Will you be seated on a jury?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/20/nyregion/jury-duty-quiz.html

by gk1 • 12 years ago

74 85 12 years ago

nytimes.com

SeoxyS2• 12 years ago

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.

mindcrime3• 12 years ago

Same here.

josephschmoe2• 12 years ago

Same...

xxs2• 12 years ago

I am bloody filthy red as well, I wonder what one has to do to get on the plaintiff's side. Gotta reverse all answers to see...

gknoy• 12 years ago

These were things that I found influenced you in favor of the plaintiff (after going back and trying to find all of them):

- Blue collar - 30 or older - Household income < 50k - employed part time/unemployed - social services, left-leaning causes - don't like puzzles or games w/ rules/concentration

The last 4 are about how likely you are to influence other jurors, which increases your risk score.

probably_wrong• 12 years ago

This is what I think is going on: in a case like this, there's probably no actual crime (as defined by law), because investing is inherently risky, and therefore losing money is normal. You, as a scientific-minded individual with a basic knowledge of economy, will only convict the adviser if there's actual proof of mismanagement. I'd bet that, in the average case, it would be rather hard for a typical 60 y.o. woman to get evidence of that (assuming there is such a thing). If you said "yes" to the "too many frivolous suits" question, you would be easily conviced that the woman has no real argument, but is suing anyway.

Also, from the "do you like crosswords" question, if you say "no" you get this:

This is a question about your cognitive style. The plaintiff lawyer believes you may be more likely to respond to the plaintiff's more emotional theme of victimhood rather than looking deeply at the legal and financial details.

I read that as "we don't really have a case, but if our jury identifies with the old woman, they may rule in her favor out of compassion".

genwin• 12 years ago

What commonly happens is the investor gives authority to the broker to make trading decisions. Then the broker frequently trades to make commissions on each trade, until the money inevitably dwindles to the point where the customer realizes it was a scam. The broker acted legally but opposite the best interests of the client.

takeda• 12 years ago

I was told that I would side with defendant based on my answers, but to be honest. The fact that it is a 60 year old woman giving $200,000 to manage it makes me think I would be siding with plaintiff.

The most common scenario in this situation is that investment adviser did not make her aware with risks. Someone at that age generally would not want to risk everything they had.

Of course if it is obvious that she was aware of the risks associated with it and the adviser was honest then I would side with him.

I believe the point of jury is to rule in a way that seems most sensible (based on ethics and not necessarily having to agree with the law).

TazeTSchnitzel2• 12 years ago

That's the response you get if you choose Yes for "Do you believe that there are too many frivolous lawsuits in this country?"

mindcrime3• 12 years ago

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.

viewer5• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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

eliben• 12 years ago

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

eastbayjake• 12 years ago

If you've read your monthly limit of 10 articles, you can open the link in a Private Browsing or Incognito tab

josephschmoe2• 12 years ago

Or even just Google it and it will work just fine (it has to for Google bots). This is there way of reminding people that that they need to make money and make them not feel like a charity in giving them said money.

I would give them money if it gave me some degree of power over what categories of articles they look into making, but I'd never give them 15$/month.

rtkwe• 12 years ago

If you just Google the title you can skip right past their pay wall. Incoming search links don't get checked against how many articles you've read.

cmdcmvx• 12 years ago

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?"

smtddr• 12 years ago

Wow, this was a genius-move if that's what they were after. I happily gave my info without considering that they may be collecting it beyond the time I close the browser-tab.

Now, I'm just curious to know what everybody else on HN select.

(I got "The defense lawyer has now fallen in love with you.")

My suspicion is that most of HN knows how much money is constantly risked in regards start-ups & investing; some people make it - most people don't... nobody sues because they lost. At least that was my mindset. As soon as I read the case, I was already on the defendant's side unless evidence was shown that the defendant straight-up just went on glamours vacations with the plaintiff's money and never invested at all.

TazeTSchnitzel2• 12 years ago

"Your responses will not be stored."

ghshephard• 12 years ago

Well, given that I (like a lot of people?) just clicked on every possible choice to see the impact, I doubt its a great strategy. :-)

(Also note, they explicitly state, Your responses will not be stored.)

asperous2• 12 years ago

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).

notjustanymike• 12 years ago

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.

jisaacstone2• 12 years ago

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.

vqc• 12 years ago

The judge and lawyers ask these questions during a process called voir dire.

