
Will you be seated on a jury? - gk1
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/20/nyregion/jury-duty-quiz.html
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tombrossman
If you ever get the chance to do jury duty go for it. I used to hear people
talking about how to get out of it but I was curious enough to show up and go
along with the process the first time I was called. It was quite interesting,
and at the time I was employed at a company that paid 100% daily wages if you
were selected for a trial.

The defendant was accused of stealing a car and I had been the victim of car
theft before, so I figured I was out quickly. After I told them about the
theft the defence lawyer just asked 'were you traumatized?' and I laughed and
said 'no, just annoyed. I got my car back a week later undamaged'.

Couldn't believe it but I was seated on jury for trial, and I got to see how
the police worked it and learned about 'shaved keys', etc. Fascinating. I'm
not really pro-police but I remember wishing the detective who caught the
defendant had worked my case, where the thief was never found.

The personality dynamics of the deliberations are really interesting, too. The
defendant was a young Hispanic man and our foreman was an old white guy whose
first words were 'Well, he's guilty why waste time talking about it?' Total
shocker, the others were furious with him and shouting and arguing, etc. Great
stuff. I grabbed the evidence bag and looked through everything, deciding that
I'd be pretty good at stealing cars if I ever needed to.

The tl;dr of this is that if you are a fan of short stories (like a good Kurt
Vonnegut story) then jury duty is definitely for you. After doing it I'm
certain I would go do it again and I highly recommend it.

~~~
spacehome
That's nice that you get paid the same either way, but I've been called twice
- once while I was in school where if I didn't spend time studying I didn't
pass, and more importantly, I wouldn't learn the information. I got called
again a couple years later where I was working independently on my own
software projects, where if I didn't ship, I didn't get paid.

I took the obvious rational choice of using every trick in the book to
successfully get out of it both times. The alternative would be a potentially
unbounded chunk of my time gone, and that much farther behind on my goals.
Large companies can get a kind of diversification, but I'm sure jury duty hits
small companies hard as well.

The system is broken. I get the need for civilian juries, but the cost should
be more fairly distributed by encouraging jurors to show up by paying jurors a
reasonable wage rather than the pittance of a couple dollars a day that is
currently paid in most jurisdictions, and at the same time, let people opt out
by just saying "I don't want to" without having to give a reason (or better
yet, opt in instead). We'd raise wage high enough to get some target
percentage (like, say, 50%) of called citizens motivated enough to show up, or
possibly compensate jurors pro rata based off of 120% of their average
declared income on the previous 2-3 years of tax returns.

We'd have to raise taxes by a small amount to cover these payouts, but that's
completely reasonable as we're shifting the burden from randomly chosen
individuals of whom unreasonable demands are made today to a more broad and
even and shallow tax base. It's the same reason we pay road work crews a wage
rather than randomly selecting every week who cleans the roads. And if we pay
enough to still get 50% of jurors showing up completely volitionally, we'd
still avoid the problem of "professional jurors" who would try to game the
system by serving on many juries.

~~~
SeoxyS
Letting people opt out or opt in would destroy the entire point of a jury.
It'd turn what needs to be a representative random sample of the population
into selection bias.

I think that a better solution would be for small companies, independent
contractors, students, etc., to buy into an insurance pool; such that when
they _are_ selected for jury duty, they can be fairly compensated.

~~~
spacehome
Yea, that's basically what I suggested; I called it taxes.

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mindcrime
I've been called for jury duty once, and wound up being seated, and was
foreman. We acquitted the guy, accused of stealing some stuff from a cop car.
I _think_ he was guilty, but none of us thought the State proved their case
beyond reasonable doubt.

It was an interesting experience, and I was heartened to see that pretty much
every juror in the group really took to heart the whole "presumption of
innocence" idea and the notion that the State really had to prove guilt, not
just hint at, or suggest, guilt.

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notjustanymike
I served on an attempted homocide trial two years ago. It was the most
interesting five days I had in while. If you do get called, make sure it's for
a crime that requires a 911 operator, EMT, surgeon, detective, and
incarcerated gang member as your witnesses.

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SeoxyS
> The defense lawyer has now fallen in love with you…

Uhhhhh. There wasn't a single thing that sided me with the plaintiff. Not sure
if that's a good or bad thing.

