I agree with the statement that engineers, professionals, et. al. don’t get selected. However, I disagree with the reasoning. It is not that we are trying to sneak something past the jury – it is because during deliberations, a less educated juror may suspend his/her own opinions or perception of the facts in favor of someone who they perceive is “smarter”. If this happens you may end up with a jury of one instead of a jury of twelve.

HawaiiLwyr on December 8, 2008 at 12:17 PM

Forgive me for a moment, but Bull$h*t. A friend is a big truther. He explains lots of theories about how the WTC could have been Demolished using explosives. He explains the theories and the principals, and they all sound wonderful, and they all sound logical, and they’re all BS.

How do I know they’re all BS. I was a Combat Engineer in the US Army. I did demolitions at the 82nd Airborne Division. I’ve used about every kind of conventional explosive known. I’ve used radio detonation, electrical, and non electrical systems. I’ve even done demolition of buildings and know, from first hand experience, how to make something standing tall, fall down. I know how to make trees fall left, right, or jump straight up in the air. We folded a bridge in half using explosives. I’ve destroyed concrete, and know the difference in Relative Explosive factors. I always am able to shoot down his theories, because I KNOW what I’m talking about. I explain about metal fatigue, and the fact that you don’t have to melt metal, to make it weaker with heat. I know that explosives weren’t used, because I know what you can, and can’t do with demolitions.

Now, if you put him or these other truther’s up before twelve people, and let them go through all their nonsense about these grand conspiracies, the twelve uninformed and uneducated people, they sound very knowledgeable and the theories they mention sound reasonable. So the twelve good people, who are merely ignorant, buy the nonsense.

If one person of the twelve is like me, educated in the matter, he can and does explain how it’s nonsense.

The purpose of a trial isn’t to see what you can get over on the Jury through some radical suspension of disbelief. It’s to find the truth. As long as you continue to exclude individuals with knowledge of the matter being discussed from the discussions, you will continue to get away with fooling the people, and the purpose of the trial, to find truth, is perverted.

This Mr. Lawyer, is why I hold the Legal Field in such contempt. I have little use for, and little tolerance for Lawyers. The truth doesn’t matter, it’s what they can convince the Jury of.

So you get Twelve morons in the box, people one IQ point from needing help to wipe the drool from their chins. You then baffle them with important sounding BS, and they nod and agree with you. You win your case, your client was well served, and the truth? Well, the truth doesn’t pay well enough apparently. However, the LAW is established, and the truth be damned.

This Sir, is how we ended up with the situation we’re in now. Uneducated, ignorant, foolish people, who think they can pick what sounds best, and declare it the truth.

This is another reason why people like you will never pick me for a Jury. I am a critical thinker, and if you tell me something that I know is a lie, I find the evidence, and share it with others. I’d be tossed from the Jury pool for doing that wouldn’t I? I’d be found in Contempt of Court if I printed out a Wikipedia article and highlighted the information you misrepresented to the Jury wouldn’t I? I bet you’d even demand a mistrial saying the Juror’s had been tainted, and were unable to proceed because they knew the truth about the information your entire case was based upon.

I am in Contempt of Court, because little that happens there is worthy of anything but Contempt.

HawaiiLwyr on December 8, 2008

They wanted me to be a Jehovah’s Witness, but I told them I didn’t see the accident.

After a brief “civic duty” lecture, the judge asked the young man why he wished to be excused.

“Well,” he said, “this trial is scheduled to begin the week of June 17th, correct?”

“That’s right,” said the judge.

“Well, your honor, I’m getting married that week.”

“We can certainly excuse you from jury duty this time around,” said the judge. “You’ll have a lot better judgment a year from now, anyway.”

Instant dismissal.

On the crimminal trespass/felonious vandalism case, the guy sitting next to me during Vordire was asked if he could be impartial toward the defendant.

His answer:
(use proper redneck accent when saying the following)

“I figger enybody the cops gotta chase down an cuff up, ya might as well drag on off ta jail, cause he’s GUILTY!”

See ya later dude. Instant bye bye from the Judge.

No technical, scientific, professional, medical, police, military, or legal background jurors wanted.

That’s correct. I got called for jury duty twice when I lived in the Chicago area. At the time I was working for a large law firm. One of the first questions I was asked was “how many attorneys do you know.” I answered, “300.” See ya later.

I usually show up for duty wearing something quite patriotic, like a “clinging to my god and guns” t-shirt, or my “Border Patrol – to protect and serve time” t-shirt. If I could open carry into the courthouse I would.

I’ve only been selected once.

cannonball on December 8, 2008 at 10:38 AM

Here, that would get you contempt of court. The instructions in LA are quite specific about not wearing any logo or statement clothing.

But they can’t make you remove tattoos, so if you don’t have any, buy a nice wet-n-peel one, and make your neck a glorious color statement above your nice button-down shirt.

That said, I consider it my civic duty to serve; the only time I’ve ever rescheduled was in mid September of 2001. I’ve never ceased to be amazed at the reasoning of my fellow panelists (as I’m sure they’ve never ceased to be amazed at mine). I guess engineers think differently than nearly every other class of person, including lawyers (who practice something they loosely call “logic”, coupled with something else even more loosely called “justice”). One day I may actually raise my hand in the nominating process for foreperson…

um, dude’s name is PAULY …

and you fell for that one?!
:-)
:-)

No technical, scientific, professional, medical, police, military, or legal background jurors wanted. They tend to think critically, and one or both sides want to get someone to believe a “fact” that doesn’t make sense or want them to ignore a fact that does make sense. A jury of truck drivers, teachers, housewives, etc. is better for them. Appeals to emotion (aka John Edwards “channeling” dead fetus’s feelings to a jury) work well.

I agree with the statement that engineers, professionals, et. al. don’t get selected. However, I disagree with the reasoning. It is not that we are trying to sneak something past the jury – it is because during deliberations, a less educated juror may suspend his/her own opinions or perception of the facts in favor of someone who they perceive is “smarter”. If this happens you may end up with a jury of one instead of a jury of twelve.

Based on the evidence I saw, I would have voted guilty. The guy paid elderly folks, most of whom didn’t speak English (and therefore were even less likely to understand what was going on), $100 each to come in for check-ups. He didn’t do anything but bill Medicare for the most expensive neurological exam possible ($11k a pop) and a battery of bloodwork for each of them. The bloodwork was done by a lab that gave him kickbacks. Oh, and the kickbacks were laundered by making the checks out to the mother of the doctor’s child and to some dumb assistant who would cash them at his bank and give the doctor the cash. He was caught when BCBS ran a check on one of his patients (whose other doctor was under investigation) and saw that this doctor’s bills to Medicare had gone from ~$10k to ~$3M in one year.

We didn’t discuss the case during the trial, but after we were dismissed I overheard a couple of the other jurors talking about how they didn’t think there was anything wrong.. he was just taking care of his kid. The prosecutor must have guessed by their reactions to the evidence that he should settle for a plea.

I’d suspect I have an even chance of getting picked, based on the small number of people in our group. Should be interesting.

What happens when they find out you support the death penalty for all felons? ;-)

Looks like you’ll be getting out early. You can thank me later.