My favorite jury instruction from a judge during the jury selection process was his statement that we weren't trying to determine "if he did it". Rather, we were supposed to determine if there is enough evidence to prove that he did it. That was a huge, important distinction for me at the time. I told the judge his instruction made my job as a juror much easier than I thought it was going to be.
That's what happened in the trial jury I sat for; we knew the guy had done it, but the evidence presented wasn't sufficient to render a guilty verdict.
@@robertthomas5906 He had a history of public intoxication and DUIs and was arrested near his still warm car (filled with partially drunken beers) that a witness claimed to have seen driving into the apartment complex. However, it was dark and the witness could not positively identify the driver, despite his VERY distinctive shape. However, after the trial was concluded, we heard the guy hugging his lawyer and exclaiming, "I'll come to you the next time I get caught." So, he got away with that one, but who knows how it'll be next go around? 🤷🏽♀️
The day after the OJ trial I saw one of the jurors, Brenda Moran, interviewed on TV. She said the jurors thought that OJ did it, but that the police had botched the case so badly that they could not convict.
This whole video reminded me of th-cam.com/video/w9rYu5lxjU4/w-d-xo.html which covers (in part) a civil case where the jury were not able to ignore evidence they heard and the entire trial got re-done.
@@jupitercyclops6521 common law always had exclusion of evidence rules. And our constitution is specific about evidence in criminal trials. Ie. Gotta have a warrant, cannot torture or beat people to get a confession, etc
I was a juror on a trial where the defendant was charged with "assault on a female" and "communicating a threat". The alleged victim several times said things we weren't supposed to hear and the judge told us to disregard the comments. The worst one was near the end of closing arguments when it was very apparent the prosecution had no chance to win the lady said "he's gonna get away with it AGAIN" and was led out of the courtroom in tears. The prosecutor seemed to try to get the max number of females on the jury. We wound up with 7F and 5M. It backfired on him because in deliberations the women were the 1st ones to raise the "BS" flag on the emotional outbursts.
Just like the OJ trial, Prosecutors still think they should have women jurors when husbands/boyfriends beat or kill. A huge mistake, women don't want to believe it is so bad. While men believe in protecting women and are more likely to take the charges seriously.
Robert barns talks about jury selection a lot, and he says that in a rape case you want as many young women as possible because they will think, "This would never happen to me." The reality is that you dont want men on that trial because they are going to go white knight and find the man guilty.
All I can think when you were going on how Juries are made of normal people, all I could think of was George Carlin saying "think of how dumb the average person is, and now realize half of them are dumber than that."
My version of that goes,"50%of all people are of below average intelligence,think about that a minute". Come to think of it,I likely got the idea from Carlin and just forgot hearing it😂. I suppose I don't really have too many original ideas after all😅
I was a member of the yavapai county Arizona grand jury for one summer, during that time there was a case where a police officer testified in person for an arrest they had made. The police officer had brought up a previous conviction that the arrested individual had been charged guilty for. At the end of the the testimony the assistant DA's first words were that the officer mentioned a previous conviction and we were not to weigh this in our decision, after the fact. That always struck me as pointless because the mention already happened and the damage was done in my mind I didn't know how anyone on the jury could be impartial after that.
Sounds like a corrupt cop for bringing it up. I'd probably give little or no weight to their testimony. The DA's statement was made solely to cover ass.
I've said a few dumb things in my life. Things that I've regretted as soon as it left my mouth. I wish it was as simple as saying, _"Disregard what I just said"._ 😆😆😆
One of my biggest concerns regarding lack of justice, is keeping facts from jurors. Too many innocence project releases would have never been convictions if prosecutors weren’t able to keep exculpatory evidence suppressed. The truth needs to be more important than winning, but history shows that is way too commonly not what happens.
That is known as brady material. The prosecutor is not supposed to withhold evidence which might exonerate a defendant. Some states have included it in law but it is part of criminal procedures in every state.
Courts are always stacked against the defendants. I know of a case where the ex kept putting false charges against the father to prevent him from getting custody of the child. The first 2 counties he was able to prove the charges was false and charges was dismissed. The 3erd county destroyed evidence and the jury was not allowed to hear about that nor about her going from county to county putting those charges on him so he got convicted. Talking with a jury member afterward he said if he would of known about that he never would of voted to convict him.
I don't know why there aren't restrictions on stuff like this. If that is true, then that is insane. That woman should face charges for her abuse of the justice system and for wasting people's time.
Venue shopping is a valid issue. That said, just because someone was falsely accused of something 6 times shouldn't make them unconvictable for that down the line. They might actually go and do the thing they were already acquitted of. I haven't a clue how to balance those contradictory concerns.
@chuck 8094 wow, that's insane. I feel for victims and want to support them. Those who aren't and just ruin other people's lives need to have the book thrown at them.
There have been occasions that a jury member will lead the charge to get the case re-opened after they realized they got hoodwinked into convicting someone...
Wow! I so appreciate the way you, as a practicing attorney, can give relevant examples that help laymen (like me) understand what many call "technicalities" and why the rules are as they are. Great video. Thanks!
To be fair, a good trial lawyer is going to be able to do that, because they have to be able to explain it to their clients and to juries. This trial lawyer also happens to have also taught at law school, so he's probably better at it than many lawyers. I got a really good understanding of that being on a jury and having the lawyers and judges explain things to use before, during, and after the trial. I had watched Lehto and a few other TH-cam lawyers prior to that and it felt like watching one of their videos.
I think lawyers are supposed to inform their witnesses as to what the basic rules are. They're not supposed to coach the witnesses about what to say, but the witnesses should be told that they can only testify about what they said/did/saw and what parties in the trial said or did.
I've been a witness for the defense several times in product liability suits. I was always careful to follow the attorneys' instructions and limit my answers to the questions asked. In most of these cases, however, I felt that, when the case went to the jury, there were facts that should have been considered that weren't even brought up. It was very frustrating to know that a jury was going to make a decision without these facts.
I really wish that our legal system provided for a "attorney for the public good" (distinct from a DA, etc.) who's job includes ensuring that all admissible and relevant evidence is presented regardless of which side's argument it supports or harms.
That was part of the defenses strategy, if you mention something the other side can then dig deeper and maybe it should help the defense but if the other side can spin it to hurt them they'd rather just not let it become an issue.
Shouldn't you and the defense lawyer have chatted a bit and gotten some guidance from you about what needed to be asked? I've only been interviewed once as a potential witness at a trial, but the lawyer asked a hypothetical "how would you answer if their lawyer asked you XXXX?" I told him. And he said "PERFECT...That's perfect just like that." He didn't tell me what to say, just asked what I would say if he called me up and the defense asked that on cross. But yes, I dislike the expert witness system. Not all "experts" actually are experts even if the court proclaims them so, and sometimes they are crackpots (I'm thinking of the recent Depp v Heard silliness). In any field, you're likely to find situations where 999 experts say X and 1 guy is out there in left field saying NOT X. The jury needs some means to really know what the expert consensus is when two experts are in complete opposition. Fingerprint or DNA "expert" One says absolute certainty of a match". Expert Two says "not a match and it isn't even close". Now what?
I'm thinking of the "expert" who claimed to be able to tell arson from an accident by the charring of the burned down house. Later thoroughly debunked.
A friend who happens to be an attorney once told me if I was ever called as a witness, to never answer a question immediately. Waiting a few seconds gives the opposing counsel time to object. He said, once something has been said in court, the judge can instruct the jury to disregard it, but for practical purposes, once said, it can’t be unheard.
@@scottmcshannon6821 Because the rule of evidence exist for a reason. Yes, you can get situations like Michael Jackson where he managed to win multiple lawsuits by getting evidence buried, but it can also mean things like illegal confessions can be prevented from falsely convicting as well. There's also the issue of hearsay, it may be true that somebody said something that's relevant to the proceedings and true, but it should be coming from somebody that either said it themselves or is a party to the proceedings. Without that, then you have no way of knowing if the testimony is accurate to what was said. If you can't win the case without violating the rules, then you probably should be pleading out or settling the case as appropriate.
@@scottmcshannon6821 I believe Lehto made it very clear why this isn't necessarily going to be the truth. Don't try to insist on relevence where there very well might not be relevence.
So Steve I thought one of the first 3 rules for an attorney on either side was "Don't ask a witness a question that you don't already know the answer to".
