Why You Were Not Selected for Jury Duty - LL Ep. 5.256

hello welcome once again relations law I'm Steve Leto I got a great email the other day and I actually asked the guy if I could read his email and he said sure go right ahead so Jim wrote me said Steve I enjoy your YouTube channel if something has bothered me for a long time feel free to answer it in a video if you feel it's appropriate and I do a few years ago I was called for jury duty the trial involved a possible DUI with an accident and injury both attorneys explains the trial would involve speeds distances visibility issues and factual analysis of testimony now I'm an engineer and when I said that I was an engineer during the jury interview process I was intently questioned concerning my ability to analyze and systematically solve problems and I said that I could do that there were two other engineers in the jury pool and they likewise were questioned and likewise answered as I did to my great surprise all three of us were excused and dismissed and not by just one side in other words one side was dismissed one engineer the other side dismissed the other engineer the best of my understanding we were released because the attorneys wanted the case tried based on their powers of persuasion rather than the ability of juries to carefully analyze facts this greatly disturbs me and strikes me as unfair and a perversion of the jury selection process what are your thoughts on that Jim asks me that question and I'm you know it's it's a great question and on its face it would appear to be that you've got to snaky attorneys who are trying to game the system and somehow are saying we'd rather have idiots in the jury pool and then in the jury box to decide our case rather than people who can figure stuff out and apply science to facts and so on and now I can see where that thought process comes from and where it leads to but it's actually I think not quite that bad and I'm gonna tell you my favorite jury selection story in a bit and I've told it before but I don't remember which video is in probably a long time ago so most of you haven't heard it but if you think about it like this jury instructions are written in plain English so everyone can understand and it'll actually say you know you are to decide if the plaintiff is entitled to compensation from the defendant for negligence here's what negligence is here's what compensation is here's what the elements of damages are here's an every single thing in these instructions is laid out in absolutely plain English that a seventh grader or sixth grader could easily understand I know people complain to the laws are confusing but the interesting thing is that when it comes to jury instructions they do a very good job of converting into simple English that people can actually understand so there's nothing wrong with having people in the jury who are not professionals in any given field but I think that one of the legitimate concerns that I would have as an attorney regardless of which side I'm on is that let's suppose we had a car accident case and something happens and the car accident is an extremely important issue in this case and let's suppose it when we're calling the potential jurors into the pool to ask them questions and decide whether they belong in the box it's called voir dire where you ask them questions that's the latin term old old French Latin and the the idea is that you're trying to find suitable jurors who are not biased and so let's suppose you said this entire thing involves a car accident and suddenly some guy got you go what do you do for a living sir and he goes I'm a car accident reconstructionist it's all I do I study car collisions car accidents car impacts I I got a PhD in it I I teach it I work I taught at Harvard for twenty years I taught nothing but how to recreate and interpret what an accident scene shows us okay now here's the thing you might go wait that guy that guy should be judge right I mean isn't that the guy you want deciding your case well here's the problem both sides you bring in experts who are probably similar to this guy's expertise and my guys going to testify and the other guy gets to cross-examine and then the other side's gonna put in their guy and I get to cross-examine and we all know what would happen in this case if it went back into the jury chain all the jurors gonna look at that guy and go who's the winner who do you think and this one jurors expertise is gonna become outsized meaning that it's going to get more weight than it deserves because you've got six jurors in a civil case or in a criminal case would be 12 jurors right and you got one juror who suddenly has more authority than the others and that would not be right okay and I don't care if the guy likes me or not the point is that that you you want each juror to have a vote and each jurors vote to be just the same and so I suspect that what was going on in this case was if there's a lot of engineering stuff going on if it seemed to be over the heads of the jurors their natural inclination would be to turn to an engineer and go what do you think now you might say see but there's nothing wrong with that wouldn't you want an engineer to explain this stuff well that's assuming that the engineer can explain the stuff without taking sides but remember that the engineer like the other jurors has been told you're gonna take a side and you get a vote so let's suppose that you're the engineer and you're back there and you think that the plaintiff should win and they ask you what do you think explain the engineering to us could you explain the engineering in such a way that you wouldn't shadow it to lean the direction