The judge and lawyers are concerned about making sure each juror is unbiased. How you answer question A regarding topic B could be very revealing of your bias towards the case even if neither question A nor topic B have anything to do with the case. People often lie on question X on topic Y (questions and topics more directly related to the case), or their answers often don't reflect how they actually act in the jury room.

mturmon• 12 years ago

And just to go a bit farther, because it's interesting -- either side can toss a certain number of potential jurors without stating a reason (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peremptory_challenge).

But, if you demonstrate that you're clearly prejudiced to one side or the other, you can be tossed outright, and that toss does not count against the allowed number of peremptory challenges.

When I've done voir-dire, one side or the other has always booted me (and you know which), so I have some idea what set them off. I think the analytical mind and the independent streak will usually be a problem for one side or the other.

bcbrown• 12 years ago

Read the associated NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/nyregion/for-service-on-so...

jisaacstone2• 12 years ago

interesting. Thanks!

Roedou2• 12 years ago

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?

wvenable• 12 years ago

For contrast, in Canada, lawyers are not allowed to ask a potential juror any questions. But, just from looking at you, the lawyer from either side can dismiss you.

cbr3• 12 years ago

     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.)

frogpelt2• 12 years ago

People who are likely to be poor are more likely to side with the investor rather than the investment bank.

But perhaps there are just as many people, who are not poor, who do not trust investment bankers as there are who do trust investment bankers.

cbr3• 12 years ago

Let's make a very simple model:

    poor? side with investor 100% of the time
    rich? equally likely to side with either

And again for simplicity, before they ask you what your income is say they think you're equally likely to be poor or rich, and that this is the first question.

Before they ask the question they think there's a 50% chance you're poor and will definitely side with the investor and a 50% chance you're rich and will side with either. In other words they think you're 75% likely to side with the investor. Then they ask you the question. If you say you're poor then they both update your probability upwards from 75% to 100%, if rich then downwards from 75% to 50%.

sneaky_ruds• 12 years ago

It depends on how you interpret these phrases. This is valid logic if

"More likely to side with X" => The lawyers believe that you are more likely to side with the plaintiff than with the defendant on the basis of this information (Pr(P | Over $50k) - Pr(D | Over $50k) > epsilon)

"No effect on either lawyer": The lawyers believe that this information provides no insight into your decision (|Pr(P | Under $50k) - Pr(D | Under $50k)| < epsilon).

tedunangst4• 12 years ago

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?

cbr3• 12 years ago

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.

thaumasiotes3• 12 years ago

The problem there is that if that table is accurate, the baseline assumption isn't a 50/50 split, it's that you're more likely to side with the plaintiff than the defense. (How much more likely depends on the prevalence of "under 50k" people relative to "over 50k" people.) So learning that you make "over 50k" moves you towards the defense from the position of no information (no information other than the table, that is).

patmcc• 12 years ago

If that was the table and you were the defence, wouldn't you strongly prefer the Over 50k person?

Zigurd• 12 years ago

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.

tombrossman3• 12 years ago

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.

crazypyro• 12 years ago

I'm sure its a lot easier of a decision when your work is paying you full salary for it. Although, I'm not sure how common/uncommon that is.

frogpelt2• 12 years ago

Probably depends on how long it lasts.

bryanlarsen2• 12 years ago

Jury duty was the absolute worst experience of my entire life, bar none. (yes, yes, first world problem).

The first three weeks were sort of interesting. The week in seclusion for deliberation was awful. It was so stressful I couldn't sleep, I was a complete wreck. You spend 14 hours a day cooped up in a small room along with people you slowly start to hate. I get really angry just thinking about it.

dragonwriter• 12 years ago

Trials (and subsequent deliberations) that last that long -- though there the kind that get popular attention -- are pretty extreme outliers.