NO council wants a surprise. Their entire job is to carefully select and present evidence to the court that supports their case. If you don't know what they're going to say, you don't know if it'll be good or bad for your case. I hate the trope we see too often in movies where questioning suddenly takes an unexpected turn and the council's eyes light up and they ask a quick string of questions that slam-dunks the case. (Liar Liar is a poster-child example of this) Every question you ask a witness in court you have already asked them outside court or know the answer they have given when someone else has asked it. The only surprise you will ever get is if they make one claim off the record and then give conflicting testimony when placed in the box.
I was a criminal justice student years ago and had to attend court for one of my classes. Reading from his notes, one of the police officers read the name of the minor victim in open court. The judge was not happy and admonished everyone to forget hearing it. I don't know how the officer made out. I think he had a private meeting with the judge later. I'm glad it wasn't me.
When I did jury duty I appeared to sleep through 70% of it. I nodded to some questions, opened my eyes when people moved, and at times felt too deep a state coming and woke up fully. In jury deliberation I pointed out the two times we had to disregard answers, and the question that was struck. The last one made the other jurists realize that I really WAS listening intently. It was how I got through high school Geometry 2.
I've been on jury duty before, and yes, I have been told to forget what was just stated. If I remember correctly, the reason given by the judge was because the statement was hearsay, and not permissible in court.
This reminds of a story of jury duty I heard from a relative, as I recall she was serving on a jury where a man was being prosecuted for possession of prescription medication that was in his wife's name. At one point the prosecution asked a witness something like, why are we not hearing this from the wife, at which point the defense attorney loudly objected. This objection, along with other hints that there was a lot of information the jury was not being told, along with the fact that they were pressing such a strange charge as possession of the wife's prescription medication is a large part of the reason the jury ended up convicting the guy. As me relative put it, the jury felt the hints from the prosecution that they really needed a conviction, and that the jury should trust them so they convicted the guy regardless of the strange charge and limited evidence. She later learned after the trial that the wife was dead, and the husband had been found covered in her blood, but due to something like mishandling evidence all the charges against him for the murder were thrown out, leaving them only with the lesser charge regarding prescription medication, which of course they threw the book at him on.
I have to say that if I am on a jury and the prosecution is giving hints that it "needs a conviction," then it needs a new job because it is going to get an acquittal.
This is not okay. Jurists assuming the prosecution is acting on good faith is very dangerous. Its in direct opposition to innocent until proven guilty. There is a reason the prosecutions question was objectionable and there is probably a reason the evidence of a murder was invalid. The jury put someone away it sounds like without reasonable proof from the prosecution and the prosecution just told people he was a murder after the fact, because they definitely didn't prove he was a murderer. Why was he covered in blood? Maybe she was bleeding heavily from an accident and it got over him as he tried to render aid. Ever dealt with people bleeding out? Its a messy affair.
Vinny's cousin did confess "I shot the clerk!" while we knew is was some guys in another metallic mint green GM vehicle that drove away with great haste. I always thought that should have been excluded.
I was a witness for the defense in a minor criminal charge. I gave my testimony and was dismissed from the stand. After a couple of other witnesses, the defense attorney wanted to recall me. The prosecutor objected to my being recalled. I don't remember on what grounds he objected. But I had given all the information I had. The jury found the defendant not guilty. I'm convinced that the fact that I wasn't recalled made the jury think that there was something they didn't hear that would have hurt the prosecutor's case and that was a major factor in their decision.
Disregard is not the same as forget. In the jury room, if someone brings it up, the other jurors will correct them. (I have been there.) Some folks are kind of pigheaded about it, though. I have even had fellow jurors hold it against the defendant that they didn't testify in their own defense in spite of jury instructions to the contrary.
This is why it should be stressed that, in our criminal "justice" system, the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" means that it is the prosecution's (that is, the government's) job to prove that the defendant is guilty; it is not the defendant's job to prove he/she is innocent. This is why the verdict is either guilty or not guilty, not guilty or innocent. The Fifth Amendment is the controlling authority here and courts, when charging a jury, will stress that the jury may not infer anything from a criminal defendant's refusal to testify in his own behalf.
I was in the jury pool for family court. Definitely glad my number was high enough to get excused for the case. Guy was acting as his own attorney. Ex-wife was represented by an attorney. The guy essentially lost his case during the voir dire (jury selection). None of that is part of the case. But he was a total jerk, and we learned during the process there would be allegations of abuse. He pretty much proved her case before the case started. Of course that is not a part of what gets "considered", but all of us excused already found for the ex-wife. Also willing to bet his actual case went worse then the jury selection phase anyway.
If you are to have a jury trial, NEVER represent yourself. Because then there is no third party to tell you to shut up and sit down when you're about to hang yourself with your own tongue, which is what most non-attorney pro se litigants end up doing.
Steve, I love your videos and your examples, they are very clear. About your hypothetical: ON WHAT BASIS would the judge be able to declare the witness walking by and heard "I did it" to be inadmissible testimony? Somebody has to claim "they beat the guy for 45 minutes beforehand", and that somebody is either believable or not, by reason of...evidence. Which has to be weighed and sifted for validity / reliability. And that's a juror's job. Even the rule on hearsay is, at root, a procedural rule built on top of a JUDGMENT call that too much hearsay is too unreliable to be safe to use, it is not a substantive principle that hearsay CANNOT be useful in getting toward the truth, because sometimes it can be useful even when it is not 100% reliable. Heck, detectives use it all the time to get closer to the truth, even though they know not to assume the hearsay is reliable. My vote is the require ALL potential jurors to pass a 30-hour course on reliability / use-ability of evidence in order to be eligible to sit for trial, and then (a) let the attorneys throw in whatever they want, (b) let the jurors ask their own questions as well, and (c) let the jurors vote to cut off an attorney when they decide the attorney is plastering them with irrelevant material. (I would even let the jurors propose fines for attorneys who are excessive louts in their trial behavior, but that's just me.) I am generous, I would still let the judges comment that "the court holds what you just heard to be hearsay and therefore not safe to be used for deliberation" and instructions like that.
A 30-hour course? Why not say you want to eliminate jury trials altogether? Just have a judge declare all the peasants "guilty" because it doesn't really matter to him if one of them is wrongly convicted.
@@dispatch-indirect9206, sure, there might be some basis for it being "accepted", but not all such bases are equal. For instance, a civil suit against the city runs on the standard of "preponderance of the evidence", which is not even close to that for criminal trials "beyond reasonable doubt". The lawyers are likely to stipulate to some things, but how likely is a lawyer to stipulate to a position that effectively destroys his whole case? I mean, Steve could have said "the attorneys stipulated to the position that the defendant was guilty" too, but that's not plausible either (except in a guilty plea, of course). So, if "the attorneys might have stipulated that..." is valid, it is also valid that "the REASON the attorneys might have stipulated was that there was EVIDENCE that the juries could have used to arrive at the same result." But my underlying point is that if judges didn't THINK IT WAS THEIR JOB to prevent (even implausible) evidence from getting to the jury, attorneys wouldn't stipulate to things that they do now. The "rules of evidence" constitute, by their very nature, (procedural) claims about what kinds evidence the jury SHOULD see, and that is in direct competition with letting juries try the facts.
On the topic of juries: During the Rittenhouse trial, it was stated that the prosecutor took the AR-15 in question and, with his finger on the trigger, pointed it at the jury box and then around the room. What would have happened if one of the jury members freaked out and started yelling at the prosecutor for pointing a weapon at him? As a member of the military, it was hammered into me to ALWAYS consider every weapon to be loaded and chambered and to never put your finger on the trigger unless you are ready to fire, and to NEVER point a weapon at anyone (except the enemy). Had I been in the jury box, I would have jumped up and yelled at the guy. Would that be considered contempt of court or as a member of the jury, you must allow yourself to be abused by the lawyers (both sides) participating in the trial?
That does make a lot of sense but I think it would be really hard for a juror to ignore something that convinces that juror of somebody's guilt or innocence. I guess that is where a mistrial should come into play.
I had already been selected to be a juror in a murder case, then the prospective juror setting next to me said that defendants always get this lawyer (the late Frank Haddad) if they are guilty. We were told to disregard the comment, then we broke for lunch. When we returned, all of the jurors were dismissed, and they started over.
@@walmartdog1142 The lawyer I was thinking of (I've since remembered his name was Dee Wampler) was in Missouri. He was the defense lawyer in several high profile murder and rape cases. Generally his client was convicted.
Despite having been called to jury duty twice I've never been chosen to serve. However,I am a very firm believer in jury nullification and when serving on a jury I'll listen to the evidence presented by both sides *as well as* what *I* consider to be the fairness of the law in question. So I wouldn't care less what the judge instructed me to do...or not to do. I'll decide if the defendant did it *and* if he/she deserves to be punished and I'll vote accordingly.