~~~
mindcrime
Same here.

~~~
josephschmoe
Same...

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diego
All of you are young :) Being over 30 makes you likely to side with the
plaintiff.

~~~
xxs
the points given for being over 30 doesn't help much at all. Frivolous
lawsuits & being involved in "Social services, health, mental health" appear
to be the big deal.

~~~
silencio
I think there are frivolous lawsuits and I am involved in social causes. The
defense lawyer still loves me, even if I change those answers. But I'm solidly
in the defense's ballpark with under 30, high salary, white collar, puzzles...
already.

It's a bit disappointing, given that at face value I'm very sympathetic to the
plaintiff (think the parent/family/long term "that could be me" angle) and I'd
consider siding with her except in specific cases such as one where she
willingly agreed to high-risk investments.

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georgemcbay
I was selected for jury duty and was seated for a 6 week civil trial last
year.

Post-trial after talking to the defense attorneys it seems likely I would have
been dismissed by the plaintiff (they were dismissing 'engineer types'), but
because of the rules of selection the plaintiffs were basically out of
arbitrary passes (I don't know the legal terminology but at a certain point
they can appeal to the judge to pass on a potential juror, but only if there
is a very specific reason (like I know somebody on the case), but there's a
limit on how many arbitrary passes they get ("we don't like this guy, he won't
see things our way"). So I guess my point is, you may be selected even if you
are not ideal for one side or the other just because of the rules of the dance
of voir dire and random luck of the draw (I was the last one seated, if they
had avoided on passing one less person I would have walked out on day 1).

The trial ended up being about cold therapy devices and a guy who was suing a
local corporation saying the device caused problems in his knee. I was
initially surprised the defense (who still had passes) kept me around because
in the original juror questioning I'm sure I came off as the
liberal/borderline-anti-corporate-socialist lefty that I am.

In any case, the defense did a really good job of rationally showing that the
device didn't cause the harm and the harm was the result of medical
malpractice from the actual doctor; but the plaintiffs had a way more
charismatic law team and almost won the case; in the end it was a mistrial
with me and a few others holding out for the defense, plaintiffs would have
won with one more vote (since it was civil it wasn't required to be
unanimous); 3 days of very painful deliberation, trying to calmly explain to
others on the jury how badly they misinterpreted the testimony and evidence
and how they were manipulated by the plaintiff's attorneys (but, you know, not
saying it outright like that).

The whole experience was actually pretty interesting though 6 weeks was at
least 5 weeks too long. At least we had Fridays "off" (though I went to my
regular job on Friday and worked a lot on the weeknights on days I was at
court to keep up).

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enraged_camel
A friend of my uncle told me a story about one of his jury duty experiences.

He went through a similar process like the one in the article. In the end, the
judge asked a question like, "is there anything else you feel we didn't cover
that may introduce bias in this trial?"

He raised his hand and said, "Yes, your honor. The defendant is black and
everyone in the jury is white."

He wasn't selected.

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murbard2
It seems that the jury selection process selects for people who don't really
have jobs and who don't have particularly strong views on much.

If the goal is to act as mere fact checkers and verify that the law is being
applied consistently, I get the intention.

However, this is a narrow view of the role of a jury. Juries should also serve
as fail-safe, exercising discretion and preventing grotesque aberrations, for
instance those coming from minimum sentencing laws.

This is unlikely to happen with this kind of selection.

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Zigurd
The "Do you believe investing is similar to gambling?" question has choices of
Yes and No. Some investing is similar to gambling. Some of that gambling is
benign or even beneficial and some, like the derivatives bomb that blew up in
2008 is dangerous on a global scale. Some investors would never see themselves
as gamblers but are. Some are over-cautious and moralistic about their
investing.

Similarly, while there are frivolous lawsuits, and lawsuits that are
technically not frivolous but are very harmful, like patent trolls and SLAPPs,
there are also domains where personal liability does not reach today, like
police violence, that could benefit from bonded practitioners with their bond
at stake.

No matter, the plaintiff thinks I'm too establishment. I've been dismissed.

------
jisaacstone
I don't understand the questions. Who is asking these questions? Am I legally
obligated to answer? Is that really how jury selection works? Seems a bit
ridiculous that they are allowed to ask such specific (and often irrelevant to
the case at hand) questions.

