Anatomy of a Jury Breakdown: The Joseph Percoco Trial

      HuffPost Canada

What Happened?

At this time last year, a federal jury in Manhattan found Joseph Percoco, the ex-senior aide to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud and bribery. The jury determined that the aide had solicited and accepted bribes (from companies involved in dealings with the state) that totaled more than $300,000. At the end of a tumultuous eight-week trial exposing unprecedented levels of corruption in Albany, Percoco was sentenced to six years in prison. The governor himself was not accused of wrongdoing in the dealings.

But although prosecutors “painted an unflattering portrait” of Percoco during trial, highlighting his pricey vacations and “clubby nicknames” with company executives, the jury’s decision-making was fraught with uncertainty and opposition from the beginning. After deliberating for two days, the jury announced that they were deadlocked. The judge advised them to continue deliberations and come to a consensus, only to hear that they were deadlocked for a second time. During the jury’s time together, tensions mounted. A fourth of the jurors, frustrated and tired from the lengthy trial and internal arguments, requested they be dismissed, “citing its physical and emotional toll.” Post-trial, the shaken jury declined to share their experiences with the press, with the exception of one juror who admitted she was grateful the events were over.

So What Went Wrong in the Jury Room?

The weight of the trial and subsequent deliberations bore heavy on the jurors. As often as we think of “the jury” as a functional unit, “the finder of fact,” it is comprised of individuals with personal lives and emotions. Perhaps similar conflict may be avoided in future cases if the sources for unhappiness amongst the Percoco jurors can be determined. After all, these citizens, rightfully fulfilling their civic duties, should not have to walk straight to their therapists’ offices from the courthouse.

The original source of juror frustration evidently began prior to the commencement of deliberations. The trial was originally projected to last four weeks, but those four weeks stretched to six weeks, and eventually the trial took double it’s intended time. During trial, jurors are away from families and jobs, essentially putting their lives on hold. It is a tall order to request that a juror commit to a month in court. Imagine two months, during which time you are paid a measly amount for your troubles, as your personal obligations build.

During deliberations, there were reportedly “fundamental differences” in the jury, as reported by one juror to the judge. Another member stated that he simply could “no longer continue.” Yet another claimed she had nothing left to offer. We seek people of different mindsets, life experiences, and personalities to serve on juries in order to promote diversity and achieve a true sampling of society, and yet we underestimate the potential for conflict when individuals get together to make a collective decision that affects a defendant’s life so fundamentally.

Was the Percoco Jury an Anomaly?

It would appear that the emotional toll experienced by the Percoco jury was not an outlier in the jury world. Studies have shown a clear correlation between jury services and emotional problems like “nervous tension and insomnia” that can have long lasting effects on the juror. Jury members report post-trial nightmares and anxiety. One study polled jurors who sat through gruesome murder or sexual assault trials. It found that 27 of the pool of 40 jurors experienced physical and psychological symptoms occurring after the trials began. Among the complaints were “stomachaches, headaches, heart palpitations[,] depression[, loss of] interest in sex, . . . chest pain, a peptic ulcer, elevated blood pressure and hives.”

Can the Emotional Toll of Jury Duty Be Prevented?

Medical and mental health professionals posit that “[p]sychological help should be available to any jurors who need it” and that debriefings with psychologists should be held after particularly taxing trials. As it stands, federal judges have the authority to extend a juror's service if they wish to take advantage of the Employee Assistance Program’s free counseling services. Perhaps the court system should take juror protection a step further, in allotting a few hours post-trial in especially stressful cases for mandatory mental health evaluations, so that those who do not actively seek out such counseling services are not lost in the shuffle.