That's something not a lot of people get. When you hand down a verdict, you're not judging whether someone is guilty or innocent of breaking the law. The law can be written to say anything and reinterpreted to justify pretty much anything. The Jury is there to determine whether the defendants actions actually constitute wrongdoing, and if so, if the laws response will be appropriate.
Exactly. That is the reason to have a jury trial in the first place. Because sometimes the laws and processes are stupid, and we want at least a chance for actual justice.
The defendant will be charged with a few things and one of them will be a bit much, all your fellow jurors won't even consider that and say guilty. Then you'll have to choose between fighting for that or just saying fuck it.
Thank god you were never impaneled on a jury then. Jury nullification screws up the system in ways that's hard to really protect against. It's not a right that juries have, it's a side effect of deliberation being done in private and jurors getting to make what is typically a final decision about the guilt or innocence of the defendant in the trial. The cases that would get nullified are the low-hanging fruit. They're the ones that are the most egregiously wrong with the most sympathetic defendants, in other words, the cases most likely to get overturned by higher courts and potentially resulting in new precedence to prevent people from even being charged in the first place. By nullifying, the jury is depriving the parties in the case of justice and depriving society at large an opportunity for the courts to reconsider a potentially wrong law.
@@thundercricket4634 That's not at all accurate. The job of the jury is to be the decider of the facts and the weigher of the evidence. Not whether or not the law was correct in the first place. The jury is to prevent the law from being applied to people where there's no, or insufficient, evidence to say that they performed the action they are accused of doing, not whether or not the action should be illegal. If an action is a crime and shouldn't be, there are other remedies for that. Juries going rogue and letting people off the hook prevents the crime from ever being evaluated by higher courts and sidesteps the legislators that are supposed to be writing better laws.
Great topic. Yes. I've been on jury duty. It happens. Admissible evidence and testimony is such a huge deal. Hence why you hire a good attorney if you end up in court. They can take a jury/judge into a story/narrative that hits their emotions to your advantage.
I was taught trial by Judge is better than trial by Jury; why, because you only need to convince one person (the Judge). I was called for Jury duty once and declined it for medical reasons; they didn't even ask for proof, just said thanks.
My mother was on a civil jury in Salt Lake City that lasted 5 days and she said it was actually fairly easy to ignore the stuff they were told top ignore because the case was so complicated.
@Robert Walker : Defense Attorney: "There is no (unusually colored), elephant with any connection whatsoever to the issue being tried, and the jury is to completely disregard said elephant!" Jury foreperson: (reading verdict), "We the jury, find the (unusually colored), elephant . . . . uh . . . . defendant not guilty!"
Just served on a criminal petit jury in April and oh the discussions on what was and what should have been presented to us. Three times it got quite loud in the deliberation room. Conjecture ran rampant and then was reigned back in by the other jurors.
I was in a case in which, after a break, one juror asked to speak to the judge. Apparently, he had overheard, out in the hall, a girl telling her boyfriend, who was ON the jury, everything the jurors were not allowed to hear! She had it all written down! The judge temporarily dismissed the jurors, except #3, and called the bailiff to bring the girlfriend to the bar. The judge regarded the couple for a moment, then went into a speech for the couple AND the rest of the audience, about WHY certain things were not allowed to be heard by the jury, giving examples and asking the couple if they'd like it, if they were being tried, to have to face fraudulent or false testimony, etc. "AND YOU, ON YOUR OWN, DECIDED THAT YOUR KNOW BETTER THAN YEARS OF LEGAL EXPERIENCE??" They were found in contempt of court, fined, and ordered to never come into the courthouse again, for ANY reason," while the trial was still running, or they BOTH would be jailed fr a year. Now GET OUT!!! They left with hanging heads and red faces....
Your example reminds me of most of the videos shown online. It starts at the pinnacle of the plot and you hardly ever get to see what caused the argument/fight/conflict.
The one thing that is true in the jury room is a couple of jurors will vote opposite unless lunch and or dinner is ordered. Seen that happen at every jury I have been on
Regarding the situation where the jury feels that someone would have said so-and-so if they had been asked: In 1982 I was a jury in Baltimore County. We were specifically told that if there was some point that we felt had not been adequately explored, we the jury could cross-examine any of the witnesses. As for irrelevant testimony: Carl Sagan wrote in one of his books, how he was a witness in a real-estate trial. One of the attorneys began questioning him about the evolution of the universe, and the formation of stars. This went on for a long time before the other attorney objected and demanded to know how this was relevant to the trial. The first attorney explained that it wasn’t, but that he’d always wanted to ask Carl Sagan about that stuff. ;-)
I believe that is an aspect of the specific jurisdiction, and you got a well informed Judge. I was active duty Marine two decades, all over the US, and saw many different ways of jury instructions.
11:50 The first Roger Clemens trial in a nutshell. Even worse, the prosecutor had been told beforehand that what he attempted to introduce was inadmissible.
Agreed you hope in a civil case that the jury can simply disregard. Hmmmm I am going with human nature and say … it can affect the jury. Thank you 🤔❤️🇺🇸
Yeah right. Lawyers get to say "answer yes or no." Not all answers are binary. Sometimes the answer is a little of both, but more of x than y. The whole truth and nothing but the truth is almost never black and white, yes or no, guilty or not guilty.
There are other things that come into play. Was the statement hearsay? Was the statement an opinion of a non-expert? Accuracy of the statement is irrelevant.
One of the trials that I was a juror on, when I recount the story and leave out one item that came out at trial, everybody goes pretty quickly "well, clearly the verdict should be for the plaintiff". If I put that item in, about half think for awhile and then say, "well, I don't see how you can hold the defendant responsible for that, so I think the verdict should be for the defendant". The item was completely and totally irrelevant to actually deciding whether the defendant was responsible, and clued me in to why there was such a disagreement in the jury room on what I thought was a clear case.
Juries can be scary! We had a coworker come back from jury duty once and reported this. She said as soon as they all sat down 2 older gentlemen on the jury both said...."Well hell, he done something or the law wouldn't have arrested him." Sorry but it's been so long ago I don't remember the outcome of the verdict. Like Steve said...juries are just folks with their own experiences and paradigms.
Here's a question, something else seen on TV: Are jurors allowed to ask questions to witnesses? If I were a juror and something weren't fully or properly asked, or details left out, I'd want a full answer. And without it, I'd say "not guilty" regardless of the evidence, or vote opposite to whichever lawyer asked the improper question.
So I was on a jury where a guy had violated 3 protective orders agains a female. (In Virginia 3rd violation is a felony.) So the judge instructs us "You cannot consider the prior two violations as to whether or not he violated the protective order this time." We hear the case, go into deliberations, we all sit down and I say "So do we think he violated the protective order?" and as God is my Witness, one of the other jurors says "Well he's done it twice before, so I think he didn't learn his lesson the first two times."
As a scientist, the logic of Law is completely counterintuitive to the laws of nature and serving on a jury has been one of the most mind bending experiences of my life. Yes, indeed, juries should hear everything and be allowed to decide what sticks. In your "beating confession" case, if both facts were presented, it's pretty clear that the confession was not made of free will, therefore invalid even if true.
had that happen the time I was selected for a jury. Yes a person did try to bring it up, & 3 of us had to remind everyone we were instructed to disregard the statement. It had to do with a marijuana possession charge for the defendant & it had to do with statements about the defendant's girlfriend.
Steve, often we see that either the lawyer or prosecutor says something inadmissible because they know they will plant a seed. We are only human, it will happen.
Hey Steve, what about bench trials? Not only does that judge have to hear everything and see every potential piece of evidence, but they also have to disregard anything that isn't admissible to the trial when making their ruling.
I was unfortunate enough to be selected for a jury in an assault charge case... I was the only juror that did not attend college. Every other juror, was a college graduate and some had masters degrees. Luckily, that case was settled outside the courtroom and we were all released from duty.
During the trial I served on a Jury on last year the victim of the theft was on the stand. Keep in mind that the defendant had already pled guilty on the theft, but what the trial was on whether it was armed robbery. The victim spun this tale about the defendant, her ex-boyfriend at the time, pulling out a gun and pointing it at her as he was leaving and saying some words; after he was gone she noticed the rent money off her nightstand was missing. During cross the witness was about to be asked about her own problems with the law, that occurred after the incident and were still pending, this centered around drug (meth) use and such. in combination with accusations that he was on drugs at the time Obviously this would go a long way towards discrediting her version of events, however an objection was made and the Jury was excused while arguments were made on whether the witness could be asked those questions. When the jury came back in we never heard more about her drug use/problems with the law. I didn't believe her version of events anyway, at least not without some reasonable doubt. Turns out, at least for me, the key piece of evidence was the defendant being heard on speaker phone through body-cam footage admitting to threatening her and he was armed at the time. After the trial I researched the case and the victim and found that she had a pending trial for meth/other charges. It didn't really matter to me as a he said/she said interpretation of events that occurred in her bedroom, with him supposedly pulling a gun in her version, didn't rise to that beyond reasonable doubt level.
