Psychological Distress from Jury Duty - Part 1

We all know that jury duty is inconvenient. However, we seldom talk about how traumatic the experience could be. Although Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence stated that in trial, the court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is "substantially outweighed" by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence, in reality, this exclusion is seldom applied. Even when it is utilized by the defense counsel in a criminal trial, Rule 403 cannot possibly exclude all cruel evidence. For example, in a vehicular manslaughter case, the prosecutor probably will have to present multiple repetitive photos of the crime scene to build the case that the defendant was knowingly engaging in reckless driving. Additionally, the nature of jury duty does very little to prepare the jurors for psychological distress - courts cannot warn jurors about upcoming evidence, and during the course of the trial, jurors are forbidden to discuss the details of the case with anyone.

Indeed, studies report that jurors suffer from some level of PTSD from jury duty, especially if they served on the jury of heinous crimes. Their symptoms may include "insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks, stomach distress, nervousness, irritability, lack of concentration, problems in interpersonal relations, extreme moodiness and mood swings, headaches, heart palpitation, depression, crying, numbness, and posttraumatic stress disorder." In a study, the researchers interviewed 40 jurors that were involved in trials of serious crimes, and found that 27 of them had physical or psychological symptoms, and that "significant illness" developed in 7 jurors.

To make matters worse, such evidence can even re-traumatize survivors of similar crimes if they were ever to serve on the jury. Although it is unlikely that any survivor of similar crimes would be selected in voir dire given their presumed (and very understandable) inability to remain objective in trial, psychologists warned that mere jury summons and the voir dire process can trigger PTSD. The best they can recommend is for victims of crimes to "have a support system," but the secrecy of deliberation process makes it easier said than done for jurors to seek out psychological support. Even in civil trials where no traumatic evidence was presented, the stakes of jury's decisions can still be high enough to induce some level of stress in jurors.

Some of the basis listed in Rule 403 is that exposure to such evidence may mislead the jury and confuse the issues, and may result in unfair prejudice to the defendant. For lawyers, the psychological trauma may impair a jury's objectiveness. For the public, however, the unaddressed psychological trauma may discourage them from serving on a jury even more. My next blog post will discuss what courts and jurors are doing to battle with the psychological distress stemming from trials.