Jim Henderson wrote:
> Well, the jury in the case of  a jury trial.  Obviously a jury didn't see 
> the facts if the defense opted for a bench trial in the lower court. :-)

True. I'm not sure how it works in that case.

> Yep - that's what's meant by "reversible error" - it's something the 
> court did wrong procedurally.  That can come down to a dispute over facts 
> of the case, but usually this happens because of a question as to whether 
> evidence should have been admitted or not.

I've often seen it even for things like "the lady who got burned by hot 
coffee shouldn't get that much compensation", or "you took interest into 
account when you shouldn't have in calculating the fine" or whatever.

Rare that it goes all the way back to reversing the decision.

> Yeah, but the thing that gets me is the people who seem to wear it as a 
> badge of pride that they got out of it. 

Here, it used to be you sat around for a week waiting to get seated. Now, if 
you don't get a case on the first day, you're done for the year. If you get 
a case, you're done for three years. I think that soothed a lot of annoyed 
people.

> Federal jury duty gets you out of all jury duty for something like 5 
> years, too (longer than the county courts, but I forget the actual 
> amounts of time).

I would think it depends on the state, really.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no
   CD I knoooow!

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