It would be advisable to explain to the witness WHY he should not say certain things as well as to inform him of his consequences. If the prosecutor just told me that I am not allowed to say "...," then I would NOT swear to tell the whole truth; instead I would say explicitly that I have already been told that I am not allowed to tell the whole truth.
I can see how in a long jury trial where the jurors are being overloaded with information it may become difficult to keep track of everything they are supposed to not consider.
@@fozzywxman Maybe NY, or that type of court in NY let you take notes. The last time I was called up for jury duty in Massachusetts, note-taking was forbidden. - Maybe some states don't mind jurors keeping track of facts they are presented.
@@fozzywxman Of course to keep note of the fact that you should disregard something, you will have to write down what you are supposed to disregard in case other jurors bring it up.
Really just sounds like they can offer reasons why jurors shouldn't consider this or that if it does slip in, but ultimately you can't stop a juror from considering it anymore than you can stop jury nullification.
When does jeopardy attach in Michigan? Steve made it sound like once the jury is seated, but I was always told is was when they were sent to deliberate.
Well I actually think that people are better than they are given credit for at understanding the difference between “what someone says” verses “what actually happened”.
About 35 years ago I was on a capital murder trial, which would have included a separate deliberation for recommendation of death penalty. Half way through the trial a witness said what was told to her by the defendant -- obvious hearsay. The judge was very angry, as it seems that the lawyers were already cautioned not to bring up questions that might involve the discussions between the witness and the defendant. The judge very carefully instructed the jury to "disregard" the testimony we just heard and not use it as a basis for our deliberations. The defense attorney brought an objection and the jury was cleared so it could be arbitrated in private between the lawyers and the judge. Later on the jury was brought in individually before judge and polled to see if the instructions were understood clearly. I being only around 20 years old at the time was a bit flummoxed. The judge could see I was somewhat conflicted in what was being asked. I knew the judge didn't ask us to technically forget about what was being said, as the whole point of being jurors was to pay close attention to everything in the case. But to purposely disregard what was mentioned seemed a bit of a disconnect. I was let off the remainder of the duty as he saw the deep conflict within me. I never found out what happened with that trial, I only knew that they had sufficient alternates to complete it.
It is surprising to me that in the 21st century, we don't have these things pre-recorded. I mean think about TV where there is a 5 second delay so that bad words can be bleeped out. They could remove so much prejudice and waste less jury time if the testimony was recorded and then edited to remove all the objection nonsense. I mean just in the Johnny Depp trial, there were literally times where 5-10 minutes of time was spent just to answer one quick question..
Why do they tell people to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth but then don't let them tell the whole truth? Yes and no answers aren't telling the whole truth. That drives me crazy!
Haven't watched the video yet, but I've served on a jury. The answer is yes, but they say it more like "you aren't allowed to consider what you just heard" in my experience. We had it happen exactly once during our short trial, and it was obvious the judge was trying to avoid having to do that as much as possible. It makes sense, because you can order it, but it's difficult to enforce it without trying to track down a mind reader lol.
LOL - MY one line question - Wondering how many times we have respectively gone to Highland House (White Lake? or Clarkston?) and not seen each other? White Lake for us.
a guy said sometimes a judge trial is best with stuff you want included. The judge hears and sees all submitted, Objected or not ,they cant Unsee or unhear...
The way we deal with juries seems to treat them like computers. Human memories don't work like that. If the trial takes a week, they might forget which things they were told to forget. Expecting them to remember everything significant in the whole trial without writing it down seems unreasonable, but I know that letting them take notes could lead to errors, too. Maybe we could give them the transcripts during deliberation, and just not include the stuff they are told to ignore in the transcript?
another short question tv shows have judges spot an attorney in a courtroom not on the case before them and order an attorney to seve as a n attorney if a defendant has no attorney can a judge order any attorney to serve as a pblic defender?
My question to Steve is there anything you used to tech you would let to go back or do it differently or add or explain on it so lawyers be even better than they are today?
Omg.What an education.If I had teachers like you,I would have gone to college.Instead,I'm a semi wealthy plumber that works an amazing 20 hrs a week since age 55
Thank you! I had been wondering what you did for a living, how many hours a week you worked, and whether you started retiring. Now, if only you could explain how ANY of that is related to the subject of the video or discussion?
The jury should be given all the information that is available and even remotely pertinent to the case. You can't simultaneously trust the judgement of the jurors with enough confidence to permit them to convict a man of murder while also refusing to trust in their judgement of which facts of a case deserve the most weight in their decision. That is just dishonest manipulation. And the presumption in your example that the man wouldn't testify that his confession was given under the threat of continuing physical harm is weird. Well done video though. 👍
And it is probably easier to remember what you were told to disregard. Being told to disregard it might actually reinforce the memory of that testimony.
How does this tie in to the "Telling of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth"? "Do yo swear to tell the truth?" -No "What do you mean, no?" -You told me not to
Here is the thing, if you put me on a jury I will make my own decision as to guilt irregardless of a "Judge's" instructions. Don't like it don't put me on a jury...
I sat on one jury in my life. From that I hope I never have a jury decide anything associated in my life. You never know which way a juror will go when they get in a locked room.
Consider that most jury pools consist of people whose names were taken from voter registrations, and then reflect on what has happened in the last few years with elections in this country... Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.
"Objection, your honor!" "On what grounds?" "It's DEVESTATING to my case!"
Great Jim Carey line. Liar liar is such a great movie.
"Over ruled"....GOOD CALL!!! hahaha
My favorite jury instruction from a judge during the jury selection process was his statement that we weren't trying to determine "if he did it". Rather, we were supposed to determine if there is enough evidence to prove that he did it. That was a huge, important distinction for me at the time. I told the judge his instruction made my job as a juror much easier than I thought it was going to be.
That's what happened in the trial jury I sat for; we knew the guy had done it, but the evidence presented wasn't sufficient to render a guilty verdict.
Well said.
@@music_YT2023 So absent of any evidence you knew he did it? How? Sounds like they proved their case.
@@robertthomas5906 He had a history of public intoxication and DUIs and was arrested near his still warm car (filled with partially drunken beers) that a witness claimed to have seen driving into the apartment complex. However, it was dark and the witness could not positively identify the driver, despite his VERY distinctive shape. However, after the trial was concluded, we heard the guy hugging his lawyer and exclaiming, "I'll come to you the next time I get caught." So, he got away with that one, but who knows how it'll be next go around? 🤷🏽♀️
The day after the OJ trial I saw one of the jurors, Brenda Moran, interviewed on TV. She said the jurors thought that OJ did it, but that the police had botched the case so badly that they could not convict.
There's a reason that lawyers and witnesses break this rule a lot. Because it DOES prejudice a jury. You cannot forget just because the judge says so.
I've heard a lawyer say "it doesn't matter, they already heard it"
This whole video reminded me of th-cam.com/video/w9rYu5lxjU4/w-d-xo.html which covers (in part) a civil case where the jury were not able to ignore evidence they heard and the entire trial got re-done.
When we were garunteed a trial by jury of our peers, they weren't meaning only with evidence deemed relevant by the government.
@@jupitercyclops6521 common law always had exclusion of evidence rules. And our constitution is specific about evidence in criminal trials. Ie. Gotta have a warrant, cannot torture or beat people to get a confession, etc
Most people on being told to not consider a thing in their decision can do so.
I was a juror on a trial where the defendant was charged with "assault on a female" and "communicating a threat". The alleged victim several times said things we weren't supposed to hear and the judge told us to disregard the comments. The worst one was near the end of closing arguments when it was very apparent the prosecution had no chance to win the lady said "he's gonna get away with it AGAIN" and was led out of the courtroom in tears.
The prosecutor seemed to try to get the max number of females on the jury. We wound up with 7F and 5M. It backfired on him because in deliberations the women were the 1st ones to raise the "BS" flag on the emotional outbursts.
Just like the OJ trial, Prosecutors still think they should have women jurors when husbands/boyfriends beat or kill. A huge mistake, women don't want to believe it is so bad. While men believe in protecting women and are more likely to take the charges seriously.
