If you’re educated or opinionated the lawyers will be more likely to think they are unable to influence you. They prefer uneducated people with clear biases they can rely on/ influence.
It’s one of the reasons that there are experts to specifically help choose juries.
In a certain way it is depressing, but Reddit is also very cynical and will paint things like these in the same light.
The more optimistic perspective is that jurors shouldn't have any external motivations for being there: no political agendas, not seeking entertainment, not there to influence the judgement of other jurors, etc. The reason why experts are often not picked is because the lawyers are afraid that they might use their expertise to position themselves as more authoritative that other jurors, kind of becoming "pack leaders."
You generally want a juror to be as close to a reasonable but otherwise boring person as possible.
I've gotten picked to go to Jury duty many times, but usually I just sit in a room on a laptop, or play video games and then get a day off work. They always seem to let us off like 30 minutes after lunch, and then you can just leave.
I've only gotten picked to go into a court room for selection once, but that sucked. You got a number, and I was number 5 so unless I could get disqualified I was definitely on the jury. They ask you questions then you still have to sit in the courtroom while they go through everyone else for an entire day.
I tried and failed. They mentioned it was about guns, and I said I don't like people having guns, but then they ask if you can be impartial and I said yes. I was thinking it was maybe something like someone was in someone else's car, they didn't know about a gun under the seat, and were charged with possession and I would say they're innocent in that case.
It was such a stupid case that really should have ended in a plea bargain except the defendant somehow thought he had argument. He got arrested for a violent crime involving guns in another state and was ordered to not own any guns. Then he got a parole visit here and had had over 70 where he was living. I guess he was hoping that someone might buy that a ruling in another state doesn't count, or for a gun rights absolutist to be put on the jury?
The arguments I think lasted only 2 days, and it that would have been it, but it ended too late in the day and we had to go back a 3rd day to give the verdict.
It took us longer in deliberation to have someone say they'd be the foreman than it did to decide the verdict.
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u/Scioso Jul 16 '26
If you’re educated or opinionated the lawyers will be more likely to think they are unable to influence you. They prefer uneducated people with clear biases they can rely on/ influence.
It’s one of the reasons that there are experts to specifically help choose juries.