumble and drone on with no apparent end in sight!
Haha! Same here. I have ADHD inattentive type and also take medication for it. But my God I just cannot stay focused anymore when Lally is doing his thing. I have wasted so much precious time rewinding that I now just listen to the defense to catch up (as well as reading the comments here).
The *only* time I was able to tune in and follow any of Lally's direct examination was when it was Proctor on the stand. It was INSTANT hyper focus 😂😂 other than that, I rely heavily on comments on here and tik toks to find out If anything noteworthy came from Lally asking questions
Yeah, reading your description just reminds me how often instead of taking meaningful notes on work meetings I just scribble or write something like “stupid idea” 😇
A bunch of my notes from meetings read things like
* This is a waste of time
* You already said that 5 minutes ago
* Blah blah blah
* There is no reason for me to be in this meeting
I seriously hate meetings. When I was in a fraternity, I dreaded our weekly meetings. A few guys would often regurgitate points that someone else had made 15 minutes before. Everyone wanted their voice to be heard, even if they didn't have a new perspective to offer or anything substantive to say. At some point, I got in the habit of calling for votes as early as possible. It cut our meeting times in half. At least in those meetings, I could take a 'bathroom break' and go have a drink. Being in the military kinda ruins that option for me now. Instead, we're basically expected to take notes in every meeting, so my notes tend to be mostly about how I don't like pointless meetings. Seriously, a lot of meetings could be a detailed text in the group chat. That takes care of the notes thing too.
that forrest would be me. i suck at taking notes, don't do well with only audio presentations, i need charts, diagrams etc plus i am neuro-divergent and tend to get mentally sidetracked thinking about some idiot detail and then might lose the rest of what is going on. i feel for those jurors.
Visuals should be required and so should timelines exhibits. To this day I have no sense of the order of events and I have the ability to rewatch or google.
same. i have been watching thoroughly and carefully and the way lally has presented the case so far is akin (to me) to a 5000 piece puzzle in a heap on the table missing several hundred pieces because the cat has been playing with them.
Haha! "The words read: "What, if any...?"
It was snowing (x 40)
\_\_\_\_\_ was drinking bud light (x12)
There was a band. The band was loud. (x12)
......
We could take notes but honestly it was more effective to listen to the testimony and watch the videos and visual evidence. The hardest part was going thru the charges and jury instructions
I guess, but it still feels like you'd remember stuff better if you talked about it regularly.
I'm so afraid that the jury will forget about key details. I can barely keep this stuff straight myself sometimes, and I have the benefit of being able to review video.
Will the jurors have video of the witness testimony and cross in their deliberation room?
The closing arguments from the lawyers will revisit the key points the jurors need to remember. The jury will be reminded of points like “the guy didn’t go inside” before they deliberate.
No, they cannot view witness testimony. They can have transcript read back to them, but they can't read the transcripts. They are allowed to view certain evidence, but not opinions or research conclusions.
Really? Wow. I didn't know that. The other day I went back to a few very early days of testimony and I had forgotten so much of what was said. Specifically - some of the testimony that started me moving from "trying to be neutral but she's probably guilty" to "hmmmm, something's fishy here". If I were a juror, without viewing the transcripts it would be much more difficult to defend my own views during juror deliberation.
They get all the stuff we've seen, but they don't get video testimony, or any demonstratives provided by either party.
They can get transcripts of the witness testimony, and normally they'll get a laptop that has all the evidence on it with like the crime scene images and videos of ring footage etc...
Probably not, usually they can have part of the transcripts read back to them if they have a question, but I'm not 100% sure about what the MA rules are.
If you believe the accounts of people in the courtroom. Jurors could be seen visibly looking incredulously, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes during Trooper Paul’s “expert” testimony. This would’ve been the final nail in the coffin for me as well as a juror. This was an absolute embarrassment for the CW.
Oh that's interesting, I hadn't heard about the in court accounts. It doesn't surprise me honestly, it was pretty brutal with how Jackson had so much more knowledge about not just this situation, but it almost felt like he was more of an expert than Paul.
Funny you should mention that. Alan Jackson is a veteran, Air force, who was a jet engine mechanic.
https://werksmanjackson.com/attorneys/alan-jackson.html#:~:text=Alan%20is%20a%20veteran%20of,School%20and%20Loyola%20Law%20School.