You were on Johnny Depp's jury?
Robert barns talks about jury selection a lot, and he says that in a rape case you want as many young women as possible because they will think, "This would never happen to me." The reality is that you dont want men on that trial because they are going to go white knight and find the man guilty.
@@JasonW. Wasn't JD's Jury 20 some people?
Yeah, internalized misogyny is more difficult to overcome than the jury hearing what they shouldn't.
All I can think when you were going on how Juries are made of normal people, all I could think of was George Carlin saying "think of how dumb the average person is, and now realize half of them are dumber than that."
And that is why guilty people want a jury trial and innocent people want a judge trial.
My version of that goes,"50%of all people are of below average intelligence,think about that a minute". Come to think of it,I likely got the idea from Carlin and just forgot hearing it😂.
I suppose I don't really have too many original ideas after all😅
I was a member of the yavapai county Arizona grand jury for one summer, during that time there was a case where a police officer testified in person for an arrest they had made. The police officer had brought up a previous conviction that the arrested individual had been charged guilty for. At the end of the the testimony the assistant DA's first words were that the officer mentioned a previous conviction and we were not to weigh this in our decision, after the fact. That always struck me as pointless because the mention already happened and the damage was done in my mind I didn't know how anyone on the jury could be impartial after that.
Sounds like a corrupt cop for bringing it up. I'd probably give little or no weight to their testimony. The DA's statement was made solely to cover ass.
I've said a few dumb things in my life. Things that I've regretted as soon as it left my mouth. I wish it was as simple as saying, _"Disregard what I just said"._ 😆😆😆
One of my biggest concerns regarding lack of justice, is keeping facts from jurors. Too many innocence project releases would have never been convictions if prosecutors weren’t able to keep exculpatory evidence suppressed. The truth needs to be more important than winning, but history shows that is way too commonly not what happens.
So evidence discovered by unconstitutional searches should be admitted since it is the truth?
That is known as brady material. The prosecutor is not supposed to withhold evidence which might exonerate a defendant. Some states have included it in law but it is part of criminal procedures in every state.
Courts are always stacked against the defendants.
I know of a case where the ex kept putting false charges against the father to prevent him from getting custody of the child.
The first 2 counties he was able to prove the charges was false and charges was dismissed.
The 3erd county destroyed evidence and the jury was not allowed to hear about that nor about her going from county to county putting those charges on him so he got convicted.
Talking with a jury member afterward he said if he would of known about that he never would of voted to convict him.
I don't know why there aren't restrictions on stuff like this. If that is true, then that is insane. That woman should face charges for her abuse of the justice system and for wasting people's time.
Venue shopping is a valid issue. That said, just because someone was falsely accused of something 6 times shouldn't make them unconvictable for that down the line. They might actually go and do the thing they were already acquitted of. I haven't a clue how to balance those contradictory concerns.
That is family court, which is much more stacked against men and defendants as whole than the regular criminal justice system.
@chuck 8094 wow, that's insane.
I feel for victims and want to support them. Those who aren't and just ruin other people's lives need to have the book thrown at them.
There have been occasions that a jury member will lead the charge to get the case re-opened after they realized they got hoodwinked into convicting someone...
Wow! I so appreciate the way you, as a practicing attorney, can give relevant examples that help laymen (like me) understand what many call "technicalities" and why the rules are as they are. Great video. Thanks!
To be fair, a good trial lawyer is going to be able to do that, because they have to be able to explain it to their clients and to juries. This trial lawyer also happens to have also taught at law school, so he's probably better at it than many lawyers. I got a really good understanding of that being on a jury and having the lawyers and judges explain things to use before, during, and after the trial. I had watched Lehto and a few other TH-cam lawyers prior to that and it felt like watching one of their videos.
I think lawyers are supposed to inform their witnesses as to what the basic rules are. They're not supposed to coach the witnesses about what to say, but the witnesses should be told that they can only testify about what they said/did/saw and what parties in the trial said or did.
I've been a witness for the defense several times in product liability suits. I was always careful to follow the attorneys' instructions and limit my answers to the questions asked. In most of these cases, however, I felt that, when the case went to the jury, there were facts that should have been considered that weren't even brought up. It was very frustrating to know that a jury was going to make a decision without these facts.
I really wish that our legal system provided for a "attorney for the public good" (distinct from a DA, etc.) who's job includes ensuring that all admissible and relevant evidence is presented regardless of which side's argument it supports or harms.
That was part of the defenses strategy, if you mention something the other side can then dig deeper and maybe it should help the defense but if the other side can spin it to hurt them they'd rather just not let it become an issue.
Ya I got a feeling that is the case in most kinds of trials.
Shouldn't you and the defense lawyer have chatted a bit and gotten some guidance from you about what needed to be asked? I've only been interviewed once as a potential witness at a trial, but the lawyer asked a hypothetical "how would you answer if their lawyer asked you XXXX?" I told him. And he said "PERFECT...That's perfect just like that." He didn't tell me what to say, just asked what I would say if he called me up and the defense asked that on cross.
But yes, I dislike the expert witness system. Not all "experts" actually are experts even if the court proclaims them so, and sometimes they are crackpots (I'm thinking of the recent Depp v Heard silliness). In any field, you're likely to find situations where 999 experts say X and 1 guy is out there in left field saying NOT X. The jury needs some means to really know what the expert consensus is when two experts are in complete opposition. Fingerprint or DNA "expert" One says absolute certainty of a match". Expert Two says "not a match and it isn't even close". Now what?
I'm thinking of the "expert" who claimed to be able to tell arson from an accident by the charring of the burned down house. Later thoroughly debunked.
A friend who happens to be an attorney once told me if I was ever called as a witness, to never answer a question immediately. Waiting a few seconds gives the opposing counsel time to object. He said, once something has been said in court, the judge can instruct the jury to disregard it, but for practical purposes, once said, it can’t be unheard.
why give the lawyer time to object? get the truth out there, give the jury the real facts.
@@scottmcshannon6821 Because the rule of evidence exist for a reason. Yes, you can get situations like Michael Jackson where he managed to win multiple lawsuits by getting evidence buried, but it can also mean things like illegal confessions can be prevented from falsely convicting as well.
There's also the issue of hearsay, it may be true that somebody said something that's relevant to the proceedings and true, but it should be coming from somebody that either said it themselves or is a party to the proceedings. Without that, then you have no way of knowing if the testimony is accurate to what was said.
If you can't win the case without violating the rules, then you probably should be pleading out or settling the case as appropriate.
@@scottmcshannon6821 I believe Lehto made it very clear why this isn't necessarily going to be the truth. Don't try to insist on relevence where there very well might not be relevence.
The objection brings about the "Streisand Effect" in which everyone pays more attention to what the lawyer wants everyone to ignore.
@@freethebirds3578 yes
So Steve I thought one of the first 3 rules for an attorney on either side was "Don't ask a witness a question that you don't already know the answer to".
NO council wants a surprise. Their entire job is to carefully select and present evidence to the court that supports their case. If you don't know what they're going to say, you don't know if it'll be good or bad for your case. I hate the trope we see too often in movies where questioning suddenly takes an unexpected turn and the council's eyes light up and they ask a quick string of questions that slam-dunks the case. (Liar Liar is a poster-child example of this) Every question you ask a witness in court you have already asked them outside court or know the answer they have given when someone else has asked it. The only surprise you will ever get is if they make one claim off the record and then give conflicting testimony when placed in the box.
You have no control over what the opposing council is going to ask. That's what objections are for.
@@wingracer1614 That and cross-examination.
Isn’t that used by lawyers to get the information out there (plant seeds) knowing that jurors can’t unhear statements/testimony?
I would assume that happens.
I was a criminal justice student years ago and had to attend court for one of my classes. Reading from his notes, one of the police officers read the name of the minor victim in open court. The judge was not happy and admonished everyone to forget hearing it. I don't know how the officer made out. I think he had a private meeting with the judge later. I'm glad it wasn't me.
"Criminal justice" is a contradiction in terms.
When I did jury duty I appeared to sleep through 70% of it. I nodded to some questions, opened my eyes when people moved, and at times felt too deep a state coming and woke up fully. In jury deliberation I pointed out the two times we had to disregard answers, and the question that was struck. The last one made the other jurists realize that I really WAS listening intently. It was how I got through high school Geometry 2.
I've been on jury duty before, and yes, I have been told to forget what was just stated. If I remember correctly, the reason given by the judge was because the statement was hearsay, and not permissible in court.