~~~
bcbrown
Read the associated NYT article:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/nyregion/for-service-on-
so...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/nyregion/for-service-on-some-juries-
expect-a-lengthy-written-test.html)

~~~
Roedou
The UK court system just picks 12 jurors, and that's the jury - no discussion
or debate unless there's a significant conflict of interest.

Is that so bad?

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nostromo
I appreciated the humor here. That's not something I see much in the NYTimes.

> Do you believe that there are too many frivolous lawsuits in this country?

> Yes.

> The defense lawyer has now fallen in love with you.

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viewer5
It's funny, the defense is swooning over me, while I feel more sympathetic
(just based on the prompt given, obviously I don't have any evidence) with the
prosecutor.

~~~
tptacek
Just for what it's worth, civil cases have plaintiffs, not prosecutors.

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chrisbennet
IMO, jury duty is one of the most important things you can do as a citizen.
It's probably more important than voting. A competent jury is often the only
thing standing between an innocent person and prison.

I've never had be judged by a jury, but if I did, I hope the jury would be
composed of intelligent, thoughtful and serious people.

I've done jury duty once. It was inconvenient but I would gladly do it again.

~~~
glenra
intelligent, thoughtful and serious people don't stand much of a chance of
making it onto a jury - I think that was the point of the NYT quiz.

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Torgo
I was removed from the jury by the judge when I refused to swear an oath to
only use the letter of the law to determine innocence or guilt (paraphrasing,
might have that wrong.) I didn't know at that time that you can't be
prosecuted for deciding however you want.

~~~
Crito
I believe they can however, at least in theory, get you for perjury if you
tell them that you that you would only use the letter of the law to determine
innocence or guilt but in fact are aware that you are not required to and are
willing to not.

It is unfortunately likely that I will never serve on a jury because 1) I
would never convict somebody of a crime if I believe that the law is
unethical, and 2) would never lie about that.

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cbr

         What is your total household income?
    

If you select "Under $50k" they say "More likely to side with plaintiff". If
you select "Over $50k" they say "No effect on either lawyer". That's not how
conservation of expected evidence works. (Several other questions work the
same way.)

~~~
tedunangst
Are you sure? Assume the lawyers have access to a table like the following, of
previous results.

    
    
                  Plaintiff    Defense
        Under 50k        75         25
         Over 50k        50         50
    

What's wrong with the Times's conclusions?

~~~
cbr
If this was the first question, and both incomes are equally common, then
before they asked your income they would estimate your chances of siding with
the plaintiff as 62%. They ask the question, and either your chances go up to
75% or down to 50%.

If one of two answers gives "no effect" then so must the other.

~~~
tedunangst
Think about it like point system. Based on the answer, the plaintiff gives you
a point and the defense gives you minus a point; or nobody gives you any
points. Theoretically, maybe you should have started with half a defense
point, but I don't think that's how it's really run.

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asperous
It's interesting how well the jury system is set up- innocent until proven
guiltily, beyond a reasonable doubt, jury of your peers, appeals, etc. even
this reducing bias in jury selection.

I'm sure there's disgruntled people that will tell me it's all garbage, but
it's certainly a lot better than I could have done.

~~~
glenra
This process INCREASES bias in jury selection.

Suppose you're accused of, say, marijuana possession. Far more than 1 in 12
people think marijuana should be legal, so an actually RANDOM jury would
almost never convict - that jury pool would correctly reflect the sentiment in
the populace at large that this law is stupid and shouldn't be enforced.

But a jury in which everybody who seems "biased" on the issue has been removed
by the judge or the prosecutor, leaving only people who "had no opinion" or
are willing to accept the law exactly as the judge interprets it...is hugely
MORE biased towards conviction than a random group of 12 people would be.

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eliben
Many NY Times links require a subscription. Am I missing something here, or is
this only read by subscribed HNers?

~~~
cmdcmvx
The question isn't "Will you be seated on a Jury?", it's "Will you provide the
NY Times advertisers with very specific demographic information?"

~~~
asperous
It says at the top "Your responses will not be stored."

If you open a profiler while you are filling out answers you can see there is
no network activity (-> they are telling the truth).

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lake_rogue
At first I thought this was a trojan horse for the NYTimes to gather
demographic information about their readers (household income, age, employment
status). But then decided the A/B answers were probably too broad to be very
informative.