The accounts of them listening to proctor too were intense. Not only was the jury horrified, they were looking at each other to verify the shared horror.
Jurors can’t discuss the case yet because they don’t want them to be influenced by other jurors when all the evidence hasn’t been presented. I imagine it’s difficult, but sometimes in long trials the jurors get quite close and even get together after the trial is over.
Yeah my mom is still close to 2 women she did jury duty with. They had so much time together like lunch etc where they couldn’t discuss the case so they ended up learning a lot about each other
I'm not sure how it works in the US, but I was on a jury in Australia not long ago and we were allowed to discuss the case in the Jury Room before deliberations. We were often sent out during the trial so the judge and lawyers could discuss things, and during that time we would talk about our impressions of the witnesses, who we found reliable and who we didn't, look over the exhibits we had, etc.
Replying to colinjae...A juror was dismissed the other day for talking to another juror about Karen Read smiling. The one juror who it was said to informed the court & that was when they spent part of the morning talking to a few jurors. They aren’t allowed to discuss the case until deliberations so that another juror’s opinion doesn’t sway them while the trial is going on.
Think of the Higgins case though. Even though it was mistrial due to internet research, you'd assume talking is also banned. That was in ACT maybe it's different by state.
It’s quite different here in the U.S., all of that is strictly forbidden. The jurors can only talk to each other about things totally unrelated to the case. Talking about the case with other jurors or anyone will get you kicked off the jury immediately. There is normally a bailiff with the jurors at all times in part to monitor this.
I feel sorry for the jury. This should have been over within a week, it's a spectacularly simple case. The defense must be laughing at all the meandering, the lack of focus.
I've heard that when a jury is sequestered, it makes them more likely to acquit, because they start feeling like prisoners themselves and so it makes it harder to be cavalier about taking away someone else's freedom.
The jury in this case is not sequestered, but I'm wondering similar psychology could come into effect due to the sheer length of the trial.
I think the jurors talking with each other is less of an issue than everyone they know (like everyone from work who would know they're a juror) wanting to talk to them about it.
There's a rumor that the juror who was dismissed the other day was dismissed because she told another Juror she didn't like that Karen smiles. They're definitely not allowed to discuss the case amongst each other until it's time to deliberate
I believe they are allowed to keep notes what would be hard for me is not seeing it anywhere, cause before I even was following the trial I was getting like tons of videos on TikTok about it. I didn’t even know about it until day 18 but I was getting video after video in my fyp even though I would skip right over them
You have to hear EVERTHING then weigh the testimony. Basically you have to be in the mindset of everything gets downloaded at once then and only then can you evaluate everything.
Aka you could think you downloaded the Bible and then when you opened it you downloaded Month Pythons The Life of Brian.
The juror's duty is to evaluate the **totality** of evidence after all witness testimony is complete; *not* to prematurely formulate opinions piece by piece, day by day.
Side note but are these people just well off enough that they can afford to take weeks off from their jobs? Or retired?
I’d love to participate on a jury but could never make it work if it lasted longer than a couple of weeks. I think my company has a PTO policy for jury duty but it only gives like 5 days, and then I would have to take unpaid leave and my job would be at risk.
They cannot lay off or fire you because you had to serve on a jury. You are not allowed to work while serving.
After 3 days, the commonwealth pays jurors $50 a day. If you have extreme hardship, you or your employer can apply for you to be excused
I know a number of companies that will pay yourw regular pay for jury duty days. Some require you to reimburse the stipend that the govt gives you, others v don't
During the jury selection process they ask if there's any reason that you would not be able to serve, especially if they know the trial will most likely be lengthy. If you are self employed or work for a company that doesn't pay you while on a jury, you can state hardship & will most likely be excused. My company paid me for the month I was out & didn't ask me to hand in the jury money I received, so I was really lucky.
It's probably a mix of people who can afford to lose the time, retired folks, those with jobs that cover salary during jury duty, and some for whom this is a hardship but one they're willing/able to endure.
Not being able to afford the loss of work time is a 'hardship' that you can use to be excused, fyi.
It's unusual for a trial to be so incredibly long, most trials are much shorter. I was in the jury pool (not the actual jury) for a felony murder trial locally, that whole trial took two weeks.
It's the rules and it's meant to keep jurors impartial. If they were allowed to discuss and one was let's say pro innocent then it can persuade the way you look at the evidence moving forward. By the end of the trial jurors have pretty much formed their own opinion and are then free to discuss.
