Legal News

Should We Have Professional Juries?

By Ashby Jones

Should we have professional juries?

That’s the provocative question asked by GW law professor Daniel Solove over at the Concurring Opinions blog.

The post was prompted by the news that a law professor's article on his experiences as a juror in a slip-and-fall case resulted in a new trial for a grocery store found liable for $876,000. Click here for last week’s LB post on the New Jersey case; here for the ruling; and here for the ABA Journal’s writeup of the ruling.

In his item, also posted on Friday, Solove first sets up his straw man, writing:

What should one conclude from this case?

The reaction many would have is that it was unwise to put a law professor on the jury. . . . As my colleague Jonathan Turley writes in his blog: “Martin's article is a perfect example why some of us oppose lawyers sitting as jurors. It is a terrible practice that encourages undue influence by a single juror in deliberations.”

Solove then goes on:

But there’s another lesson to be learned from this case. We should have professional juries. . . .

The process which Martin describes . . . is ridiculous [in] that juries are basically taught the law after hearing the facts of the case. If one is applying a rule, shouldn’t one know about the rule first in order to determine which facts are relevant and which are not?

Second, it takes law students three years to learn the law — or at least a semester to learn a specific subject like torts — and yet juries are expected to understand the law after just one brief lecture from the judge. . . .

Third, many judges disallow note-taking. But in lengthy trials — or even in trials lasting a day or two — how are jurors supposed to remember the details? . . . I’d like to try an experiment — give a bunch of judges an hour lecture about a specific set of legal rules, not let them take notes, and then see how much they remember. This is difficult even for those with legal training — imagine how hard it must be for those without such training! . . .

At least in civil cases — and perhaps in criminal ones too (this gives me more pause, for the jury’s ability to check the power of the state in criminal cases has significant value in my opinion) — I believe we should have professional juries, with basic knowledge of the law (and perhaps even a full three-year legal education). . . .

Jurors should be paid a real wage for their services. . . .

We’re in the 21st Century, and our legal system uses a method of adjudication that was invented in the Middle Ages. It’s time for a more professional way of resolving legal disputes, one where the decisionmakers are not a bunch of often-unwilling people plucked from the street, forced to upend their lives to resolve the disputes of others, and without the expertise to evaluate the facts and apply the law.

LB Readers, what do you think about “professionalizing” juries — at least in the civil arena?

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 23, 2009 (boomark / email).