I thought that in US law, jury didn’t have to explain their verdict? (I believe the whole “object” is an US law thing)
Apepollo11@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
When juries deliberate, they discuss their reasons for thinking this or that. Basically, by telling the jury to disregard something, the judge is saying that this shouldn’t be included in the decision-making process.
Of course people can’t just take things out of their heads, and of course the legal representatives take advantage of that fact.
Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
moistclump@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
They don’t have to explain it to the judge but they’re discussing it beforehand. As far as I know.
adespoton@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Yeah; when on a jury, we had it all written down and had a big flow chart on a white board with stuff crossed off that we had determined wasn’t actually relevant for one reason or another. When the trial was over, all the paper got shredded and the whiteboard thoroughly scrubbed, but we needed all that information while deliberating.
anonymouse2@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
When I served on a jury, the judge had us leave the courtroom multiple times. Once the trial was over, the judge told us what was being discussed when we left the room, and the reason the information had been excluded from testimony during the trial.
Had the DA tried to introduce this information while the jury was in the room it probably would have made it more difficult for us to come to the same verdict. I imagine that if the DA tried to do this often enough, it could lead to a mistrial and possible disciplinary action.
hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
You are 100% that at some point they would have been reprimanded by the judge and other counsel would have at least asked for a mistrial, although disciplinary action is very much more rare, as the bar reserves it for the more outrageous ethical misconduct like with Tom Girardi or Alex Murdough (not sure about spelling).
It actually happens a lot that counsel does improper stuff, but usually they keep it to a minimum. But it also heavily depends on how strict the judge is.
In the end, every trial is a new constellation with different dynamics and you never know what will happen, as is custom with juries as well.
But yeah to get back to get on topic, the jury is the one deciding and the judge is trying to make sure the jury only decides on the facts. Deciding what facts is trying to keep the trial fair to both parties. And making jurors disregard testimony is done in the hopes the jury will try to ignore it or at least not consider it for their decision.
And what you are saying makes it clear that it definitely works to some degree. I would love to know how well it works, but that is a different question, although we can assume it works reasonably well considering we’re still doing it and these things are researched in the form of jury experiments every once in a while.