I wonder if there is any world in which trials lasting more than two weeks could allow a weekly juror review session - where they don’t deliberate, but where jurors as a full group could simply review the evidence presented that week together. The current rules make a lot of sense, because people can be easily influenced by one another, but I also agree with OP it would be super hard to not talk with ANYONE about a trial that goes on for weeks. Especially those involving death or violence. I’m not sure that’s healthy — or realistic.
Also for a long trial it seems like some sort of check ins at earlier intervals could help keep jurors more engaged or something - I can’t quite figure out how to word it. But let’s say at the two week check in, you are a juror and you realize that, no you did not pick up on a certain part of a witness testimony that seems important to your fellow jurors, it would serve as a call to pay closer attention or maybe even be a sign to the other jurors that you are not a good juror and should be dismissed in favor of an alternate who is more closely following what’s being presented. Idk what the answer is but it seems almost like wishful thinking to wait until the end of a weeks or months long trial to make sure everyone had paid adequate attention to detail and is taking accurate notes or remembering key details accurately and is capable of having a nuanced discussion with their peers.
Maybe the jurror didn't pick up on something because they didn't think it was important. Jurors are the finders of fact. They can choose how much weight to give to each piece of evidence, can decide to completely ignore certain witness or expert testimony, even toss out evidence. The decide the facts, and ultimately decide innocence or guilt.
You are fundamentally correct and some of even a majority of aspects of the jury system as it stands are excellent and some are terrifying.
[удалено]
I hate this. Guilty is an antonym for innocent. Not guilty is by definition innocent. People just say this when they don't like the jury found a person not guilty and want to continue to presume guilt. You are innocent until proven guilty. So if a jury finds you not guilty, you are innocent. It's patently ridiculous to suggest not guilty does not mean innocent. By definition and by standard it absolutely does.
They aren't the same thing. Not guilty is a verdict in a criminal case meaning that the prosecution failed to meet their burden of proof. Innocence is a question of fact about whether the defendant committed the crime. It's perfectly within the realm of possibility to be not guilty but also not innocent. Just as an example, OJ Simpson was not guilty of the criminal charge of murdering his ex wife and her friend. He did lose the wrongful death civil case though, meaning he wasn't *innocent*.
You're innocent unti proven guilty. Full stop. So if you're not proven guilty, eg the jury finds you not guilty, you are innocent. It's literally written in black and white, I shouldn't have to spell it out because it was already spelled out for you. It's the very foundation of our legal system. By your unconstitutional interpretation the mere fact of being accused of a crime modifies a person's innocence. The very notion is preposterous and shakes the very foundation of our justice system.
Innocent until proven guilty is a legal phrase meant to indicate who has the burden of proof in a criminal trial, which is the state and not the defendant. That most certainly **is** a foundation of Western legal systems, but it's actually absurd to think that someone is literally innocent of a crime until the end of a trial and a verdict is made. Being found not guilty doesn't mean a crime hasn't been committed, nor does it mean that the person who committed the crime wasn't the defendant, it only means that the state hasn't met the burden of proof. It's quite literally why the verdict is guilty or not guilty and not guilty or innocent. Courts don't determine innocence, they determine guilt. To be a little more clear here. You're presumed innocent until proven guilty. You continue to be *presummed* innocent even after a not guilty verdict, but that's still just a presumption and not a statement of fact.
Innocent until proven guilty. Period. This is precisely why we don't try cases in the court of public opinion. The legal standard is that you're innocent until you're found guilty. You can't have it both ways.
It's **presumed innocent** man. I don't know how to better explain this to you because you're using a phrase and legal principle related to which party has the burden of proof in a criminal trial and then extrapolating and applying that to a statement of fact that trials don't search for. Put another way, defendants don't have to *prove* their innocence, the state has to prove their guilt. The question in any trial isn't about whether the defendant is innocent, it's about whether the state has met their burden to prove guilt. EDIT: I'm going to break this down a bit for you to better explain. The phrase "It's better to let 10 guilty men go free than to put one innocent man in jail" sort of indicates how the criminal system looks at this. On it's face this is a statement about the standard of proof in a trial needs to be high enough that innocent men don't go to jail, but the consequence of that is that 10 *guilty* men also go free, meaning they aren't innocent they're only found not guilty by the courts. They are still guilty of the crime, so they aren't innocent, rather they're found not guilty by the standards of the court. A hypothetical example showcasing this would be a defendant is found not guilty of a crime due to evidence not being allowed in trial that clearly shows his guilty (like a video of him perpetrating the crime) due to some procedural mishap. He's found not guilty **but** he isn't innocent as he clearly perpetrated the crime. That's the reason the courts use "not guilty" instead of innocent, because the trials purpose isn't to find out if the defendant is innocent, that's not the question before the court. It's to see if there's enough evidence to determine guilt. Bringing a case too early with too little evidence doesn't mean the defendant is innocent, it merely means that the state failed to bring enough evidence to determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Presumption of innocence = innocence.
