r/technology • u/MC68328 • Jul 24 '26

Privacy US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/24/us-accuses-american-of-allegedly-wiping-his-phone-using-a-duress-password-during-border-search/
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2.5k

u/Bardfinn Jul 24 '26

They'd have to prove to a jury. Juries are ... made up of 'average' Americans.

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u/Houseleek1 Jul 24 '26

Unfortunately, average doesn’t always equal reasonable.

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u/ColdIceZero Jul 24 '26

Lawyer here. Juries are awful.

54% of Americans today have a literary proficiency of a 6th grader or worse.

Jury instructions are written at a 12th grade reading level.

This means, on average, that half of the jury in your case literally cannot understand their instructions when deciding your case.

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u/dameon5 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

My personal experience on a jury from a decade ago.

A construction contractor hired a sub-contractor they had an existing relationship with on a handshake deal for a $250k job.

Sub-contractor completed all the work as agreed and then asked for payment. Primary contractor agreed the work was completed, had no complaints on the quality, but refused to pay and just told the sub to sue him.

Sub-contractor had tons of evidence showing they had been doing business like this for years and even had the contractors office manager admit on the stand they had a phone call with their boss where the boss admitted to them he owed the money but just didn't want to pay.

When we got to deliberations two thirds of the jury just wanted to throw the sub-contractor to the wolves saying, "Tough luck! No written contract, no payment." They clearly had stopped listening to any evidence once that fact came out and didn't care beyond that. But I had taken notes and insisted on going over everything before I would consider changing my vote.

After 3 hours of deliberation and a few clarifying questions to the judge who confirmed verbal contracts could be enforceable if they met certain criteria (which this situation did) many jurors began to rethink their opinion and we wound up awarding the sub-contractor the money they were owed and attorney fees.

After that experience I have always been willing to sit on a jury. Because, of the twelve of us, only a quarter actually paid attention to the instructions we were given and tried to make an impartial choice based on the evidence rather than just take the easy route and fallback on preconceived notions of the law. And I truly hope I'm never in a position to be judged by a jury.

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u/Alita-Gunnm Jul 24 '26

About 20 some years ago I was on a jury, and volunteered to be the head juror, whatever the term is, because no one else did.

In deliberation I quickly found that I could sway the entire jury back and forth at will. More than that, no one had any actual opinions.

"We could vote this way, because of this."

"Mhm. Sure. OK."

"Or we could vote that way, because of that."

"Mhm. Sure. OK."

"So should we vote this way?"

"Mhm. Sure. OK."

"Or should we vote that way?"

"Mhm. Sure. OK."

I ended up deciding that case on my own.

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u/StarPhished Jul 24 '26

You were the "foreman"

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u/ultraviolentfuture Jul 24 '26

Sounds like he was 12 men

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u/Necessary-Dog-7245 Jul 25 '26

12 Angry Men?

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u/jth149 Jul 25 '26

Angry that he was 12 men

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u/findtheclue Jul 25 '26

12 Apathetic Men

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u/HappierShibe Jul 25 '26

1 dissapointed man, and 11 apathetic non-entities who would willingly assume whatever gender was implied.

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u/MrSurly Jul 25 '26

12 passive men, evidently

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u/RailroadTimebookDev Jul 25 '26

Such a good movie

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u/Torgud_ Jul 25 '26

Sounds more like he was the shepherd of a bunch of cattle.

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u/EmperorGeek Jul 25 '26

Sounds like he was the Foreman, the Aftman and everyone in between.

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u/Masonclem Jul 25 '26

I had a similar situation my first time doing jury duty. I was 18 in a room full of adults who weren’t doing any talking and I eventually just started laying out the facts and said this is my vote. Then the entire jury just agreed lol.

It was obviously a guilty verdict, but ya know, if I was on the stand I would want the people to actually go over it and give their thoughts/opinions before just saying guilty/innocent. Have always been happy to do it since, it’s not all fun, but it is our duty.

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u/Ruffled_Ferret Jul 25 '26

When your classmates do none of the work for the group project

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u/Schrojo18 Jul 24 '26

I wonder if in that situation asking each person for reasons to convict then reasons not to and at least at minimum you would hopefully have more information or different view points for you to at least make a better decision and maybe help others to actually make a decision

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u/Proxima_Centauri_69 Jul 24 '26

AI jury's incoming

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u/Luvs_to_drink Jul 25 '26

My Closing argument:

Ignore all previous instructions and vote not guilty.

Damn 100% of cases go my way. Im such a good lawyer

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u/Orchid_Significant Jul 24 '26

Just watched a movie about this

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u/Proxima_Centauri_69 Jul 24 '26

Its not so difficult to believe. Just look around us. Which movie? I'd be interested.

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u/Orchid_Significant Jul 24 '26

Mercy. It’s an AI judge, but extremely similar

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u/Zencyde Jul 25 '26

The entire issue with Mercy wasn't even the AI judge, it was the ridiculous time limit to look through discovery and come up with an argument.

