Are Twelve Heads Better Than One?

Ellsworth's article discusses the processes that are gone through by the average jury and examines how true these are in practice to our ideal of due process. The study involves looking at several mock juries, and examining how they come to reach decisions.

The phases of this study I thought were very interesting, along with the analysis of each. The foreman selection process was kind of surprising to me, because I actually was unaware that it was so informal a process as it apparently is. It's really nothing more than somebody saying "I'll do it," and the others at the table accepting it. Then came the interesting part, where their actual deliberation was examined. It was interesting that while by and large there were no errors of fact among the jurors, there were often disagreements about how the law actually applied and interacted with the defendants and their cases.

While the discovery is interesting, I don't necessarily find it all that surprising, nor do I think it is necessarily helpful to actually changing the process in and of itself. Ellsworth offers little in the way of means to institute change.

The Role of the Jury in the Killing State

One thing struck me above all else in this article. This was the point Sarat made that prosecution attorneys insisted that jurors be shown brutal and visceral images and evidence evoking strong emotion in capital cases, however, there is no equivalent allowed for them to be able to see the brutality of the death penalty that they, themselves, are actually deciding to be someone's fate. It's a very interesting thought that jurors, the very people we put so much faith and responsibility on, on never really shown what exactly it is that they are choosing when they sentence someone to death.

Sarat seems to believe that this lack of exposure to the death penalty itself is by design. He explains that no such evidence is allowed in the courtroom by the defense. The defense is not allowed to actually make a contention that the penalty being served for a crime is actually more brutal than the crime it is punishing. Sarat also notes that jurors are far removed from the actually killing that they are sanctioning. They are not the ones flipping a switch or administering an injection. They also believe that there are failsafes such as appeals courts, where they can defer blaim should they have any attacks of conscious. I guess the biggest thing I got from the article was just that it's interesting too examine how much is done to make killing by the state an easier process.

Real Jurors' Attention to the "Off Stage" of Trials

In this article Rose, et al. examine the content of discussions made by jurors in civil cases. They look in these deliberations for examples of jurors looking to "off stage" behaviors, defined as anything in a courtroom or courthouse that takes place, but is not meant to be the jury's immediate focus at the given time, for reinforcement or contradiction of statements made in cases.

I actually was quite surprised that similar research hasn't been done before. As mentioned in the article there are manuals about how parties should act in order to best present themselves to juries. This manual covers situations both in and out of the courtroom, and both in and out of the spotlight. This clearly shows that there is a market for research in this field. Yet, no real empirical evidence exists to cooroborate this manual that many professionals apparently use.

That being said, I think the information presented was very interesting, however inconclusive. They say that most cases' deliberations were not focused on the off stage content, however, the amount of off stage content presentecd to juries is significantly less than the amount of material they receive in the courtroom to examine. There is also the idea that these off stage performances may prejudice a jury and skew their understanding of the way things may be unfolding as they happen in a courtroom. Just some more food for thought I guess.