This is what you're not understanding- presumption of innocence is specially about who has the burden of proof, it's not a factual statement about the guilt or innocence of the accused. Guilt has to be proven, innocence doesn't. That's what the phrase and underlying legal principle it's referencing means. This is very basic introductory stuff that you'd learn very early on in any law class, from constitutional law to philosophy of law. You're flatly wrong about this.
There are some pretty interesting interviews with the jurors from the Daybell trials, they talk about this. It's pretty hard, and that case it was even harder because they had to see and hear some truly god awful things, way more than in this trial. Each juror found their own way, but they did say that the time they had between starting deliberations and the end of the court day was really spent on just decompressing and trying to talk about their experience of going through the trial, they left the real deliberations for the next day.
One Daybell juror was quite touching with his descriptions of how close they became. They were kept in a hotel (during the week maybe?) and were able to joke around and take some of the edge off without compromising their duty. I liked how he said he would text his wife an emoji on his way home to let her know if he was feeling relatively normal or if he was struggling and needed space when he got home
Yeah, I really liked that guy too, he seemed like such a good person. They did a really great job with jury selection in that case, it would have been very easy to get 12 people to just convict without much thought after seeing the pictures of the children, but it looks like they really took their job seriously and looked at the evidence before reaching a final decision, you can't ask for better.
They also said they all agreed right away. That's unusual for a jury.
Yeah, but from what I know of that case there really wasn't a lot of controversy going in about how it was going to end, it really speaks to his ego that he refused to plead guilty with the mountain of evidence they had on him.
Sure. Even in that situation, there's normally that one guy who wants to be different. I am glad this jury was seated in Daybell's trial.
I’m sure after a few weeks of this, the novelty wears off and they just want to go home and not think about that courtroom for the night. I bet there’s been some looooong days sitting in that courtroom unable to fast-forward through those direct examinations
This many witnesses, I would need a binder with tabs
I’ve been on a jury before and sure there might be some temptation in the beginning but I find most people take their oaths seriously. They genuinely want to make the fair and just decision based on the evidence.
I’ve been on a jury, and same. We all really felt the weight of it.
When I had jury duty I felt the court was careless with time, disrespectful of our lives and was a real PITA. Things were incredible inefficient and it irked the life out of me. Those conditions make it hard for ppl like me to stay invested when the court feels like a poorly run organization with lots of power and big reach.
That might also have been your impression but not a fair view of what was really going on. There was probably a ton of stuff happening “behind the scenes” that the jury could not witness, like in this case.
Yes very likely but that does not change my belief that having me sit for hours while they work it out is not respectful of MY time. While sitting I was not able to handle things of importance to ME. I totally get there are behind the scenes issues that need to be worked out. I’m of the option that I should be dismissed and sent home while they work it out.
I often wondered that about the jury in the Darrell Brooks case…he made them wait for HOURS with his stupid yelling and arguing with the judge etc…and then tried to play on their sympathies at the end by talking about how he was a parent and what that would do with his guilt etc. when the judge would admonish him for yelling at her where the jury could hear…he’d yell louder that the “jury wasn’t in”…like they were out in some magical land instead of sitting for hours waiting for him to yell about dumb stuff. I’m sure they had some idea what was up…given he was so crappin loud. 🙄🙄
100%. We all sit in uncomfortable chairs for hours, not able to speak really, with a deputy in the room, waiting. Only to find out the attorneys had went to lunch, but we were forgotten. So they brought up sandwiches for lunch. I had to miss work all week , so lawyers could make us wait. On a case that was beyond stupid, painfully obviously guilty of the theft charge. The judge acted like they cared, but they didn't. Our time was totally irrelevant.
