My Thoughts about Juries

Trial by jury is a bad system of handing out justice, but in this imperfect world, do we have anything better? That’s what I ask myself every time there is a high profile jury trial. It is what it is, but I’ve made the following statement many times. “You have your attorneys and experts for both sides, then you turn the final decision over to a bunch of morons.” That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

I was an insurance claims professional for many years and have been a witness to many juries; of course, with civil cases. Professionally, I haven’t had much to do with criminal cases, but a jury is a jury. Having sat in courtrooms observing jury selections, I’ve had situations where I called my superiors and said, “Let’s put a little more money on this one and cut and run.” In other words, this jury is not going to do us, the defendant/hated insurance company, any favors. And there have been other times, I’ve said, “let’s roll”; only to have the plaintiff attorney call me aside and say to me, “add $250.00 to you last offer and you’ve got yourself a deal.” A day in that courtroom is, of course, going to cost us a few thousand.

In spite of all the social engineering and political correctness that has been forced on us for decades, the picking of a jury is not a social statement; in that both sides are trying to get the best group of people to favor their clients. Of course no one ever gets their ideal jury; and as a result, anytime something is sent to a jury, you’re rolling the dice.

My friends from Alabama will remember the Guy Hunt trial in the early 90s. Guy Hunt was governor of Alabama and was indicted and prosecuted for allegedly using campaign funds to pay off personal debts. I won’t go into the details of the case, but when the jury was chosen, I just shook my head because there was absolutely no way a jury of that makeup was going to acquit him. The jury foreman was twenty-three years old and at that age, one is very idealistic and not really mature. Also, there were a couple of union people that would be against him. And last, but not least, there was a black public school teacher on the jury. The blacks were against him and members of the teacher’s union, the AEA, literally hated him. Sure enough, he was convicted and removed from office; but was pardoned by Alabama Governor Fob James.

Another instance involved the company I worked for in the 80s and 90s. We took a contractual case to trial against a company domiciled in Chicago. We would have been better off with a bench trial (in front of a judge), but the decision was made to get the facts in front of a jury. First of all, this was a boring case and I felt that the facts would cause the eyes of the jurors to glaze over, especially if some of the jurors lacked higher education. The trial took place in Chicago against a local company and we were the rubes from Alabama. During the entire trial, our CEO sat at the plaintiff’s table and took notes. Also, when it was his turn to testify, he lost his temper a time or two; or so I was told since I wasn’t at the trial. Even though this was a case we should have won, we flat out lost. A few of the jurors were interviewed after the trial and they all said that they didn’t like our CEO. Well, whether they liked him or not, shouldn’t have mattered, the facts were in our favor and the case should have been cut and dried on our behalf.

Having said all of the above, trial by jury is definitely not a perfect way of serving up justice, but it’s all we have and probably better than anything else that we can come up with. And when you’re boo-hoo-ing over a jury verdict that you don’t agree with, remember that in a criminal case, all the defense has to do is plant a scintilla of doubt in the minds of the jurors. If that happens, the jurors are not supposed to convict.