As this class saw during juror interviews, how a litigant, a victim, a defendant, presents him or herself can make a significant
difference to a juror's weighing of the evidence (e.g., man accused of crime wearing a shirt with naked women,
woman who claims her back hurts does not move in her hard-backed chair, etc).
Pop culture often displays lawyers and the parties they represent engaging in questionable
tactics to gain sympathy or empathy from the jury.
Jurors swear
an oath to decide facts and verdict based on the evidence presented to them.
They also rely on their common
sense and experience to judge the credibility and persuasiveness of each
side’s argument. Disabilities remain a sensitive, uncomfortable topic for many
people to discuss. Subconscious
bias regarding disabilities remains pervasive despite many efforts to
combat. Furthermore, as we have seen with other types of prejudice, when juries
do not have contact with a juror with a particular background or characteristic,
jurors will often speculate as to how that background or characteristic may
play a role in the larger picture. Seeing a disability subconsciously triggers responses
that make it hard for nondisabled people, unaccustomed to the broad spectrum of
realities and capabilities
of people with disabilities, “to
overcome deeply rooted and seemingly intuitive aesthetic judgments.”
As of Friday, jurors in Harvey
Weinstein’s case remain
deadlocked on two of the five counts facing the movie mogul. On Monday, the
Jurors will continue to deliberate one of the most serious charges Weinstein
faces—predatory sexual assault—in addition to another charge.
One of Weinstein’s first accusers,
Annabella
Sciorra, remains a focus for the jury’s continued deliberations. Due to the
statute of limitations, any charge related to the brutal rape she says
Weinstein committed against her remains unavailable for prosecution. However, prosecutors
included Sciorra as a victim in the predatory sexual assault charge, and due to
allowances by the rules of evidence, she also testified about the alleged rape
incident. Thus, during the trial, attorneys for both sides questioned Sciorra
about why, on that night, she opened her door to Weinstein, and why did not
find a way to escape if she was under attack. During deliberations, the jury
requested to review Sciorra’s
examination and cross. . .
On
cross-examination, Weinstein’s lawyer asked: “Why didn’t you try to run out of
the apartment? Did you scratch him? Try to poke him in the eyes?”
Sciorra responded:
“He was too big” to fight off. “He was
frightening.”
Weinstein, now 65, first hobbled
into court with a cane for his bail hearing late last year. After he
underwent back surgery, he upgraded to a walker. Weinstein’s lead attorney, Donna
Rotunno, criticized how the media covered Weinstein’s walker: “I was
dismayed to see all the press coverage incorrectly stating that Mr. Weinstein
was trying to garner sympathy at his court appearance.”
Weinstein, 65, may be in a state
of rapidly deteriorating health. However, researcher Jasmine E. Harris, U.C. Davis
Law School argues that he may, like others before him, hope the benefit of disability
aesthetics will help him in the courtroom. Harris argues that this may not
only impact the outcome of this particular case, but also the progress disability
rights law has made to this point, by perpetuating discrimination and legal remedies that fundamentally misunderstand the issue.
Please see the following
additional high-profile cases that raised similar issues about disability:
In pop culture, Netflix’s Dirty John
retells the fascinating and horrifying true story of con-artist John Meehan. During
the penultimate episode, John’s wife’s lawyer arranges the proof and paperwork
to secure an immediately effective domestic violence restraining order. However,
when John shows up to the trial with a cane, and without a lawyer,
the judge reschedules the hearing. In the final episode, John violently attacks
his wife’s daughter.
Notably, one classmate
suggested a solution
for ensuring a jury that includes people with various disabilities, which may
in turn start more informed discussions in the deliberation room about the realities
of having a disability.
No comments:
Post a Comment