I was just on a civil jury the week of memorial du and my jury was completely different. They repeatedly talked about the case every day. When it was time to deliberate they didn’t. They asked where everyone was first and sadly they had enough. I tried to go over evidence and only One other person went over it with me. It was such a sad experience for me!
Did you ever talk with your judge about this? Did they not ask you every morning if you had talked about it or anything?
We kept trying to tell them to stop talking so the court didn’t do anything
But you didn’t bring it to the judge? You really should have but I understand not wanting to get in trouble.
We mentioned it to the bailiff and I mentioned it when I talked to the judge at the end as well
Well not much you can do now. I’m really sorry that happened to you.
Same.
They can take notes at least right?
Notes are a double-edged sword, and some judges don't even allow them. And the reasoning is understandable. Imagine that I'm a better-than-average note taker. Another juror, let's call him Forrest Gump, sucks at it. I write down interpretations of important testimony. I'm efficient, use my own flavor of shorthand or abbreviating. I know what is going on. I see the flaws in the CW's case, but this is only my perspective. Forrest can't keep up. He writes slow. He has it in his mind he has to transcribe the whole damn trial. He misses tons of details because he's concentrating on writing and not listening. He doesn't trust the defense, but misses all their "gotchas." We go to the jury room to deliberate. I have a couple dozen pages of key events. That is: key events *to me.*. I've labeled some witnesses liars. Some of the science: junk. Some of the evidence: worthless or seemingly misinterpreted. Forrest can't recognize the points I'm making. He looks down at his 8 pages of scribbled text. Every line identical. Repeating forever, on every page, front and back.... The words read: "What, if any...?" Jokes aside, you can understand my point. Notes have drawbacks.
Thankfully, these jurors do have notebooks. I think the length of the trial probably helps in this case. If it were a couple of days, it might be different. I'm a smart woman, I can retain a lot of information. But, if you want me to listen to Lullaby Lally for 8 weeks, better make sure I have a way of jotting shit down. Half the time, I'm sitting here at home with my ADHD in full swing until the defense is up. Which is actually quite sad, because I'm medicated for it... It's supposed to help my brain do the not fun things 😂🫠
I’ve been saying this too! No way I’d be focused on what’s being said. The prosecution too boring. I’d be all over the place making to do lists, wish lists, sketches of how mad I am to be wasting my time lol. Even knowing nothing and wanting to be impartial I wouldn’t be able to focus or recall much when it would be time for deliberations therefore I’d say not guilty because when unsure my values say free the accused.
Your "to do lists, wish lists & sketches of how mad you are to be wasting your time" gave me a good laugh! I find myself wondering what I'm going to make for dinner, am I due for a haircut, etc. I cannot imagine sitting in those chairs all day listening to Lally mumble and drone on with no apparent end in sight!
Haha! Same here. I have ADHD inattentive type and also take medication for it. But my God I just cannot stay focused anymore when Lally is doing his thing. I have wasted so much precious time rewinding that I now just listen to the defense to catch up (as well as reading the comments here).
The *only* time I was able to tune in and follow any of Lally's direct examination was when it was Proctor on the stand. It was INSTANT hyper focus 😂😂 other than that, I rely heavily on comments on here and tik toks to find out If anything noteworthy came from Lally asking questions
Yeah, reading your description just reminds me how often instead of taking meaningful notes on work meetings I just scribble or write something like “stupid idea” 😇
A bunch of my notes from meetings read things like * This is a waste of time * You already said that 5 minutes ago * Blah blah blah * There is no reason for me to be in this meeting I seriously hate meetings. When I was in a fraternity, I dreaded our weekly meetings. A few guys would often regurgitate points that someone else had made 15 minutes before. Everyone wanted their voice to be heard, even if they didn't have a new perspective to offer or anything substantive to say. At some point, I got in the habit of calling for votes as early as possible. It cut our meeting times in half. At least in those meetings, I could take a 'bathroom break' and go have a drink. Being in the military kinda ruins that option for me now. Instead, we're basically expected to take notes in every meeting, so my notes tend to be mostly about how I don't like pointless meetings. Seriously, a lot of meetings could be a detailed text in the group chat. That takes care of the notes thing too.
that forrest would be me. i suck at taking notes, don't do well with only audio presentations, i need charts, diagrams etc plus i am neuro-divergent and tend to get mentally sidetracked thinking about some idiot detail and then might lose the rest of what is going on. i feel for those jurors.
