There are few
institutions that are both revered and ridiculed as much as the American
jury. It seems that half of the
evaluations of the American jury system quote and support Alexis de
Tocqueville’s famous praise, while the other half denounce the jury and call
for reform. One of the methods of jury
reform that commentators often propose is the use of professional jurors. But what exactly is a “professional juror”
and would the use of professional jurors actually solve any problems?
A
given professional juror reform proposal might be suggesting that our legal
system use
(i) jurors
that have completed some minimum level of formal, general
education;
(ii) jurors that have some minimum level of
education or experience in the subject matter at trial;
(iii) jurors that have some minimum level of
legal education or experience; or
(iv) jurors that are appointed for a period of
time so that they gain experience.
While there are many articles supporting one form or
another of professional juror reform, very few include empirical evidence. Matthew Reiber and Jill Weinberg identified
this gap in the literature and designed an experiment to determine whetherthere is a problem with juror comprehension.
Their experiment presented participants (recently summoned jurors) with
three factual scenarios, each of which included instructions and two
questions. The first scenario was a
standard vehicle accident case, the second case was a procedurally complex
contract case, and the third scenario was a factually complex securities
litigation case. The results of the
research indicated that the participants comprehended the first scenario but
struggled mightily in comprehending the second and third scenarios.
Aside
from indicating that there is a comprehension problem in the current jury
system, the Reiber and Weinberg research also bears on the question of whether
a professional juror system would be an improvement. The researches collected the education
information from each participant and also asked each participant whether she
had ever served on a jury. The
researchers then statistically analyzed the results of the experiment in light
of these two variables and came up with counter-intuitive results. Neither general education level nor prior experience as a juror bore a statistically relevant relationship to comprehension of the second or third fact scenarios. In other words, a juror with a higher general
education level and a juror with prior jury experience are no more likely to
comprehend complex civil litigation than a juror with a lower general education
level and a juror with no prior jury experience.
Although
this is only one experiment, the upshot of the results is that we should be
very hesitant to entertain the idea of professional jurors without conducting
experiments to determine comparative comprehension levels. Many of the supporters of professional jury
reform argue based on the intuitive notion that a juror with higher formal
education or prior experience will comprehend more about the case. However, the Reiber and Weinberg research
indicates that notion, although intuitive, is not correct.
While
we should be hesitant to institute a professional jury system without evidence,
we should not ignore the first result from the research: there is a problem
with juror comprehension in complex cases.
The next blog will discuss alternative methods of jury reform that could
help with the comprehension problem.
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