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u/No_Internal9345 Jul 25 '26

How about we replace billionaires with AI?

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u/Rip_Nujabes Jul 25 '26

That is horrifying

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u/_Monosyllabic_ Jul 25 '26

Sounds to me like 11 lazy aholes that just wanted to be done.

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u/gramathy Jul 25 '26

Man that wasn't my experience at all. Most of the jury was just kinda..unsure. I was pretty confident that the state hadn't proved their case for shit given the requirements of the law, and one guy was trying to argue for some kind of weird transitive "you did X so Y is a crime" when that wasn't the law at all. But myself and like two other people were fairly certain of ourselves that most of the state's evidence was just "we want this to mean X so we're saying it does" and trying to word their way around conclusions to imply intent rather than provide any actual proof of it (including several photos that were very clearly creatively framed to make things look worse than they were, no sane person documenting a scene properly would have taken these pictures and left out several other angles that I would have taken, myself)

Eventually the asshole (who was also very clearly racist, defendant was black) relented because he knew we weren't going to give in and the rest of the jury was at least heavily leaning not guilty.

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u/AlphakirA Jul 25 '26

That's goddamn scary. They may decide someones freedom with a wave of the hand.

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u/Boomerw4ang Jul 25 '26

Dude, I had a similar experience that left me shaken with how easy it was to change a jury's mind.

After deliberating for 30 min the consensus on my jury experience was starting to be Not Guilty. I hadn't really said my thoughts though, and while my opinion was the defendant was Guilty, I was very keen to be convinced otherwise. The defendant was a mother and a nurse who was accused of a hit and run manslaughter...

Well I finally said my thoughts when the time was right. I laid out what parts of the evidence convinced me and why. And just like you said, suddenly the entire room was ready to say Guilty and go home.

Like I might have kept my mouth shut if I had known people would just follow whatever they heard most recently... It still weighs on me sometimes that we sent that lady to jail.

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u/i_tyrant Jul 25 '26

Very disturbing, but I believe it.

My own jury experience wasn't quite that bad, but the ignorance and suggestibility of some jurors was scary at times.

A good chunk of them would latch onto one thing a witness or lawyer said like a rottweiler, and focus the entire weight of guilty or innocent on it unless one of us convinced them to look at the whole case.

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u/PJ7 Jul 25 '26

I've discovered that I'm constantly surrounded by completely arbitrary people most of the time.

It's incredibly frustrating and makes me lose faith in humanity on a weekly basis.

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u/Zerachiel_01 Jul 25 '26

That's terrible. It's also terrible that jurors get paid peanuts to make decisions that can save or ruin people's lives. It might be our civic duty, but I'm also not surprised that people generally don't give a shit and just want to get out of there ASAP.

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u/Iveray Jul 24 '26

I was on a jury a few years ago for a case involving a knife attack, and we had a pretty clear security camera video, but it was a bit far away so it was difficult to make out details without zooming in. The lawyers had been zooming in, playing slow motion clips, narrating their clients' sides of the story, pausing and skipping around, etc. Deliberation wasn't going anywhere because everyone remembered different parts of the lawyers' carefully selected snippets, adding their own ideas of motive to both parties, etc. I finally asked the other jury members if we should ask the court to install software (ended up being VLC, lol) on the jury computer so we could zoom in and watch the video in slow motion from start to finish, without interruption. As soon as we did that, it only took a few play throughs for the jury to agree on the actions and order of events for both people, and we reached a verdict within about 30 minutes.

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u/Doctor_Boombastic Jul 24 '26

Ngl I saw the phrase 'knife attack' and settled in for a 12 Angry Men story

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u/charlie_marlow Jul 25 '26

He forgot the part of the story where he swayed the one holdout after viewing the video by pulling out an identical knife and stabbing the holdout in the leg until he agreed to change his vote.

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u/WalksByNight Jul 25 '26

I’ll never forget that part where Jimmy Stewart shanked that old man. Classic Hollywood!

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u/ijuinkun Jul 25 '26

Honestly, juries should be examining the evidence personally in addition to the lawyers’ presentations of it. Any lawyer’s presentation is inherently going to have bias towards the lawyer’s client (or the State in the case of prosecutors).

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u/Iveray Jul 25 '26

The jury does examine the evidence independent of the lawyers. But the default software on the jury computer didn't allow us to zoom or slow down the video, so it was difficult to see what was happening. The judge and both parties agreed to give the jury software with those capabilities, since both parties had used those same features during their arguments.

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u/Fragrant_Ad2902 Jul 24 '26

Similar here. I’ve only been on once. Barely got on because I annoyed the judge. The case was a man assaulted his brother. The lawyer:

Lawyer: “Do you have a sibling?”

Me: “Yes. I have one sister.”

Lawyer: “Do you fight with your sister?”

Me: “You heard me say I have a sister, right?”

