[lbo-talk] jury duty

[andie nachgeborenen]

In federal district court in Chicago, the judge does
voir dire. My fave instance was the response of a guy
who asked if he had ever had any negative experiences
with the legal system, requested a side bar. Seems
he'd recently gotten out of prison for assault with a 
deadly weapon. Anything else? Yes, he'd done 20 years
for murder. Would that bias him in any way or
interfere with his ability to determine the facts
fairly and impartially? No, he could see both sides.
(It was a  criminal fraud case.) The prosecution
struck him for cause. I thought afterward that that
was a mistake, he seemed intelligent and would have
made a better juror than some of the ones we got, one
of whom was a  drunk and another (male) juror kept
making passes at my really cute co-clerk (female). The
prosecution won, of course, but they always do and
anyway the defendants were guilty as hell.

--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> Chuck Grimes wrote:
> 
> >I answered the questions as truthfully as I could.
> When the judge read
> >my name, both sides leaped out of their seats to
> get to her first for
> >a confab which the three carried on for several
> moments. When the
> >attorneys returned to their seats, the judge
> announced I was
> >excused.
> 
> In NY, at least in civil cases, there's no judge at
> the voir dire - 
> just the two lawyers.
> 
> Doug
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> 

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com