you want it I mean I suppose you could but how would we ever know and that is a real concern I can tell you that that's called one time where I actually got to go to the courthouse and sit in the pool and get voir dude and the attorneys asking me questions and one of the attorneys actually said you know what do you do for a living I said well I've got a couple jobs a multitasker but one of which is I'm an attorney I guess Oh what kind of law do you practice I said lemon law he goes what's that make a defective cars because Oh anything else I should know about you legally and I said yeah I taught law school for 10 years including trial practice which I said specifically so the young attorney would realize I've already critiquing what he's doing and he's doing it wrong but I digress and I didn't get picked and neither did the attorney next to me and I wasn't offended I didn't want to get involved in this case anyways when I heard the original basic statement of the facts I go this is gonna be a nightmare there was a car accident and a guy was towing a trailer and somehow the car and the trailer came into contact with a car in another Lane and the entire case is gonna be who's telling the truth did this guy go over his line or did this guy go over the line and you know something I don't want to get involved but I would have if chosen right but the point is that what happens if you have a jury of six people and go back in a room in there and and the other jurors are confused about a legal instruction a jury instruction they're told if you've got questions or problems you can ask the judge to reread instructions to you but it's a waste of time spent you know people want to get out of court they want to go home they got lives aren't they more likely gonna turn to one of the attorneys and go hey can you explain that negligence thing one more time and again if I was back there I probably could but it would be inappropriate they don't get the law from me they don't get the law from another juror they get the law from the judge everyone's got a different job here and so I know it seems odd that certain occupations would get excluded from juries for these reasons but I suspect that if you were an engineer and you were called in on a case like the one I'm talking about guy driving down the road another guy and boom these cars hit if there's nothing engineering about that story it's just literally he said she said I'd put an engineer in that trial all day long I don't care on that jury all day long and and and you know but I I would be fearful that if there's too much engineering testimony that the other jurors might defer to that engineer and say what do you think about that testimony and that that can be a problem because they're supposed to make their deliberations amongst themselves as they hash out what they interpret the facts to be but the facts that they got should have come for the jury box not from another juror and so I hear about engineers don't make jurors they hear about lawyers to make juries but I've known juries jurors who were those things and I actually no negai as whose attorney who's gotten on a couple juries happens engineers I've heard of them getting injuries too and so keep in mind that that it's probably more a matter of they're worried that you would take over get back he'd take over of somebody I know who was a attorney got called for jury duty guy had a bit of an ego on him and he told me later he goes you know I got I got selected for jury didn't go how'd that go for it he goes they didn't even named me foreperson I wasn't the foreman like what's up with that and the guy was offended she just assumed because I'm the lawyer I should I should become Foreman I said not really they can they can they can name anybody they want he's like but I'm the lawyer and I go maybe they decided to follow the judges instructions and and not defer to one another as being more expert than the other the jurors aren't experts they're not supposed to be they're supposed to be people looking at the facts of the case and deciding based on their own human experience so I'm just gonna tell you am i and so by the way with respect to Jim it wasn't a slight at you and it really wasn't the attorneys trying to pull fast from here they were probably more worried that if engineers got back there it would turn into an engineering discussion and the jurors who are deliberating this are gonna go well you know the guy's an engineer he must be right you might be right but you're right on the engineering you're not necessarily right on the credibility of witnesses for instance who had you know a better view of the accident that kind of thing foundational stuff got nothing to do with engineering so I suspect that's more of it but doesn't matter I know some people just never believe anything I say on this topic the last thing I have to tell you is my favorite jury selection of story that I was involved in I did a case in Macomb County on the east side of Detroit back in the 90s and I'm as involving a used car on behalf of some people bought a used car from a used car dealer and my allegation was that the used car dealer was just an unethical business and my other allegation was that the man who ran the business himself was unethical and he is one of the sold the car to my client and so during jury selection the jury was told that this case involves a used car purchase and it's been brought the lawsuits been brought by a disgruntled car buyer against a used car seller and so we put a bunch of jurors in the box and then we start questioning them and based on the water your answers we start excusing them as we are allowed and each side gets