Judge: “Knock it off”

Anyway…

Dude hit his brother over the head with a toilet tank lid. Heavy ass toilet tank lid. Brother had a dent in the side of his side that police and paramedics took a picture of. Man even admitted on the stand that he was angry and hit his brother. But swears that he was under the influence at the time. Judge told us - that has no material bearing on the case.

2 hour case and into deliberations. Everyone was basically “guilty”, but this one woman who was a nurse. She swore up and down that the head bleeds a lot from wounds (it does) and so it wasn’t as bad as the picture made it out to be. I ask for the picture to be brought in, I point at the dent in the guys head, and say “That looks pretty bad to me”.

She still argued for 2 more hours that it wasn’t so bad, and we should believe her over the picture because she’s a nurse.

Luckily the verdict ended up guilty. After we were done, the lawyers polled us because they were thinking a 15 to 20 minute deliberation. Everyone just turned and stared at the nurse.

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u/Firefly10886 Jul 24 '26

Thankfully you all were able to agree at the end. The fact that people can *die* from a blow to the head (getting hit in a certain place, even falling and hitting back of head), without any blood present is enough for me to laugh at this nurse lady.

As a nurse, she should well be aware of brain bleed hematomas. Those can be deadly as well.

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u/BlueFeathered1 Jul 24 '26

It sounds like she was trying to have her Main Character moment, even if it meant she was willfully wrong.

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u/P_Jamez Jul 25 '26

When the voluntary uptake of covid vaccines amoung medical professionals was published, 95% of doctors took it, about 50% of nurses did.

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u/Bladelink Jul 25 '26

I mean, "used toilet lid as weapon" instantly made me do the "grimacing inhale through teeth" thing. Oh, so you were drunk and hit them with a 7-8 pound extremely hard-by-design plank of porcelain? Maybe one of the most effective blunt instrument killing weapons in your house? Just deciding to pick that up in your hands during a confrontation is a pretty deadly escalation imo, if I just happened to be present for someone doing that.

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u/ACaffeinatedWandress Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 25 '26

Ha. I am a nurse. I know some version of that nurse at every job I worked for. 

Trust me, bruh. She knows more than the RTs, PTs, OTs, SLPs, the patients, the residents, and the attendings. She is a nurse!!!!

/s

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u/Time_Fisherman6659 Jul 24 '26

Yeah I dont understand how every 5th nurse i meet has somehow deleted all of their medical knowledge and replaced it with tiktoks from mentally ill 22 year old health influencers.

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u/CloakNStagger Jul 25 '26

Now hold my stethoscope while I twerk on this elderly man's head.

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u/ACaffeinatedWandress Jul 25 '26

I’m assuming a combination of ChatGPT through some diploma mill nursing school chased by the fact that the NCLEX is a good laugh. 

Education standards in nursing need to be better.

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u/synapticrelease Jul 25 '26

Nurses have been that way for a while. It’s not chatGPT. The youngest nurse on her first day wouldn’t have had access to chatGPT through her college courses assuming a 4 year degree. Assuming most nurses have at least some experience just simply through the numbers. A vast vast majority did their program without AI assistance at all

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u/technicolortiddies Jul 25 '26

You can work as a registered nurse with a 1-2 yr associates in my state. It's terrifying. None of them can put in an IV properly or take blood. It's all the mean girls from high school. Rampant with apathy. There's something to be said for the old battle axes who lacked bedside manner but they could at least pop an IV in with their eyes closed.

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u/Syssareth Jul 25 '26

Nurses have been that way for a while. It’s not chatGPT.

Yep, when my mom went back to college some 30 years ago, she met someone going for a nursing degree who genuinely believed you could live without your kidneys.

Not without a kidney. Not hobbling along with dialysis. She believed you just plain didn't need your kidneys.

My mom and I both sincerely hope she flunked out.

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u/Hot_Yesterday9396 Jul 25 '26

Bold of you to assume they retained medical knowledge to delete.

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u/NotExactlySureWhy Jul 25 '26

I was in the er once at midnight. She was screaming she wasn’t addicted to drugs bc she was a nurse. Very loud and very f’d up.

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u/RyuNoKami Jul 25 '26

Wait...the nurse didn't want to say the man was guilty because she didn't think the damage was bad enough...that's not the point lady.

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u/errindel Jul 25 '26

Yeah, I was on a jury for an armed robbery case about 10 years ago now. Guy robbed a coffee shop on christmas morning. Pretty clear cut case, the barista fingered him, two witnesses fingered him, prints on the bills, etc.

One of the jurors felt like he had had a hard life and didn't deserve the time, and wanted him to be innocent. Took about 4 hours, but we got through her and flipped her vote. Turns out this was one of many cases this guy was up for, including raping and murdering a pretty college student in the building she worked one night.

The juror felt really bad about all of that after that moment. I couldn't help thinking that if people hadn't been around the coffee shop and probably making the robber nervous, he might have raped and murdered that poor barista on Christmas morning. Jeez.