Ben is on the hood of the Turbine car
Good eye!
This reminds of a story of jury duty I heard from a relative, as I recall she was serving on a jury where a man was being prosecuted for possession of prescription medication that was in his wife's name. At one point the prosecution asked a witness something like, why are we not hearing this from the wife, at which point the defense attorney loudly objected. This objection, along with other hints that there was a lot of information the jury was not being told, along with the fact that they were pressing such a strange charge as possession of the wife's prescription medication is a large part of the reason the jury ended up convicting the guy. As me relative put it, the jury felt the hints from the prosecution that they really needed a conviction, and that the jury should trust them so they convicted the guy regardless of the strange charge and limited evidence. She later learned after the trial that the wife was dead, and the husband had been found covered in her blood, but due to something like mishandling evidence all the charges against him for the murder were thrown out, leaving them only with the lesser charge regarding prescription medication, which of course they threw the book at him on.
I have to say that if I am on a jury and the prosecution is giving hints that it "needs a conviction," then it needs a new job because it is going to get an acquittal.
@@PvblivsAelivs Me too, but this is the way an actual jury reacted.
This is not okay. Jurists assuming the prosecution is acting on good faith is very dangerous. Its in direct opposition to innocent until proven guilty. There is a reason the prosecutions question was objectionable and there is probably a reason the evidence of a murder was invalid.
The jury put someone away it sounds like without reasonable proof from the prosecution and the prosecution just told people he was a murder after the fact, because they definitely didn't prove he was a murderer.
Why was he covered in blood? Maybe she was bleeding heavily from an accident and it got over him as he tried to render aid. Ever dealt with people bleeding out? Its a messy affair.
I am currently up at 1am being horribly ill, so thank you for lending me your soothing voice in this trying time.
Vinny's cousin did confess "I shot the clerk!" while we knew is was some guys in another metallic mint green GM vehicle that drove away with great haste. I always thought that should have been excluded.
That was a 3rd party reading from a transcript, and it did not convey well at all. LOTS of thought provoking things in that movie. !
I was a witness for the defense in a minor criminal charge. I gave my testimony and was dismissed from the stand. After a couple of other witnesses, the defense attorney wanted to recall me. The prosecutor objected to my being recalled. I don't remember on what grounds he objected. But I had given all the information I had. The jury found the defendant not guilty. I'm convinced that the fact that I wasn't recalled made the jury think that there was something they didn't hear that would have hurt the prosecutor's case and that was a major factor in their decision.
Disregard is not the same as forget. In the jury room, if someone brings it up, the other jurors will correct them. (I have been there.) Some folks are kind of pigheaded about it, though. I have even had fellow jurors hold it against the defendant that they didn't testify in their own defense in spite of jury instructions to the contrary.
This is why it should be stressed that, in our criminal "justice" system, the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" means that it is the prosecution's (that is, the government's) job to prove that the defendant is guilty; it is not the defendant's job to prove he/she is innocent. This is why the verdict is either guilty or not guilty, not guilty or innocent. The Fifth Amendment is the controlling authority here and courts, when charging a jury, will stress that the jury may not infer anything from a criminal defendant's refusal to testify in his own behalf.
I was in the jury pool for family court. Definitely glad my number was high enough to get excused for the case.
Guy was acting as his own attorney. Ex-wife was represented by an attorney.
The guy essentially lost his case during the voir dire (jury selection). None of that is part of the case. But he was a total jerk, and we learned during the process there would be allegations of abuse. He pretty much proved her case before the case started. Of course that is not a part of what gets "considered", but all of us excused already found for the ex-wife.
Also willing to bet his actual case went worse then the jury selection phase anyway.
If you are to have a jury trial, NEVER represent yourself. Because then there is no third party to tell you to shut up and sit down when you're about to hang yourself with your own tongue, which is what most non-attorney pro se litigants end up doing.
Steve, I love your videos and your examples, they are very clear.
About your hypothetical: ON WHAT BASIS would the judge be able to declare the witness walking by and heard "I did it" to be inadmissible testimony? Somebody has to claim "they beat the guy for 45 minutes beforehand", and that somebody is either believable or not, by reason of...evidence. Which has to be weighed and sifted for validity / reliability. And that's a juror's job. Even the rule on hearsay is, at root, a procedural rule built on top of a JUDGMENT call that too much hearsay is too unreliable to be safe to use, it is not a substantive principle that hearsay CANNOT be useful in getting toward the truth, because sometimes it can be useful even when it is not 100% reliable. Heck, detectives use it all the time to get closer to the truth, even though they know not to assume the hearsay is reliable.
My vote is the require ALL potential jurors to pass a 30-hour course on reliability / use-ability of evidence in order to be eligible to sit for trial, and then (a) let the attorneys throw in whatever they want, (b) let the jurors ask their own questions as well, and (c) let the jurors vote to cut off an attorney when they decide the attorney is plastering them with irrelevant material. (I would even let the jurors propose fines for attorneys who are excessive louts in their trial behavior, but that's just me.) I am generous, I would still let the judges comment that "the court holds what you just heard to be hearsay and therefore not safe to be used for deliberation" and instructions like that.
A 30-hour course? Why not say you want to eliminate jury trials altogether? Just have a judge declare all the peasants "guilty" because it doesn't really matter to him if one of them is wrongly convicted.
@@dispatch-indirect9206, sure, there might be some basis for it being "accepted", but not all such bases are equal. For instance, a civil suit against the city runs on the standard of "preponderance of the evidence", which is not even close to that for criminal trials "beyond reasonable doubt". The lawyers are likely to stipulate to some things, but how likely is a lawyer to stipulate to a position that effectively destroys his whole case? I mean, Steve could have said "the attorneys stipulated to the position that the defendant was guilty" too, but that's not plausible either (except in a guilty plea, of course). So, if "the attorneys might have stipulated that..." is valid, it is also valid that "the REASON the attorneys might have stipulated was that there was EVIDENCE that the juries could have used to arrive at the same result."
But my underlying point is that if judges didn't THINK IT WAS THEIR JOB to prevent (even implausible) evidence from getting to the jury, attorneys wouldn't stipulate to things that they do now. The "rules of evidence" constitute, by their very nature, (procedural) claims about what kinds evidence the jury SHOULD see, and that is in direct competition with letting juries try the facts.
Good thing you don't GET a vote.
On the topic of juries: During the Rittenhouse trial, it was stated that the prosecutor took the AR-15 in question and, with his finger on the trigger, pointed it at the jury box and then around the room. What would have happened if one of the jury members freaked out and started yelling at the prosecutor for pointing a weapon at him? As a member of the military, it was hammered into me to ALWAYS consider every weapon to be loaded and chambered and to never put your finger on the trigger unless you are ready to fire, and to NEVER point a weapon at anyone (except the enemy). Had I been in the jury box, I would have jumped up and yelled at the guy. Would that be considered contempt of court or as a member of the jury, you must allow yourself to be abused by the lawyers (both sides) participating in the trial?
Good question. Im not military, but saftey had been drilled into my head since i could talk.
That does make a lot of sense but I think it would be really hard for a juror to ignore something that convinces that juror of somebody's guilt or innocence.
I guess that is where a mistrial should come into play.
I had already been selected to be a juror in a murder case, then the prospective juror setting next to me said that defendants always get this lawyer (the late Frank Haddad) if they are guilty. We were told to disregard the comment, then we broke for lunch. When we returned, all of the jurors were dismissed, and they started over.
Sounds like the general public opinion of a recently deceased lawyer (whose name escapes me right now) in my hometown.
@@karlrovey The "good" lawyer I referenced was from Louisville Kentucky. He was assisting a lawyer in Indiana.
@@walmartdog1142 The lawyer I was thinking of (I've since remembered his name was Dee Wampler) was in Missouri. He was the defense lawyer in several high profile murder and rape cases. Generally his client was convicted.
Despite having been called to jury duty twice I've never been chosen to serve. However,I am a very firm believer in jury nullification and when serving on a jury I'll listen to the evidence presented by both sides *as well as* what *I* consider to be the fairness of the law in question.
So I wouldn't care less what the judge instructed me to do...or not to do. I'll decide if the defendant did it *and* if he/she deserves to be punished and I'll vote accordingly.
That's something not a lot of people get. When you hand down a verdict, you're not judging whether someone is guilty or innocent of breaking the law. The law can be written to say anything and reinterpreted to justify pretty much anything. The Jury is there to determine whether the defendants actions actually constitute wrongdoing, and if so, if the laws response will be appropriate.
