Jim Henderson wrote:
> Just to clarify, I think what you're saying here is that the judge can 
> "set aside" a guilty verdict, but not a verdict of "not guilty".

That is my understanding, yes. Not being a lawyer, ....

> IOW, the judge can't unilaterally decide that the jury erred and set a 
> guilty perp free, only that the jury might have convicted someone in 
> spite of the prosecution not actually proving their case.

Those are saying the same thing?  The judge can certainly say "the accused 
goes free in spite of the evidence."  But that's the sort of thing that the 
appeal (by the prosecution) addresses - the judge's misbehavior.

If the jury says "there wasn't enough evidence" even if there was, then the 
appeals court can't reverse that, because the appeals court is looking at 
the behavior of the judge and lawyers, not the behavior of the jury.

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

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andrel wrote:
> That seems to imply that it is important information that either side 
> rejected someone who might be an expert. So I assume this is information 
> that is not passed on to the final jury.

IME, all the potential jurors are sitting in the room while this goes on. 
It's usually not surprising. Most of the questions are "do you know anyone 
in the room?"   "Has something like this happened to you?"   And so on.

If it's a medical malpractice case involving (say) someone's eyes, and 
prosecution says "Are you a opthamologist?" I don't think it's prejudicial 
to dismiss that guy by either side. Usually the judge will dismiss him 
before it gets to the lawyers.

I.e., the judge asks some questions, and if the judge accepts, the lawyers 
get to ask. Usually the judge will kick out anyone like that first.

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

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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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On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:19:11 +0100, andrel wrote:

> On 25-3-2009 22:48, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:26:37 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>> 
>> In order to get through the vetting process, both sides would have to
>> think they had strong enough evidence to convince the expert they were
>> correct.  That's going to be a pretty rare occurrence - and you can't
>> really get to know someone's full depth of experience during voir dire,
>> either - it's not a long process.
> 
> That seems to imply that it is important information that either side
> rejected someone who might be an expert. So I assume this is information
> that is not passed on to the final jury.

Rejected someone as an expert *on the jury*.  Expert witnesses are an 
entirely different matter.

Jim

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On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:42:47 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> 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.

From my understanding, it works pretty much the same; it's a defense 
tactic (and choice) to opt for a bench trial vs. a jury trial, IMO a 
defendant who is not sympathetic is probably more likely to opt for a 
judge if the impression is that a judge will be able to set aside 
personal feelings better than 12 "peers".

>> 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, in the case of Stella (to whom you refer here), the verdict wasn't 
overturned, but the punitive damages awarded by the jury were, as I 
understand it.  That's not a question of changing the verdict, though, 
just the damages - and I was thinking criminal courts, in civil courts 
the procedures are a bit different because the threshold isn't "beyond a 
reasonable doubt", which is why you get things like OJ being acquitted of 
murdering his wife, but being convicted in the wrongful death suit that 
followed.

>> 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.

That is pretty much the case here as well - they tell you they might call 
you back on the second day (technically, you are supposed to call an 
automated message) but usually if you're not picked on Monday, you won't 
be called up again until your name comes up again.

>> 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.

I don't think it does, actually - I'll have to ask my wife what she was 
told.

Jim

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On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:34:08 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> The thing that stuck with me the most was how much respect the court
>> showed the jury - including both the prosecution and defense attorneys.
> 
> *Nobody* wants to piss off the jury. :-)

Very true.  But I found that even after the case was over; the defense 
lawyer came in and talked to us to find out what she could have done 
differently.

We suggested "put your client on the stand rather than trying to imply he 
was covering for his wife or some BS like that", to which she basically 
admitted he was guilty as hell.

> And yeah, I was mostly speaking theory, in terms of juries throwing
> things out.

Yeah, that's what I thought. :-)

Jim

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On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:36:13 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Just to clarify, I think what you're saying here is that the judge can
>> "set aside" a guilty verdict, but not a verdict of "not guilty".
> 
> That is my understanding, yes. Not being a lawyer, ....

Same here, though I do have a fascination with the profession.  If I were 
more motivated, I might have chosen that career.  But there are a couple 
of lawyers in my (not immediate) family - two cousins, actually.

>> IOW, the judge can't unilaterally decide that the jury erred and set a
>> guilty perp free, only that the jury might have convicted someone in
>> spite of the prosecution not actually proving their case.
> 
> Those are saying the same thing?  The judge can certainly say "the
> accused goes free in spite of the evidence."  But that's the sort of
> thing that the appeal (by the prosecution) addresses - the judge's
> misbehavior.

No, actually not the same thing.  As I understand it, a judge can 
determine that even though the jury convicted the defendant the 
prosecution didn't actually make their case and can reverse the verdict.

The judge cannot (again in my understanding) decide that the jury's "not 
guilty" verdict is incorrect and overturn the verdict to "guilty".

I probably phrased it badly the first time around.  Bottom line is the 
judge can only decide that a guilty verdict can be overturned, not a "not 
guilty" verdict.

> If the jury says "there wasn't enough evidence" even if there was, then
> the appeals court can't reverse that, because the appeals court is
> looking at the behavior of the judge and lawyers, not the behavior of
> the jury.

Right.  But if a judge overturns a "guilty" verdict (ie, makes "guilty" 
into "not guilty"), the prosecution can appeal, at least to my 
understanding.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> I probably phrased it badly the first time around.  Bottom line is the 
> judge can only decide that a guilty verdict can be overturned, not a "not 
> guilty" verdict.

Right. That just isn't what you *said*. :-)  I think you just got too 
negatives into the sentence. :-)

> Right.  But if a judge overturns a "guilty" verdict (ie, makes "guilty" 
> into "not guilty"), the prosecution can appeal, at least to my 
> understanding.

I would certainly expect so.

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

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On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:12:28 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I probably phrased it badly the first time around.  Bottom line is the
>> judge can only decide that a guilty verdict can be overturned, not a
>> "not guilty" verdict.
> 
> Right. That just isn't what you *said*. :-)  I think you just got too
> negatives into the sentence. :-)

Well, I could try to parse it, but I've had a long day trying to fix a 
bunch of contracts that got messed up. :-(

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> From my understanding, it works pretty much the same;

So the facts the trial judge decides are worth aren't overturnable? I guess 
I can see how that works, OK.

>> Rare that it goes all the way back to reversing the decision.
> 
> Yeah, in the case of Stella (to whom you refer here), the verdict wasn't 
> overturned, but the punitive damages awarded by the jury were, as I 
> understand it.  That's not a question of changing the verdict, though, 
> just the damages - and I was thinking criminal courts, in civil courts 
> the procedures are a bit different because the threshold isn't "beyond a 
> reasonable doubt", which is why you get things like OJ being acquitted of 
> murdering his wife, but being convicted in the wrongful death suit that 
> followed.

Right.

> I don't think it does, actually - I'll have to ask my wife what she was 
> told.

Hmmm. OK. Could be. :-)  I would think how soon you can be called back to a 
state trial after doing a federal trial would be up to the states, but maybe 
not.

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

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