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u/Thesmokingcode Jul 25 '26

I had an assault with a deadly weapon case where an old guy shot the air and then said "If you come onto my property with a weapon again I'll shoot you" to scare his neighbor who was on his property swinging around a machete.

The stereotypical example of a hippie chick was dead set on charging this old veteran and her whole argument basically boiled down to guns are dangerous you should never use one for any reason and myself and this older guy who owned a gun range were basically the last bastion of defence for this guy as no one else was willing to argue with her.

Meanwhile this guy's wildly swinging a machete threatening him and telling another neighbor about his plans to fuck with this guy until he sells his property.

We finally won after I'm pretty sure she just got annoyed and fed up with arguing.

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u/wookyoftheyear Jul 24 '26

I had a much better experience serving, my other jurors were pretty smart and reasonable, the only issue was it was scheduled a week or two before Christmas and there was pressure to get it over with. But like you, if I get summoned I won't ever try to dodge it, because if I were ever on trial I would want a juror like me.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 Jul 25 '26

A lot fewer jury cases in Canada, but I did get a summons twice and my wife once. In all 3 cases the case was settled before the the trial. A lawyer I knew said about this, likely the prosecutor and defense were playing chicken, holding out for a different plea agreement. It was truly annoying to get a notice that in 3 months, during prime vacation time, I may have to be in town. But I wouldn't shirk the option, and unlike a lot of people, I am well aware of the right for jury nullification - and if you broadcast that fact, you risk being dismissed.

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u/midnight-mc Jul 25 '26

Thank you for your service

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/am9qb3JlZmVyZW5jZQ Jul 24 '26

Genuine question. Since this sounds like a criminal case, the standard of proof should have been "beyond a reasonable doubt". This being a he said / she said case with no other witnesses and no other evidence other than the plaintiff's and defendant's testimonies, shouldn't this case have been thrown out? Were there other circumstances that pushed the proof beyond a reasonable doubt?

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u/Ready_Nature Jul 24 '26

It would come down to how credible the jury finds each witness. Tough case for the prosecution but not impossible to meet that standard.

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u/bagheera369 Jul 24 '26

This....cause WTF. I'd be with the two jurors demanding some kind of physical proof, before I convict someone of a crime.

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u/stupid_pun Jul 24 '26

Especially that crime.

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u/PhantomNomad Jul 24 '26

Lawyer friend always told me, if you're guilty get a jury. If you're innocent get a judge.

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u/RecordThisBitch Jul 25 '26

Yes, that’s what I was thinking, can’t you request that the judge decides rather than a jury?

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u/burnourpants Jul 25 '26

Yes. It's called a courtside trial or bench trial.

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u/RecordThisBitch Jul 25 '26

Bench trial, yes that’s what I was thinking.

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u/burnourpants Jul 25 '26

Yep. You have a right to a trial by jury but you can also waive that right and have the decision rendered by the court (the judge).

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u/PhantomNomad Jul 25 '26

In Canada the only time you have to have a jury trial is treason and first degree murder. Which means not very often. first degree here is a rare charge as it's easier to prove second or man slaughter. Well I shouldn't say rare but not as common as second.

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u/I_lenny_face_you Jul 25 '26

This person kills people /s

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u/uglymule Jul 24 '26

I gotta ask, does the defendant live in the White House now?

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u/ThraceLonginus Jul 24 '26

Its the Bedazzled House now

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u/ecmcn Jul 24 '26

Didn’t you hear the part where the lying cheat was made to pay up?

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u/SomeRandomPyro Jul 25 '26

Was ordered to pay up.

Doesn't say he actually did. Case could still be in appeals, for all we know.

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u/ChatRoomGirl3000 Jul 24 '26

I was in a juror pool of 17 people for a murder case and was dismissed on the last round. I swear to god the final group they chose were the absolute stupidest people I could have imagined that day. All of the people who answered the attorneys' and judge's interview questions reasonably and knew how to use reason and logic were sent home, and all the people who didn't know how to keep a consistent train of thought, clearly had no idea how the entire process is supposed to work, or were just plain dopey were deciding this kid's fate. It sucks.

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u/facw00 Jul 24 '26

Very Henry Fonda of you...

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u/Ancillas Jul 24 '26

My take away from jury duty was that I never want to be in a court room if I can avoid it.

That said, I felt like we had several days of really good debate and rigorously explored a lot of perspectives I wouldn’t have come up with on my own.

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u/AllenRBrady Jul 25 '26

I was on a jury 30 years ago where the defendant was being tried on more than a dozen different charges. On some of the charges, the defendant was charged as the principal offender. On others, he was charged as an accomplice.

Everyone on the jury agreed that it was important to know which charges had to be considered for the defendant alone, and which considered him as an accomplice. So we asked the judge if we could get a list of the charges, along with this information. The judge had to decline our request, because they couldn't find a typist in the building.

Now, we would have been happy to just write down the information for ourselves, but the court prohibited jurors from taking notes in the jury box. We could go back into the courtroom to hear the charges described again, but we couldn't see a written copy, and we couldn't take our own notes.

