Transcript Slide 1

Check Sound
Check Mike
Time
Today’s Lecture:
The Role of the Jury System
1. Why do we use Juries?
2. Layperson Justice
3. Nullification
4. Structured Conflict
Lecture Organization:
• Class Announcements
• Your first quiz
• Slide Methodology
• Brief Review
• Class Discussion – Juries?
• Layperson Justice
• Nullification
• Structured Conflict
Time
• Your Paper
Class Announcements
1. Lectures are running about 7 days behind on the course
page.
-- Technical difficulties (labor is severe)
-- Remember that this is an experiment; it is possible some
may not be put up (if I can’t keep up with the work).
2. Steelers are back!
Questions?
Time
Your first quiz
1. “the blue book”
-- Quiz questions will come from lectures and blue text book
2. First quiz will be posted next Monday 17th.
-- will have until Monday 24th to take it
-- Angel Lessons tab
3. Time
–- can’t look up everything;
-- you must study
Your first quiz
4. Multiple Select Questions:
-- you don’t know how many are correct
-- penalized for wrong answers.
-- Example
Time
Slide Methodology
1. There are two theories of slide use
-- “billboard theory” (copy what you see)
-- “support theory” (copy what you hear)
2. You should be listening to me and getting the point in your
head.
-- your notes should be like meeting notes.
-- you are not trying to copy the slides
-- get the big points down, then REVIEW the slide for
omitted specifics
(ANNOTATE your notes by watching the slide show again)
Slide Methodology
3. One of the comments last year – “your slides go too fast”
-- No they don’t
-- We are not using the billboard theory
-- When I taught without slides, my lecture pace was no
different than it is now
-- The slides are not supposed to make the lecture slower
-- All they are to do is keep you from losing attention
(“cognitive drift”)
-- When I taught without slides, I had notes for people to
review if they couldn’t understand something
Slide Methodology
-- Students comprehension increased when I switched from
notes to slides
-- The POINT: The pace of the lecture will not be slowed
down merely because there is a visual accompaniment
(copying what you see is a poor way to learn anyway)
Questions? Comments?
(it is an excuse to turn off your brain and do some sort of
menial labor)
-- we are not using the “copy and memorize” model.
-- So make sure you annotate your notes with more detail
by reviewing the slides on ANGEL
Time
Review
1. False cases
-- Attorney’s duty to construct his client’s theory of events,
regardless of whether he believes it is true
-- legally, within the confines of the adversary system
-- cross examination, finding witnesses, jury persuasion
-- affirmative construction versus just negation.
2. Secret Settlements
-- the process rarely facilitated disclosure of the truth to the
public.
Review
Time
3. Two different kinds of adjudicatory structures
(a) integrated authority structure
illustration
Separation
of powers
checks
and
-- decision
maker/ has
all the
authority; litigants had no
King itself.
balances
judiciary
realWITHIN
liberties theThe
Jud
Leg
(absolute
monarchy)
Exec
Judge
Juries
Lawyers
(mafia -- totalitarian)
(paternal structures – parent/child relationship)
(b) disintegrated structure (“liberty structure”)
Separation of powers / checks and balances
Class Discussion
Why do we use juries?
Class Discussion
Potential Answers
What about having
Problems with the answers
a professional jury?
Question:
To have our “peers”
Peers are not
Question:
judge us?
allowed
to
judge us
Example2:
Would
there
have
been
a
better
Example1:
Why not let the judge, who isExample3:
a
verdict in O.J.’s
case if Judge Ito
Only
trained
professional,
“peers”
decide who
are stricken
Only
former
To have
the had decided innocence
Just
or
guilt?
Sample
Size
qualified
wins the case? Criminologists
jurists are judge
“community”
intelligent
professionals
allowed
us?
Police people
officers
:
Are all the
judgeslawyers
Defense
biased? What
if we
To eliminate bias?
Highest
SAT
Crime
labetc
found a fair
one?
scores,
specialists
Time
Why do we use juries?
Former judges
“Layperson Justice”
1. Edith Bunker Story
2. Juries are a layperson workgroup.
3. Basic idea:
-- lay the evidence out piece by piece in front of lay people
-- give them a standard of comfort (“burden of proof”)
-- and see who they agree with
If you can’t convince them, you can’t take life, liberty or
property
“Layperson Justice”
4. Reason why we do this:
(A). distrust government monopoly on the power to
pronounce guilt with respect to its laws
(If we distrust government to pass laws, it is no wonder we
distrust government to declare who has broken them)
(B). Legitimacy:
-- if Edith will not convict you, there must be something
wrong?
