Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 19, 1995 TAG: 9503200003
SECTION: BOOK PAGE: G-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY DAN L. FREI
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"In a Democracy, law is made by the will of the people and obedience is given to it not primarily out of fear but from good will. The jury is the means by which the people play a direct part in the application of the law."
- Patrick Devlin, British justice and jury scholar
If you've ever wondered just what being a member of a jury is like, you might find this book both reassuring and a little frightening.
In reconstructing seven jury trials, from a New Jersey love triangle that ended in gunfire to the mammoth North Carolina lawsuit pitting two major tobacco companies against each other, Stephen Adler, legal editor of the Wall Street Journal, takes us on a trip through the jury process from "voir dire" (where potential jury members are questioned by the judge or the lawyers) to decided verdict.
Adler shows us how and why the jury system works, and how, in many cases it doesn't or simply can't. In particular he shows us just how complex certain kinds of law can be and how, sometimes, legal and economic points of contention are beyond the comprehension of the average citizen. In many cases, Adler says the jury system in America is in danger of erosion, and "whether the jury system is worth saving in principle and, if so, whether we can improve it sufficiently to make it worth saving in practice" is the core point of view of this book.
Adler writes: "Our juries have always sprung up from our communities and reflected our communities' weaknesses and their strengths. They have groped toward a common understanding of the facts, sought to make their verdicts just as well as lawful, and then gone back to the places they had been. Like other citizen soldiers, jurors have often felt different upon their return." But he expresses some fear in writing the inside story on behind-closed-door jury deliberations because, as he writes, "public confidence in jury decision making is damaged when press reports reveal a deliberation process as messy as sausage making - hardly the elegant ballet of '12 Angry Men.'" In fact, he refers often to Henry Fonda in the movie "12 Angry Men," leaving the impression that that movie is to jury reality what "Boys Town" is to orphanages.
There are peripheral aspects of the jury system that many readers will be exposed to for the first time in this book, "jury consulting" for example. By demographic matching, commercial specialists offer lawyers the opportunity to mold their arguments in focus groups or with shadow juries, and also to establish decision criteria for preemptory challenges based on stereotypical figuring.
Gerry Spence, the colorful and famous Western lawyer, is described as "having his favored collection of stereotypes for jury composition: when representing a criminal defendant; he prefers the old to the young because older people have more understanding of human frailties, fat people to thin because Spence believes fat people lack self-control and won't demand as much law-abiding discipline from others. Yuppies are the worst jurors: They fear crime, love property, and haven't suffered enough to be sympathetic to the accused."
Adler is fearful that, unfettered, jury consultants could dilute the theoretical purity of jury selection, and contribute to a predetermined outcome by more aggressive casting of juries resulting, simply, in juries composed of types of people more susceptible to a lawyer's goal of winning, and less representative of a defendant's "peers." He suggests expanding the jury pool to lawyers, doctors, and other members of society that are now generally not called upon to serve.
Adler suggests ways to make the court rooms more "jury-centric," where, for example, the judge gives legal instructions to the jury in both verbal and written form prior to closing arguments of the defense and prosecution lawyers, and juries be allowed pen and paper to take notes, and, in some cases, be allowed to ask questions.
Of our jury system, however, Adler believes there is hope and that, overall, justice is fairly dispensed. He likens jury service to the right and obligation in a democracy to vote - and cites de Tocqueville's view of the jury system as "a political institution [that is] ... as direct and as extreme a consequence of the sovereignty of the people as universal suffrage."
In referring to the American jury system as "the awful court of judgment - it is one thing to believe in it, another to sit on a jury and have to decide," Adler issues a challenge to the citizenry to become more interested in being a part of the process of justice.
Dan Frei is a political consultant.
by CNB