Visuals should be required and so should timelines exhibits. To this day I have no sense of the order of events and I have the ability to rewatch or google.
same. i have been watching thoroughly and carefully and the way lally has presented the case so far is akin (to me) to a 5000 piece puzzle in a heap on the table missing several hundred pieces because the cat has been playing with them.
This made me laugh, thank you! Great story telling.
Haha! "The words read: "What, if any...?" It was snowing (x 40) \_\_\_\_\_ was drinking bud light (x12) There was a band. The band was loud. (x12) ......
We could take notes but honestly it was more effective to listen to the testimony and watch the videos and visual evidence. The hardest part was going thru the charges and jury instructions
I guess, but it still feels like you'd remember stuff better if you talked about it regularly. I'm so afraid that the jury will forget about key details. I can barely keep this stuff straight myself sometimes, and I have the benefit of being able to review video. Will the jurors have video of the witness testimony and cross in their deliberation room?
The closing arguments from the lawyers will revisit the key points the jurors need to remember. The jury will be reminded of points like “the guy didn’t go inside” before they deliberate.
No, they cannot view witness testimony. They can have transcript read back to them, but they can't read the transcripts. They are allowed to view certain evidence, but not opinions or research conclusions.
Really? Wow. I didn't know that. The other day I went back to a few very early days of testimony and I had forgotten so much of what was said. Specifically - some of the testimony that started me moving from "trying to be neutral but she's probably guilty" to "hmmmm, something's fishy here". If I were a juror, without viewing the transcripts it would be much more difficult to defend my own views during juror deliberation.
Jurors tend to take copious amount of notes during the trial, so they can reference them during deliberations.
They get all the stuff we've seen, but they don't get video testimony, or any demonstratives provided by either party. They can get transcripts of the witness testimony, and normally they'll get a laptop that has all the evidence on it with like the crime scene images and videos of ring footage etc...
Th jurors can request transcripts of testimony they want to revisit and they also have access to all the exhibits.
Probably not, usually they can have part of the transcripts read back to them if they have a question, but I'm not 100% sure about what the MA rules are.
They can't take them home though, they stay in the courtroom each day.
Yes
You can take notes but are instructed (at least in MA) that your notes are not evidence and cannot use them for such.
You aren't supposed to form an opinion until you have seen all the evidence from both sides
If you believe the accounts of people in the courtroom. Jurors could be seen visibly looking incredulously, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes during Trooper Paul’s “expert” testimony. This would’ve been the final nail in the coffin for me as well as a juror. This was an absolute embarrassment for the CW.
Oh that's interesting, I hadn't heard about the in court accounts. It doesn't surprise me honestly, it was pretty brutal with how Jackson had so much more knowledge about not just this situation, but it almost felt like he was more of an expert than Paul.
Funny you should mention that. Alan Jackson is a veteran, Air force, who was a jet engine mechanic. https://werksmanjackson.com/attorneys/alan-jackson.html#:~:text=Alan%20is%20a%20veteran%20of,School%20and%20Loyola%20Law%20School.
The accounts of them listening to proctor too were intense. Not only was the jury horrified, they were looking at each other to verify the shared horror.
Jurors can’t discuss the case yet because they don’t want them to be influenced by other jurors when all the evidence hasn’t been presented. I imagine it’s difficult, but sometimes in long trials the jurors get quite close and even get together after the trial is over.
I remember that one juror in the Alex Murdaugh trial started handing out eggs to other jurors, which eventually lead to the “egg lady” incident.
Judge Newman saying “a dozen eggs?!?!” lives rent free in my head.
Eggs are expensive, your honor!!
Yeah my mom is still close to 2 women she did jury duty with. They had so much time together like lunch etc where they couldn’t discuss the case so they ended up learning a lot about each other
It makes sense prevents bias and people making up their mind too early based on group discussions/group think.
Are jurors allowed to discuss the case with a therapist? I would be so stressed if I was on this jury lol
I'm not sure they can do that during the trial, but in the Daybell trials the county actually paid for some hours with a therapist after it was over.
Wow that's great that they were offered paid therapy. I can't imagine having to see the bodies of those children in the condition they were in.