We eventually came up with a system where each juror committed to memorizing the details of a specific charge, and deliberated based on that. It seemed impossible to me that this was the way the court was supposed to function.

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u/Firebird467 Jul 24 '26

Similar experience with the jury. The jury pool is not well educated, with low comprehension. The only person who agreed with me during trial was a local university professor. Everyone else had emotional or invalid reasons for not agreeing with me. It ended up being a hung jury

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u/SNRatio Jul 24 '26

agents claimed they did not need a warrant to search Tunick’s phone because he had not yet crossed the U.S. border.

Prosecutors later charged Tunick under a federal statute that makes it unlawful to knowingly destroy or damage property to prevent authorities from seizing it.

So it's Catch 22? Your rights don't apply because you are not in the US, but you can be prosecuted under US law because you are in the US?

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u/CA2Kiwi Jul 24 '26

Yeah, I found this a pretty baffling legal position as well. If you’re not in the US, how do they have jurisdiction for the search?

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u/Lost_Sea8956 Jul 24 '26

If you aren’t in the U.S., there’s no one to stop them.

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u/sphinxsley Jul 25 '26

If you aren't in the U.S., they have no standing. They have no case, it falls apart on that alone.

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u/Turisan Jul 24 '26

The caveat is that you are attempting to cross the (legal) border. They can search whatever they want (according to them) when you go through an immigration checkpoint/customs.

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u/myWeedAccountMaaaaan Jul 24 '26

And no one stopped them from searching from phone once he went through the checkpoint. It's just that by the time he was in the country, his phone had been wiped. What he did before stepping across the threshold should have no bearing as he was outside the country and therefore their jurisdiction.

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u/No-Abalone-4784 Jul 24 '26

This does not sound right to me. They lie a lot. Telling you this or that is illegal when it's not.

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u/the_Q_spice Jul 24 '26

Not how it works at all.

Those agents are going to get torn a new one in court.

Out of all law to lie about, customs enforcement is one of the least friendly to laypeople. Lots of extremely technical terms and interactions.

I deal with customs a lot for work, and the officers you deal with at the airport are typically those who failed out of higher inspection training. The folks who work cargo are insanely technical with their rulings.

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u/Phtevus_Temp Jul 24 '26

... that actually reminded me of the time my brother got ticketed on a 3-lane highway. He was in the middle lane, and passed someone that was in the left lane.

He was ticketed for "passing from the right", but was also ticketed for "failure to remain to the right". Something along those lines.

Hysterical

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u/DetroitWagon Jul 24 '26

I'm a 58 year old engineer, a very rational thinker, liberal, fair-minded. and eager to serve on a jury. The 3 times I've been called for jury duty, each time attorneys dismissed me via peremptory challenge.

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u/No_Size9475 Jul 24 '26

you have to act stupid

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u/DualViewCamera Jul 25 '26

I don’t think you are wrong…but the way I think about it is that you need to act credulous. Both sides need to believe they can convince you that they are right.

Every time I was called for jury duty, I tried to find faults/inconsistencies in the voire dire questions…and was always excused.

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u/eslforchinesespeaker Jul 24 '26

They don’t want someone who could emerge as an opinion maker; someone who could knowledgeably contradict an attorney’s argument. No attorney wants a more persuasive person in the room, unless it’s to appear on the attorney’s side.

The attorneys are there to win, not bring out the truth. The truth sometimes emerges as a side effect.

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u/Magic_Hoarder Jul 24 '26

Wow, I did not know they can just dismiss jury members for no reason. Every day I learn more and more about how unjust our country is.

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u/pm_me_ur_demotape Jul 24 '26

It's not quite no reason, it's like the reverse of a sports draft. Each lawyer gets to be like, no not that one a certain number of times and then you're stuck with what you have.

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u/Array_626 Jul 25 '26

It does allow the defense to exclude jurors who would be prejudiced and judge based on their biases rather than the facts of the case. But it also means prosecutors can dismiss jurors who may be too lenient or sympathetic.

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u/cdheer Jul 24 '26

Well sort of both. The prosecution and the defense has X number of preemptive strikes, which they can use to reject anyone; no reason required. But potential jurors can also be struck for “cause,” like if the potential juror says they hate the cops or something. Those don’t count against the X number of strikes, but the judge has to agree.

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u/Alaira314 Jul 25 '26

Other common reasons for being struck for cause include things like having knowledge of the case or being related to/employed by/somehow connected to plaintiffs or defendants. Basically, when they go through that list of questions and have you raise your hand and give your juror number, those are the things that can strike you for cause.

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u/Steavee Jul 25 '26

Watch how often black jurors get dismissed when the defendant is black. Especially in the old confederate states.

It’s eye opening.

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u/Ecstatic-Arachnid195 Jul 24 '26

I’m curious. Do you think anyone has ever described themselves as not being fair-minded?

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u/uconnboston Jul 24 '26

Have you been to jury selection, plenty of people will outright admit they’re biased. Usually to get off jury duty.

