Personal Injury Law

Poll About Juries

By John A. Day

Harris Interactive conducted a online poll about  jury service in December 2007.  The findings include the following:

* "Two-thirds (65%) of Americans have been called to serve jury duty, two-thirds of that (68%) actually attended, leaving one-third (32%) who did not.

* Of those who have attended jury duty, just over half (55%) have actually served on a jury.

* The more education one has, the more likely one seems able to avoid serving on a jury.

* A majority (58%) of adults say people on trial have a jury that is fair and impartial all or most of the time while one in five (21%) say the jury is fair and impartial occasionally. Just eight percent say juries are rarely or never fair and impartial. There is a racial disparity in this belief. Almost two-thirds (63%) of Whites and over half (55%) of Hispanics believe people who are on trial have a jury that is fair and impartial all or most of the time compared to just 37 percent of Blacks.

* Half of Americans (50%) would trust a jury to give a fair verdict while just under one-quarter (23%) would trust a judge and 27 percent are not sure."

See all the results here.

Thanks to www.juryblog.com for advising me about the poll.

Full post as published by Day on Torts on June 20, 2008 (boomark / email).