Harvey Weinstein: The Jurors Speak

There are many theories as to how, exactly, juries reach a final verdict (according to this study, for instance, the strongest predictor of a jury’s verdict is the initial distribution of individual preferences before deliberation). In most cases, however, we may never really know how the jury came to its conclusion. Occasionally, judges may allow attorneys to interview jurors, but this is far from a certain thing and judges may also forbid an attorney from contacting the jurors after trial. Sometimes, however, particularly in high-profile cases, jurors may reach out to the media themselves to speak on the deliberation process or final verdict. In fact, we have seen this recently in both the high-profile cases of both Roger Stone and Harvey Weinstein. Often, these public comments can give us insight into how deliberation occurs and what factors were perceived as most important by the jurors.

In the case of the Harvey Weinstein trial, several jurors have already spoken about the verdict that was handed down on February 24, 2020, including a woman identified as “juror #2” and a man (juror #9) identified as “Drew”. Each of these jurors gives interesting insight into the five-day long deliberation that took place before Weinstein’s eventual verdict that found him guilty on charges of sexual assault in the first degree and rape in the third degree and acquitted him of predatory sexual assault. Drew, for instance, responded to a question about whether the jurors factored in testimony that a woman could be sexually assaulted but maintain contact with her attacker (testimony given by the same Expert Witness, Barbara Ziv, who testified at Bill Cosby’s trial). In response, Drew told the interviewer that the jury had spent quite a long time in early deliberations on these “rape myths” (the term used by Barbara Ziv) but that ultimately the jury did not consider the accuser’s prior and subsequent relationships with Weinstein and instead focused only on the singular incident. “Husbands can rape their wives,” Drew added, in explaining the jury’s decision. 

Research shows, however, that people are generally pretty bad at properly attributing the reasons for their own and others’ behavior. It seems hard to believe, after all, that the jury might have spent some significant amount of time discussing testimony that did not factor into the jury’s decision making, according to juror Drew. Similarly, Drew explained that he had personally wanted Weinstein to take the stand (the judge did give Weinstein a last opportunity to take the stand, which he refused, before the defense rested its case) but that his lack of testimony did not factor into the jury’s final verdict.

Although we are often left wondering exactly what the jury considered, these interviews (although undoubtedly carefully spoken for the media) do give some insight into the process by which juries reach their final verdicts. Whether Drew is right, that the jury considered only the evidence before it (although the American Bar Foundation suggests that civil juries, at least, are influenced by many factors), or whether Drew is merely falling prey to the same attribution error that plagues most of society, his interview gives us a first-hand look into the way jurors processes information and their experiences.