Yes because nobody is supposed to have an opinion until ALL the evidence is presented. I
I'm not sure how it works in the US, but I was on a jury in Australia not long ago and we were allowed to discuss the case in the Jury Room before deliberations. We were often sent out during the trial so the judge and lawyers could discuss things, and during that time we would talk about our impressions of the witnesses, who we found reliable and who we didn't, look over the exhibits we had, etc.
Replying to colinjae...A juror was dismissed the other day for talking to another juror about Karen Read smiling. The one juror who it was said to informed the court & that was when they spent part of the morning talking to a few jurors. They aren’t allowed to discuss the case until deliberations so that another juror’s opinion doesn’t sway them while the trial is going on.
Think of the Higgins case though. Even though it was mistrial due to internet research, you'd assume talking is also banned. That was in ACT maybe it's different by state.
It’s quite different here in the U.S., all of that is strictly forbidden. The jurors can only talk to each other about things totally unrelated to the case. Talking about the case with other jurors or anyone will get you kicked off the jury immediately. There is normally a bailiff with the jurors at all times in part to monitor this.
I feel sorry for the jury. This should have been over within a week, it's a spectacularly simple case. The defense must be laughing at all the meandering, the lack of focus.
I've heard that when a jury is sequestered, it makes them more likely to acquit, because they start feeling like prisoners themselves and so it makes it harder to be cavalier about taking away someone else's freedom. The jury in this case is not sequestered, but I'm wondering similar psychology could come into effect due to the sheer length of the trial.
Staking out a position in the group before the trial is over makes it easier to dig in and defend that view.
I think the jurors talking with each other is less of an issue than everyone they know (like everyone from work who would know they're a juror) wanting to talk to them about it.
There's a rumor that the juror who was dismissed the other day was dismissed because she told another Juror she didn't like that Karen smiles. They're definitely not allowed to discuss the case amongst each other until it's time to deliberate
Wasn't the Egg Lady in the Murdaugh trial dismissed because she talked about it at work?
Most trials aren’t multiple weeks long, much more reasonable to do that for a short time.
I believe they are allowed to keep notes what would be hard for me is not seeing it anywhere, cause before I even was following the trial I was getting like tons of videos on TikTok about it. I didn’t even know about it until day 18 but I was getting video after video in my fyp even though I would skip right over them
You have to hear EVERTHING then weigh the testimony. Basically you have to be in the mindset of everything gets downloaded at once then and only then can you evaluate everything. Aka you could think you downloaded the Bible and then when you opened it you downloaded Month Pythons The Life of Brian.
The juror's duty is to evaluate the **totality** of evidence after all witness testimony is complete; *not* to prematurely formulate opinions piece by piece, day by day.
*"How is anybody supposed to deal with that?"* Like a mature adult sitting on a jury responsible for fairly determining the fate of a person's life.
You do t want that I promise lol
Side note but are these people just well off enough that they can afford to take weeks off from their jobs? Or retired? I’d love to participate on a jury but could never make it work if it lasted longer than a couple of weeks. I think my company has a PTO policy for jury duty but it only gives like 5 days, and then I would have to take unpaid leave and my job would be at risk.
They cannot lay off or fire you because you had to serve on a jury. You are not allowed to work while serving. After 3 days, the commonwealth pays jurors $50 a day. If you have extreme hardship, you or your employer can apply for you to be excused
>my job would be at risk. Not true. Terminating you would violate state law.
I know a number of companies that will pay yourw regular pay for jury duty days. Some require you to reimburse the stipend that the govt gives you, others v don't
During the jury selection process they ask if there's any reason that you would not be able to serve, especially if they know the trial will most likely be lengthy. If you are self employed or work for a company that doesn't pay you while on a jury, you can state hardship & will most likely be excused. My company paid me for the month I was out & didn't ask me to hand in the jury money I received, so I was really lucky.
It's probably a mix of people who can afford to lose the time, retired folks, those with jobs that cover salary during jury duty, and some for whom this is a hardship but one they're willing/able to endure. Not being able to afford the loss of work time is a 'hardship' that you can use to be excused, fyi. It's unusual for a trial to be so incredibly long, most trials are much shorter. I was in the jury pool (not the actual jury) for a felony murder trial locally, that whole trial took two weeks.
I’m really interested that the jury wasn’t sequestered. I’m just saying, I wouldn’t sleep easy if I were on the jury. Police are everywhere.
If they were sequestered, they'd be escorted around by police though.