They happen, but they are far from the norm. (IIRC, most trials last, including deliberations, less than a week, and many are done in 1-2 days, deliberation included.)

adestefan• 12 years ago

I once had to do jury duty for the Federal Court of Maryland. In that case you are slated to call in for a day or two every week for a month. At the time they were starting to select a jury for a public corruption trial that was estimated to last for 12-15 weeks plus time for deliberations. Because the case was so public you would also be sequestered the entire time. One of the happiest days of my life was when I wasn't selected for that trial.

A couple weeks later I did have to sit on a trial for 2 days for a traffic offense because the person decided it was a good idea to let the police chase him back and forth between Maryland and DC.

Zelphyr• 12 years ago

Yours sounds much more interesting than mine. An ambulance chaser who conned a woman into suing the kid who rear-ended her and happened to be driving dad's BMW.

That said, I'd do it again for sure. Partially out of civic duty and partially because, despite mine not being altogether exciting, it was still fairly interesting for my curious mind.

grecy• 12 years ago

Don't leave us hanging - did your jury find him guilty or not? Was that in line with your thoughts?

Roedou2• 12 years ago

Depending on where he lives, he can't say anything about his thoughts or the deliberations in the jury room. He may be able to tell you the verdict.

tombrossman3• 12 years ago

It wasn't that important to the story but the guy was caught with the car, and as it was his 'third strike' in California a jury trial was required (rather than a plea agreement). There was considerable evidence submitted but barely touched on in court to prove he did it so we found him guilty.

After the verdict was read the judge explained more about the case and more info came out which 100% confirmed his guilt. It was good to know we got it right.

spacehome5• 12 years ago

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.

joe_the_user• 12 years ago

Advice I got from a lawyer friend is that getting out of jury is very easy - just ignore the summons entirely and nothing will happen.

You correct that they won't accept any excuse but the system mails summons more or less at random and so the summonses go to many non-existent persons. Moreover, a letter isn't legally binding by itself - you can always say you never got it but since they get to so non-shows, the system never bothers to hunt-down those who never show.

SeoxyS2• 12 years ago

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.

tombrossman3• 12 years ago

These are great points but I think 'economic hardship' is a valid reason to give, no? If you tell the judge your situation and ask to be excused (or defer it repeatedly). It sounds like you probably tried this but I mean tell them straight out 'I'm self-employed and at X days of this I no longer have rent/food/etc'.

Failing that the magic words are 'can you please explain about jury nullification and whether it is legal?'. It is my understanding that the jury nullification issue is toxic and will almost certainly get you dismissed.

macNchz• 12 years ago

I'm currently serving on a grand jury for a 4 week term, hearing numerous cases every day. The level of perspective it has provided into the legal system has been fascinating, and seeing all of these different cases unfold through witness testimony is a really interesting experience, though it is often emotionally draining.

The flip side of my situation is that, as a rather recently hired engineer at a young and quickly moving startup, it's not really a replacement for my job this month, as it is for most of the others I sit with. It's a second job, unless I want to fall behind and lose a lot of what I've worked for.

cge2• 12 years ago

Whether it's worth doing, or even possible to do, is highly dependent upon who you are.

As a scientist, I appear to be essentially banned from being on a jury. The last time I was there, my experience consisted of wasting two days sitting in a courthouse, surrounded by people trying to escape from jury duty, only to be dismissed from a jury by the prosecution immediately after stating my profession. In total I said less than ten words. Everything I have been told by others in academia seems to go along with this: scientists are immediately dismissed.

So what's the point of my going? I'd like to be on a jury, and think it's an important civic duty, but the end result is an utter waste of my time that achieves nothing, for which the court insultingly tries to "compensate" me with $15 per day.

enraged_camel• 12 years ago

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.

murbard2• 12 years ago

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.

chrisbennet• 12 years ago

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.

glenra3• 12 years ago

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.

nostromo• 12 years ago

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.

asperous2• 12 years ago

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.

bryanlarsen2• 12 years ago

Prosecution gets to go first. That's a huge advantage; they end up framing the trial.

glenra3• 12 years ago

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.

Torgo• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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.

georgemcbay• 12 years ago

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).

lake_rogue• 12 years ago

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.

Will you be seated on a jury?

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