Jury Duty

I'd like to break out for a minute and applaud the tort reform industry for its efforts to improve jury service. In my neck of the woods, the Maryland Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse has recently launched its jury service campaign to get more people to show up for jury duty, with editorials in the local papers, etc.

I fully realize that tort reformers have the misguided belief that if they could just get more doctors and accountant to show up for jury service there'd be fewer big verdicts against doctors and accounting firms, etc. But there's absolutely no data showing that white-collar professionals are more pro-defense than the unemployed plumbers and strippers tort reformers believe populate most jury pools. (See Valerie Hans' book, Business on Trial, for a thorough discussion of this research.)

Call me an idealist, but I do believe that when forced to sit on a jury, most people, regardless of their race/class/gender/medical status, will actually listen to the evidence before them and decide a case on its merits. So if ATRA wants to end the jury service exemption for various groups and get everyone in the box, I say bring it on! 

Comments

[Justinian Lane]

I remember reading about a few attempts to "reform" jury service so that more educated jurors would serve. Funny thing - the bills I saw were only for CIVIL trials, not criminal trials.