Exactly. That is the reason to have a jury trial in the first place. Because sometimes the laws and processes are stupid, and we want at least a chance for actual justice.
The defendant will be charged with a few things and one of them will be a bit much, all your fellow jurors won't even consider that and say guilty. Then you'll have to choose between fighting for that or just saying fuck it.
Thank god you were never impaneled on a jury then. Jury nullification screws up the system in ways that's hard to really protect against. It's not a right that juries have, it's a side effect of deliberation being done in private and jurors getting to make what is typically a final decision about the guilt or innocence of the defendant in the trial. The cases that would get nullified are the low-hanging fruit. They're the ones that are the most egregiously wrong with the most sympathetic defendants, in other words, the cases most likely to get overturned by higher courts and potentially resulting in new precedence to prevent people from even being charged in the first place. By nullifying, the jury is depriving the parties in the case of justice and depriving society at large an opportunity for the courts to reconsider a potentially wrong law.
@@thundercricket4634 That's not at all accurate. The job of the jury is to be the decider of the facts and the weigher of the evidence. Not whether or not the law was correct in the first place. The jury is to prevent the law from being applied to people where there's no, or insufficient, evidence to say that they performed the action they are accused of doing, not whether or not the action should be illegal.
If an action is a crime and shouldn't be, there are other remedies for that. Juries going rogue and letting people off the hook prevents the crime from ever being evaluated by higher courts and sidesteps the legislators that are supposed to be writing better laws.
Great topic. Yes. I've been on jury duty. It happens. Admissible evidence and testimony is such a huge deal. Hence why you hire a good attorney if you end up in court. They can take a jury/judge into a story/narrative that hits their emotions to your advantage.
I was taught trial by Judge is better than trial by Jury; why, because you only need to convince one person (the Judge). I was called for Jury duty once and declined it for medical reasons; they didn't even ask for proof, just said thanks.
My mother was on a civil jury in Salt Lake City that lasted 5 days and she said it was actually fairly easy to ignore the stuff they were told top ignore because the case was so complicated.
'don't think about an elephant!.... ahhhhh, ok.
@Robert Walker :
Defense Attorney: "There is no (unusually colored), elephant with any connection whatsoever to the issue being tried, and the jury is to completely disregard said elephant!"
Jury foreperson: (reading verdict),
"We the jury, find the (unusually colored), elephant . . . . uh . . . . defendant not guilty!"
Just served on a criminal petit jury in April and oh the discussions on what was and what should have been presented to us. Three times it got quite loud in the deliberation room. Conjecture ran rampant and then was reigned back in by the other jurors.
I was in a case in which, after a break, one juror asked to speak to the judge. Apparently, he had overheard, out in the hall, a girl telling her boyfriend, who was ON the jury, everything the jurors were not allowed to hear! She had it all written down! The judge temporarily dismissed the jurors, except #3, and called the bailiff to bring the girlfriend to the bar. The judge regarded the couple for a moment, then went into a speech for the couple AND the rest of the audience, about WHY certain things were not allowed to be heard by the jury, giving examples and asking the couple if they'd like it, if they were being tried, to have to face fraudulent or false testimony, etc. "AND YOU, ON YOUR OWN, DECIDED THAT YOUR KNOW BETTER THAN YEARS OF LEGAL EXPERIENCE??" They were found in contempt of court, fined, and ordered to never come into the courthouse again, for ANY reason," while the trial was still running, or they BOTH would be jailed fr a year. Now GET OUT!!! They left with hanging heads and red faces....
@stevelehto IS IT THE HIGHLAND HOUSE LOCATION IN HIGHLAND, MICHIGAN OR THE ONE IN CLARKSTON, MICHIGAN?
Your example reminds me of most of the videos shown online. It starts at the pinnacle of the plot and you hardly ever get to see what caused the argument/fight/conflict.
The one thing that is true in the jury room is a couple of jurors will vote opposite unless lunch and or dinner is ordered. Seen that happen at every jury I have been on
Can a witness get in trouble if they intentionally interject something they are not supposed too..🤔
I served on the jury once and I remembered the judge saying to ignore what I’ve heard. This woke me up because I don’t remember what was said. LOL.
I absolutely love your explanations. Great job!!!!!
Judge: "Please forget what you just heard."
Me: "Heard what?" (yes, I would likely say that)
The part where he admitted he did it and he's guilty. Disregard that.
Regarding the situation where the jury feels that someone would have said so-and-so if they had been asked: In 1982 I was a jury in Baltimore County. We were specifically told that if there was some point that we felt had not been adequately explored, we the jury could cross-examine any of the witnesses.
As for irrelevant testimony: Carl Sagan wrote in one of his books, how he was a witness in a real-estate trial. One of the attorneys began questioning him about the evolution of the universe, and the formation of stars. This went on for a long time before the other attorney objected and demanded to know how this was relevant to the trial. The first attorney explained that it wasn’t, but that he’d always wanted to ask Carl Sagan about that stuff. ;-)
I believe that is an aspect of the specific jurisdiction, and you got a well informed Judge. I was active duty Marine two decades, all over the US, and saw many different ways of jury instructions.
It's axiomatic that many crooks will claim any confession they made to the cops was the result of a beating, whether true or not.
11:50 The first Roger Clemens trial in a nutshell. Even worse, the prosecutor had been told beforehand that what he attempted to introduce was inadmissible.
Agreed you hope in a civil case that the jury can simply disregard. Hmmmm I am going with human nature and say … it can affect the jury. Thank you 🤔❤️🇺🇸
When you take the oath to tell the "whole truth," that is NOT in the judge's opinion. It is NOT the judge's oath.
Yeah right. Lawyers get to say "answer yes or no." Not all answers are binary. Sometimes the answer is a little of both, but more of x than y. The whole truth and nothing but the truth is almost never black and white, yes or no, guilty or not guilty.
There are other things that come into play. Was the statement hearsay? Was the statement an opinion of a non-expert? Accuracy of the statement is irrelevant.
I love the highland house and tomato bros. I actually grew up in highland Michigan... I need to go back there to get some bread sticks.
I was only on a jury once, but this happened 3 times until the judge threatened the lawyer with contempt.
excellent video - very nicely explained and clearly layout - I am betting this is part of what Steve used to tech
One of the trials that I was a juror on, when I recount the story and leave out one item that came out at trial, everybody goes pretty quickly "well, clearly the verdict should be for the plaintiff". If I put that item in, about half think for awhile and then say, "well, I don't see how you can hold the defendant responsible for that, so I think the verdict should be for the defendant". The item was completely and totally irrelevant to actually deciding whether the defendant was responsible, and clued me in to why there was such a disagreement in the jury room on what I thought was a clear case.
Juries can be scary! We had a coworker come back from jury duty once and reported this. She said as soon as they all sat down 2 older gentlemen on the jury both said...."Well hell, he done something or the law wouldn't have arrested him." Sorry but it's been so long ago I don't remember the outcome of the verdict. Like Steve said...juries are just folks with their own experiences and paradigms.
Yes, very scary.
Police get it wrong all the time; the attitude that they always get the right perpetrator is ingrained in us due to TV shows, movies, media, YT, etc.
Welcome to uneducated, conservative America...
Here's a question, something else seen on TV: Are jurors allowed to ask questions to witnesses? If I were a juror and something weren't fully or properly asked, or details left out, I'd want a full answer. And without it, I'd say "not guilty" regardless of the evidence, or vote opposite to whichever lawyer asked the improper question.
A very few States allow jury questioning, and typically those questions are in writing and screened.
So I was on a jury where a guy had violated 3 protective orders agains a female. (In Virginia 3rd violation is a felony.) So the judge instructs us "You cannot consider the prior two violations as to whether or not he violated the protective order this time." We hear the case, go into deliberations, we all sit down and I say "So do we think he violated the protective order?" and as God is my Witness, one of the other jurors says "Well he's done it twice before, so I think he didn't learn his lesson the first two times."
I was. Can't unhear things.
As a scientist, the logic of Law is completely counterintuitive to the laws of nature and serving on a jury has been one of the most mind bending experiences of my life. Yes, indeed, juries should hear everything and be allowed to decide what sticks. In your "beating confession" case, if both facts were presented, it's pretty clear that the confession was not made of free will, therefore invalid even if true.
I have often thought the jury should be allowed to have an attorney. This way if the jury has questions they can ask the attorney to ask them. .
Hi Steve. As always, you creditably explain court procedure and what happens under different circumstances. I always appreciate your explanations.
had that happen the time I was selected for a jury.