-- only if Edith says you are guilty should punishment be
allowed
-- the ritual of layperson approval is the last hurdle in the
system.
“Layperson Justice”
(C) Judge’s Institutional Socialization
-- problem of repetition in judging
Mention anecdote
-- problem of being an insider
-- studies of jury outcomes (textbook)
-- juries protect slightly more often in criminal cases
-- note that no juries are used in England for civil cases
(issues said to be “too complex”) [they award too much
money?]
“Layperson Justice”
Time
5. Workgroup phenomenon
illustration
-- dynamic of lay people hearing evidence and solving a
puzzle
as a workgroup
Question:
The
King
-lay
people
perform
better
as a workgroup than in isolation
What does the judge
Jud
Leg
(absolute
monarchy)
Exec
Judge
Edith
have
power
over?
Lawyers
6. Radical alteration of political
power
-- the power to declare who wins a prosecution is taken
“Law”
away from the police state
-- It is replaced with an adversarial contest
Proof &
Theories
Result
Nullification
1. What is jury nullification?
-- make sure you understand the definition:
-- judging the case autonomously, in violation of the law or
facts.
-- render justice no matter what the law says about the
behavior in question
2. Very early on, juries had the right to nullify “law”
3. Today, however, they only have the POWER to nullify, not
the RIGHT to – and only in criminal cases. (Let me explain)
-- juries are never told that they have the power of
nullification
Nullification
-- in fact, they are told the opposite: the judge tells them
to follow the law
-- However, there is a loophole: if they don’t, there is
nothing anyone can do about it in criminal cases
-- double jeopardy clause
-- in civil cases, clearly wrong verdicts can be corrected
by the judge
4. Historical examples of nullification
-- Sedition laws and Peter Zenger.
-- acquitted by NY colonial jury in 1734
Nullification
Time
-- protesters against the Vietnam War
-- draft resisters
-- Russian juries between 1864-1917 nullified
revolutionaries who were prosecuted
-- northern abolitionists who hid escaped slaves before the
civil war would benefit from jury “inaccuracy”
5. The problem of race in America
-- jurors acquitted whites accused of murdering or raping
African Americans.
-- however, African Americans were excluded from jury
service, so that might not be a fair point
Trial as Structured Conflict
1. We began looking at the ritualistic aspect of the trial
-- lot, dunking, combat, endurance, inquisition
2. Now we see that the trial process has a new form
-- adversary system based upon structured conflict
-- but the system does not maximize truth because of its
ancillary goals of protecting liberty
(sometimes it misjudges)
3. System also retains some aspects of a social ritual today:
-- chants, costumes, stand/sit, swearing on bibles
--those who prevail in the combat deserve to either “walk”
(go free) or be punished.
Trial as Structured Conflict
Time
4. We will continue to investigate to what degree the system
illustration
can be said to “get at the truth”
5. But it is important for you to understand that the system is
built upon structured conflict that gives power to private entities
(lawyers, juries) out ofSlightly
a fear ofboring
state authoritarians and a
concern for liberty.
6. Where we are headed …
the rulesQuestion:
of the game
ThematicTechnical
Question:information:Thematic
Explaining
procedure
–merely
you have
to know how
Dosystem
judges designed
manage
trials
by “following
law?”
Is the
to uncover
truth?
it works before you can understand it
Your Paper
1. Field research paper
-- due at the end of the semester (date in syllabus)
-- no extensions of the deadline
2. Basic requirements
-- go see at least two court hearings (30 minutes per
subject). [observation paper]
-- or interview at least 2 members of the profession (approx.
30 minutes each) [interview paper]
3. Write a paper about your experience
Your Paper
Time
-- observation paper: report what you saw
-- interview paper: ask questions and report on what was
said
(I will have a list of interview questions for you to ask)
3. We can talk more about this later,
but for now
Questions?
-- Start lining up your subjects!
-- Have them lined up by next month
-- Call the courthouses either here in State College
(Bellefonte) or in your home town (Thanksgiving)
-- Or, call lawyers/judges, etc.,
-- Make sure your subjects are lined up in about a month