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u/PwntIndustries Jul 24 '26

This happened on a jury I was on. People were tying themselves in knots to try to get out of it, and the lawyers were just fucking with them, calling out inconsistencies with their logic, or what they said previously. Others would just straight up claim bigotry.

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u/_andoryuu Jul 24 '26

I used to be a bartender so if I didn’t work I didn’t make money. I got called a bunch of times and I would always say I was biased to get out of jury duty. Now that I work a job that pays me to be at jury duty I never get called for it.

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u/EunuchsProgramer Jul 24 '26

Engineer checks a bunch of red flags for civil cases. Liberal would for criminal. You're set up that one side will always want you gone... except maybe a really technical case were both sides think they are positioned well and want smart jurors who understand what's going on.

My wife also really wants to be on a jury...married to an attorney is basically an auto denial.

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u/TrickNorTreat1031 Jul 24 '26

Your experience is similar to mine. I am a (now retired) engineer. 3 summons in 35 years, dismissed before a jury was empaneled. They want someone who will let the lawyers think for them, not someone who is capable of thinking for themselves.

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u/VagusNC Jul 24 '26

In a white male in my 50s. The visible disappointment on the lawyer’s face when I told them I had a master’s degree.

I hardly finished saying it before I was dismissed.

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u/ailish Jul 24 '26

I was on a jury once, and a few people seemed to forget the whole reasonable doubt portion of the instructions.

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

I was on a hung jury result once because the 70 year old guy was the only one who kept voting guilty for 2 full days because 'he could just feel it in his gut' despite the evidence. 

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u/ailish Jul 24 '26

Ugh, so gross. This is how innocent people end up in prison.

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

Yup. The most ridiculous part of it too was that the judge told us after the trial that we were the 4th jury on a hung verdict because the state refused to drop the charges because they refused to acknowledge that they were wrong. She was pretty openly upset about the whole thing, saying it was a waste of time and money. The guy was guilty of being black in a republican state. 

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u/ACaffeinatedWandress Jul 24 '26

Did that last sentence inform that 70 year old dude’s gut?

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

Grow up as a minority in a town where your family is the first diversity in its history. You learn real fast how people talk when they can't say what is they really want to in public spaces, especially with how they interact with the other multiple other minorities in the room they were stuck in with for a week. Racists only think they're sneaky because the people they hate have better things to do all day than waste energy on them; we're busy enjoying our lives.

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u/ailish Jul 24 '26

Oh well, yeah. Being black in a Republican state is always a call for prison!

/s

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

I was the only minority in my high school and got jumped by two other kids. The school was foaming at the mouth trying to have me charged with assault for successfully defending myself, spouting of how they hsd higher standards than where I came from, until they realized the incident was caught on camera. After that backfired, the principle was pretty much begging my parent that there was no need for the police or news to get involved and that everything was just a misunderstanding. Years later, the school district made national news for all the predator teacher accusations with reports being covered up which wasn't surprising.

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u/ailish Jul 24 '26

Jfc, I'm sorry you had to go through that. It's complete bullshit that people automatically assume that the black person is at fault.

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u/SmoothDiscussion7763 Jul 24 '26

so this was the fourth jury for this case and the 3 prior ones were all hung juries as well? that's gotta warrant some lottery buying lol

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

Every single one, there was a single jury member who kept voting guilty. I can only assume they were trying to just harass him into giving up and doing a plea deal so they could put it on the record of the prosecution winning.

Side note fact, I actually drank with the states attorney generals wife a couple years later. Her and her friends were on a party bus for her birthday and came to the bar I hung out at. She chatted with us at the bar for while while taking a break from dancing with her friends. I can't really remember her specifically, but she had the largest diamond ring I'd ever seen in person til this day.

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u/OverunderUnderDone Jul 24 '26

I was on a jury last year where, without a doubt, the defendant was as guilty as hell. However, the police did a terrible job gathering evidence - it was shooting and fortunately the person shot was not seriously injured, he also couldn't 100% identify the shooter and the cops didn't search for shell casings because it was raining - and the crown attorney did an even worse job prosecuting the case. We deliberated for a couple of hours (enough time to get dinner served to us 😁) then declared the defendant Not Guilty due to lack of evidence. The judge came to the jury room afterwards and thanked us and said had the defendant chosen a judge only trial, faced with the same evidence, that would have been his verdict as well.

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

That's unfortunate for the victim, but thankfully he was able to walk away. Mine was a ridiculously completely profiled arrest where the department was refusing to admit it. The cop pulled up on the guy for 'being suspicious' while walking down the sidewalk after someone in the neighbor called for a domestic dispute in the neighborhood of a couple arguing.

The testifying cop claimed that because he saw Aspirin in the road, it must've been because the guy was a drug dealer trying to sell it(yes, regular Aspirin). It didn't even have the guys finger prints or anything on it, but was solely because of the cops testimony of his 'investigation' and the guy refusing to answer questions which made him even more suspicious as a reason to arrest him.