Yes a person did try to bring it up, & 3 of us had to remind everyone we were instructed to disregard the statement.
It had to do with a marijuana possession charge for the defendant & it had to do with statements about the defendant's girlfriend.
They don't forget! Period
I would say that sometimes that piece of information could make a huge difference.
Steve, often we see that either the lawyer or prosecutor says something inadmissible because they know they will plant a seed. We are only human, it will happen.
Ben inspecting Turbine hood
Hey Steve, what about bench trials? Not only does that judge have to hear everything and see every potential piece of evidence, but they also have to disregard anything that isn't admissible to the trial when making their ruling.
There is another axiom: The ONLY testimony a jury won't consider is one they didn't hear.
I think that the jury should be told WHY the evidence is inadmissible. How can they put their minds at ease otherwise?
Sometimes the reason the evidence is inadmissible would further prejudice the jury.
I was unfortunate enough to be selected for a jury in an assault charge case... I was the only juror that did not attend college. Every other juror, was a college graduate and some had masters degrees. Luckily, that case was settled outside the courtroom and we were all released from duty.
During the trial I served on a Jury on last year the victim of the theft was on the stand. Keep in mind that the defendant had already pled guilty on the theft, but what the trial was on whether it was armed robbery. The victim spun this tale about the defendant, her ex-boyfriend at the time, pulling out a gun and pointing it at her as he was leaving and saying some words; after he was gone she noticed the rent money off her nightstand was missing. During cross the witness was about to be asked about her own problems with the law, that occurred after the incident and were still pending, this centered around drug (meth) use and such. in combination with accusations that he was on drugs at the time Obviously this would go a long way towards discrediting her version of events, however an objection was made and the Jury was excused while arguments were made on whether the witness could be asked those questions. When the jury came back in we never heard more about her drug use/problems with the law.
I didn't believe her version of events anyway, at least not without some reasonable doubt. Turns out, at least for me, the key piece of evidence was the defendant being heard on speaker phone through body-cam footage admitting to threatening her and he was armed at the time.
After the trial I researched the case and the victim and found that she had a pending trial for meth/other charges. It didn't really matter to me as a he said/she said interpretation of events that occurred in her bedroom, with him supposedly pulling a gun in her version, didn't rise to that beyond reasonable doubt level.
It would be advisable to explain to the witness WHY he should not say certain things as well as to inform him of his consequences. If the prosecutor just told me that I am not allowed to say "...," then I would NOT swear to tell the whole truth; instead I would say explicitly that I have already been told that I am not allowed to tell the whole truth.
They can’t forget what they’ve heard but they are told not to use that information in the process of deliberation.
I can see how in a long jury trial where the jurors are being overloaded with information it may become difficult to keep track of everything they are supposed to not consider.
And yet they are barred from taking notes.
I've taken notes on a jury in NY.
@@fozzywxman Maybe NY, or that type of court in NY let you take notes.
The last time I was called up for jury duty in Massachusetts, note-taking was forbidden.
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Maybe some states don't mind jurors keeping track of facts they are presented.
@@fozzywxman Of course to keep note of the fact that you should disregard something, you will have to write down what you are supposed to disregard in case other jurors bring it up.
My opinion of confessions will forever be colored by the “I shot the clerk” scene in My Cousin Vinny.
Really just sounds like they can offer reasons why jurors shouldn't consider this or that if it does slip in, but ultimately you can't stop a juror from considering it anymore than you can stop jury nullification.
Answer, NO! Once the seed has been planted....
That's how a lawyer can get around a judge, and they KNOW it.
When does jeopardy attach in Michigan? Steve made it sound like once the jury is seated, but I was always told is was when they were sent to deliberate.
And I thought it was when the jury delivered a verdict.
Well I actually think that people are better than they are given credit for at understanding the difference between “what someone says” verses “what actually happened”.
About 35 years ago I was on a capital murder trial, which would have included a separate deliberation for recommendation of death penalty. Half way through the trial a witness said what was told to her by the defendant -- obvious hearsay. The judge was very angry, as it seems that the lawyers were already cautioned not to bring up questions that might involve the discussions between the witness and the defendant. The judge very carefully instructed the jury to "disregard" the testimony we just heard and not use it as a basis for our deliberations. The defense attorney brought an objection and the jury was cleared so it could be arbitrated in private between the lawyers and the judge. Later on the jury was brought in individually before judge and polled to see if the instructions were understood clearly. I being only around 20 years old at the time was a bit flummoxed. The judge could see I was somewhat conflicted in what was being asked. I knew the judge didn't ask us to technically forget about what was being said, as the whole point of being jurors was to pay close attention to everything in the case. But to purposely disregard what was mentioned seemed a bit of a disconnect. I was let off the remainder of the duty as he saw the deep conflict within me. I never found out what happened with that trial, I only knew that they had sufficient alternates to complete it.
Had this happen as a juror, the guy referred to a previous DUI
Love these types of videos
Ben - Turbine's hood (again)
It is surprising to me that in the 21st century, we don't have these things pre-recorded. I mean think about TV where there is a 5 second delay so that bad words can be bleeped out. They could remove so much prejudice and waste less jury time if the testimony was recorded and then edited to remove all the objection nonsense. I mean just in the Johnny Depp trial, there were literally times where 5-10 minutes of time was spent just to answer one quick question..
Why do they tell people to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth but then don't let them tell the whole truth? Yes and no answers aren't telling the whole truth. That drives me crazy!
Could forget what was just said, but only as a juror when told to by a Judge.
Haven't watched the video yet, but I've served on a jury. The answer is yes, but they say it more like "you aren't allowed to consider what you just heard" in my experience. We had it happen exactly once during our short trial, and it was obvious the judge was trying to avoid having to do that as much as possible. It makes sense, because you can order it, but it's difficult to enforce it without trying to track down a mind reader lol.
What happens in the court room stays in the jury room.
I saw one time where a detective mentioned a polygraph test result and the judge immediately called a mistrial
Link?
LOL - MY one line question - Wondering how many times we have respectively gone to Highland House (White Lake? or Clarkston?) and not seen each other? White Lake for us.
a guy said sometimes a judge trial is best with stuff you want included. The judge hears and sees all submitted, Objected or not ,they cant Unsee or unhear...
The way we deal with juries seems to treat them like computers. Human memories don't work like that. If the trial takes a week, they might forget which things they were told to forget. Expecting them to remember everything significant in the whole trial without writing it down seems unreasonable, but I know that letting them take notes could lead to errors, too. Maybe we could give them the transcripts during deliberation, and just not include the stuff they are told to ignore in the transcript?
another short question tv shows have judges spot an attorney in a courtroom not on the case before them and order an attorney to seve as a n attorney if a defendant has no attorney can a judge order any attorney to serve as a pblic defender?
Yep... all you had to do is read the transcript of the Sussmann trial.
Evidence is excluded when it is too good.
Or because it is entirely bullshit; take your pick. Too good frequently means fabricated.
Jurors should be able to ask questions.
My question to Steve is there anything you used to tech you would let to go back or do it differently or add or explain on it so lawyers be even better than they are today?
Yes, they're told this.
Omg.What an education.If I had teachers like you,I would have gone to college.Instead,I'm a semi wealthy plumber that works an amazing 20 hrs a week since age 55
Thank you! I had been wondering what you did for a living, how many hours a week you worked, and whether you started retiring. Now, if only you could explain how ANY of that is related to the subject of the video or discussion?
The jury should be given all the information that is available and even remotely pertinent to the case. You can't simultaneously trust the judgement of the jurors with enough confidence to permit them to convict a man of murder while also refusing to trust in their judgement of which facts of a case deserve the most weight in their decision. That is just dishonest manipulation. And the presumption in your example that the man wouldn't testify that his confession was given under the threat of continuing physical harm is weird. Well done video though. 👍
I would forget without being told. How can anyone remember all the testimony.
And it is probably easier to remember what you were told to disregard. Being told to disregard it might actually reinforce the memory of that testimony.
How does this tie in to the "Telling of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth"?
"Do yo swear to tell the truth?"
-No
"What do you mean, no?"
-You told me not to
I got a Jersey Mike's cap once by slipping the girl 20 bucks LOL ^_^
Here is the thing, if you put me on a jury I will make my own decision as to guilt irregardless of a "Judge's" instructions. Don't like it don't put me on a jury...
I sat on one jury in my life. From that I hope I never have a jury decide anything associated in my life. You never know which way a juror will go when they get in a locked room.
Consider that most jury pools consist of people whose names were taken from voter registrations, and then reflect on what has happened in the last few years with elections in this country...
Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.