so many for cause and if you get as many as you want for cost but it doesn't happen very often and and then you get it you know you get a certain number of peremptories who are people you can bump for no reason at all and so you know I asked a guy go sir what do you do for a living he goes I sell used cars and there is a bit of snickering throughout the courtroom and and I and I thought to myself this is an interesting opportunity and one thing that you teach students in trial practice class is that if a court will allow you to ask broad-based questions during jury selection you often do it simply because you can get more of your story across before the jury trial even starts and so I said I'm just curious like I go you sell used cars because yeah I've never sold new cars no purely used cars and I said how long you been doing it his name some length of time that's rather long and I said okay I said um let me ask you a question I said you probably know that used car salespeople have got a reputation probably similar to that of an attorneys meaning that there are people out there instead of a knee-jerk response that all attorneys are bad there are people who think all used car salesmen are bad and the guy laughs and he goes yeah I'm aware of that you know and I said okay I said I said let me ask you a question I said would you agree with me that in the world or universe of used-car sellers there is a spectrum there are good used car sellers there are bad used car sellers and the idea that all used-car sellers are bad is actually more of a broad-based stereotype and it's actually caused by just a handful of bad used-car would you agree with me on that that that is a handful of bad apples that ruins it for everybody do you would you agree that or no and he goes no I agree with that he goes that's actually because that's absolutely right because there's a couple bad actors in this field and they make us all look bad I said okay I said which are you are you a good used car salesman are you a bad one and now here's the thing I had planned on asking that question as I led up to it and there's a chance that the guy was not gonna like the question because the question is the broader base question is is this guy on my side now or not in other words does he understand what I'm getting at because you said Steve do you understand lawyers have a bad reputation yes is that because some of them are bad yes what are you are you a good or bad I said I'm one of the good ones I'm offended by the bad ones who give me a bad name that's what I would say to you so I was hoping he would he did and he looked up proudly and said I'm one of the good ones I said okay thank you I said your honor it's fine with us i sat down my opposing counsel I swear to god had a grin on his face like he just been handed a Christmas present and all his birthday presents on the wrong day of the year and was gonna get another set at Christmas and his birthday it's like oh oh you sell used cars okay you're good with us too and he sits down so now here's the thing we're gonna have a jury trial where I'm gonna spend three days bashing on a used car dealer and I'm convinced that the evidence is gonna come out and did this guy's a bad guy my defendant and his attorney are convinced no that man's crazy to put a used car dealer seller in the jury box in a jury of six that man's got one-sixth of the power back there and long story short the jury actually asked for the receipts and they took the receipts back and they actually added up every penny my client asked for and gave her an award that was actually a very unusual number but it contained every last penny she'd asked for and later I was talking to people about this and I would tell them the story and they go wait you you put the guy on the jury knowing he sold used cars and I said yes but you understood the question preceding that and here's the thing if I lost that trial I understand that yeah I look like an idiot right now I would be telling you the story but I also understood that if I got that idea across to him this was his opportunity to actually do something about bad used car dealers if he's a good one he wants to do that and so it became a game of chicken I think this guy wants to help clean up his field and my opponent thinks no used-car salesman to stick together because that's what they do but it turns out we won and I'm I'm convinced this day that that used car salesman went back into that courtroom a jury room I did not ask I never spoke to by the way I never spoke to him again I just smiled thanked him thank the group and I am convinced to this day that he went back into jury deliberation room motivated after he heard the evidence in the case motivated to let's do something about this because that was a transaction that shouldn't have happened that way so that's a little story about jury selection in my case and you know like I said I've had engineers lawyers other people pop up on my juries and I can tell you I can think of an example right now in a criminal case where I left a lawyer on the jury panel and it worked out for me so you know the other side left him on - so these things happen but they're not kicking you out because you think clearly they're kicking up for fear that you would be able to overly influenced your fellow jurors at least that's my take questions or comments put them below keep the emails coming thanks a lot tuck sitter bye-bye you

Channel: Steve Lehto

Views: 93,329

Rating: 4.9292641 out of 5

Keywords: lemon law, michigan lemon law, lemon law attorney, lemon law lawyer, http://www.lehtoslaw.com

Id: rXkGU_FwRLg

Length: 17min 34sec (1054 seconds)

Published: Sat May 18 2019