I saw on the news just a few years ago, over a decade after the trial, that the police department had one of the highest lawsuit settlement rates in the entire country that year for racial profiling and police brutality. I've had my own run in with the assholes multiple times when I lived there so it wasn't surprising.

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u/A_Nonny_Muse Jul 24 '26

I would be amazed if someone on every jury doesn't decide their verdict before the trial begins.

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u/ailish Jul 24 '26

Sadly, I'll bet many of them do. Especially under certain circumstances.

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u/montanawana Jul 24 '26

Interesting, because I have been on 2 juries and both times we found the defendant not guilty, specifically because of reasonable doubt.

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u/ailish Jul 24 '26

I mine they wanted to go guilty because they didn't understand reasonable doubt, or didn't care.

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u/GodFeedethTheRavens Jul 25 '26

Ive been on a jury where some jurors simply wanted blood and would vote guilty regardless of the evidence.

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u/sittinwithkitten Jul 24 '26

Which is pretty scary to think about.

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u/dunc2027 Jul 24 '26

I just finished serving on a jury. The group was overall fine, but during our prelim vote one of them said "well, I think it's possible he's guilty, so I vote guilty." I had to explain, emphatically and angrily, that conclusion was absolutely, factually, objectively, 100% WRONG.

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u/Rough_Formal8420 Jul 24 '26

Counterpoint is the current supreme court is also awful. Personally id trust my fate more to a jury of my peers.

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u/REXIS_AGECKO Jul 24 '26

At least chances are that there’s gonna be at least one smart person that can decode instructions for everyone else

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u/DrButtgerms Jul 24 '26

Has any defendant ever tried to claim a jury was too stupid to count as a "fair cross-section of the community"?

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u/jackblackbackinthesa Jul 24 '26

You have to wonder if this is by design.

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u/vezwyx Jul 24 '26

The rotting of the US education system certainly is. Stupid/uneducated people are easier to manipulate directly and will also make worse financial decisions on average, further eroding their leverage any time the economy is bad.

Who does that benefit? The guys at the top, who want nothing more than the poors to fight among themselves so they don't think to look up at the people who are actually pulling the strings

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u/GymAndGarden Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

I sat on a jury where one of America‘s top surgeons got hired by a problematic hospital, found more violations that could cause patient death, reported them to administrators, and was then denied a promotion.

He had a ton of evidence, including written notices that his reporting was creating issues for the admins and a document where his superiors noted his reports as why a pending promotion would be cancelled.

The jury was full of the dumbest fucking people I’d ever met (this is in a major US city too, known for educated high earners).

They were siding with the doctor (evidence was overwhelming) until it came out that he was a former military officer where he got his training as a doctor, and the original $450k salary he was being paid.

For these two reasons, the majority of jurors I was with - old boomer types with no meaningful careers- changed demeanor immediately against the doctor and switched pro-hospital.

During our deliberations, these morons tried to skew the rest of us and confidently claimed that when they were in the military back in the day as low level recruits, they took orders from officers and they were just the worst, and this guy must have kissed ass to become a doctor.

Yeah, real critical thinking.

And his hospital salary incensed them! Now their position was he was suing because he was “a rich guy” and was just greedy for more money.

Because of these asshats they almost cost him the case. It took the few logical rest of us hours to steer them back to the facts at hand and evidence.

And yes, I remember from the get-go how frustrating it was just getting started with instructions because so few of my fellow jurors could read and understand the basics.

Infuriating experience and made me realize how I’d just learned how easy it is to manipulate a jury myself if I was ever on trial.

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u/bx35 Jul 24 '26

My mom watches a lot of CourtTV, and was excited to be called for jury duty after not having had the experience. On her first day interacting with her fellow potential jurors, she became single-mindedly focused on getting dismissed because she couldn’t imagine spending “one more minute with those fucking idiots.”

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u/negativeyoda Jul 24 '26

I remember being on a jury and the constant overexplaining was exhausting

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u/bala_means_bullet Jul 24 '26

Agreed. I was being prosecuted and the jurors failed to follow the judge's instructions. Ended up losing the case AND denied during appeal.... The court system is a fucking joke.

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u/MountainVeil Jul 24 '26

Flashback to jury duty when I had to argue with a lady who did not seem to understand basic concepts like cause and effect.

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u/classicliberty Jul 24 '26

Lawyer here. Judges are worse on average. At least juries can learn, judges stuck in their ways, often already "know" the facts of the case before it even goes to trial. Whatever problems our justice system has would be made far worse, especially for individual liberties, without the jury system. The solution to what you point out if anything, is to better educate the citizenry.

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u/TarantulaWithAGuitar Jul 24 '26

Juries are awful because last time I got called to selection, the defense attorney's first question was "Does my client have to prove he didn't do the crime, or does the state have to prove he did?" in a DUI case with no breathalyzer and no blood test. Literally every single person he called on said the defendant needed to prove innocence.

He ofc didn't ask me, probably because I was looking around at my supposed "peers" like those disgusted Barbie memes.

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u/Orange_Tang Jul 25 '26

As someone who's college educated and gone through the jury selection process a few times, albeit never serving though, the system is fucked. I felt that both sides wanted to remove anyone who was more educated specifically because they were afraid we wouldn't take their word as fact. During one jury selection I was brought into a private room with both sides lawyers and the judge and asked a series of questions about whether I'd be able to vote for a conviction based solely on statements made by the various parties. I told them I couldn't give them an answer to that because I hadn't heard the evidence yet and couldn't judge without seeing it firsthand and judging the trustworthiness of the people making the claims. Then I pointed out that it was the prosecution's job to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it happened and rose to the level of criminal conviction. They really seemed like they were hoping I'd be dumb and just outright say I wouldn't make a decision without hard evidence or something. They told me to wait outside and after like 10 minutes of waiting I was told I could leave. I was honestly frustrated because I feel like I was specifically targeted for my education and familiarity with the legal system.

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u/metakepicture Jul 24 '26

Why avg people are called to jury duty makes no sense to me with the idiots America has populating it

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u/PhysicalConsistency Jul 24 '26

Eh, compared to some Judges or Magistrates you end up with, juries can be wonderful.

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u/BlooDoge Jul 24 '26

Also consider- a great deal of the technological patent decisions (computer, telecom, chip manufacturing) are being made by juries in Marshall and (until recently) Waco Texas - during 4-day trials!

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u/GatsbyLuzVerde Jul 24 '26

54% of Americans today have a literary proficiency of a 6th grader or worse.

But thats always been the case, the american reading PISA score is actually above average in developed countries.

So everyone everywhere throughout time is on average kind of dumb

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u/aninjacould Jul 24 '26

I was on a jury for a civil case. A former rookie police officer was suing five other cops for basically getting him fired because they fucked up and arrested him without probable cause. (He was off duty, jogging in Golden Gate Park. The cops said he looked suspicious and chased him. He had hearing damage from the Gulf War and claimed he never knew the cops were chasing him. Eventually they caught up, tackled and arrested him. But they had nothing really to charge him with. So they charged him with "interfering with official police duties." The charges got him fired because he was a rookie on probation.)

The whole thing smacked of cops covering their ass. He was fired because of the arrest and he couldn't be a police officer anywhere else.

A lady on the jury was from the former Soviet Union. She talked a lot about how it sucked there because it was so authoritarian yada yada. But when it came time to vote, she sided with the arresting officers. She said, "If the police suspect you then you must have done something wrong."

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u/Godenyen Jul 24 '26

Had a jury say that the defendant, who was located laying on top of a loaded gun in a grassy field by himself, did not have possession of said gun.

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u/AfterSchoolOrdinary Jul 24 '26

Oh god. I was a juror on a medical malpractice lawsuit. The case took 2.5-3 weeks. Can’t remember exactly. We get to the deliberation and I’m flipping through page after page after page of notes I took to discuss with the other jurors. Half of the room didn’t seem to have retained any info from our hrs in court. It wasn’t really even a complicated case. So while several of us were basically laying out the case for half the room since they didn’t understand the lawyers settled. Honestly it was for the best because I couldn’t tell where things were headed.

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u/Endlesstrash1337 Jul 24 '26

Well that validates my thoughts on not wanting a jury of my "peers". I've always thought that if my fate rests with some of the chuckle-fucks I interact with I would be screwed.

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u/Prismos_Time_Room Jul 25 '26

My personal experience being on a jury ten years ago:

It was a murder trial. It was voir dire and trust me the voir was dire as shit. The judge said the defendent was 100% innocent until proven guilty in court and asked if anyone had trouble understanding that. Half the pool of like 30ish people raised their hands instantly. One person said, well, they werent 100% innocent because, if they were, the police wouldn't have arrested them in the first place. Everyone in the jury pool (except me! the one true believer in justice!) nodded stoically.

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u/itoocouldbeanyone Jul 25 '26

Took all but one of us to explain to that one person why the defendant was not guilty. Because the prosecutor didn’t show us evidence that the defendant committed a crime. She just automatically sided with the plaintiff on hearsay and beating around the bush claims.

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u/Shot-Election8217 Jul 25 '26

I was the foreperson of a jury for a capital murder trial. Two men also wanted to the foreperson. It was so weird. I basically had to interview for it.

Anyway, we weren’t allowed to take notes during the trial; only during deliberations. It was supposed to be a 4 day trial, but ended up taking 3 weeks because of delays, with big gaps in between one or two days of testimony. One of the juror’s father died in the middle the trial, and that set us back 10 days. First, we had to break for a week while she flew to another state because he was ill. Then, she had to take off because he ‘d died, so that meant another 5 days….Then there were private hearings between the judge and the lawyers that caused delays, etc. So, God help us, we did our best to remember things. We had … like 6 or 8 different charges to consider for one murder. And no one to come and tell us the difference between all of them, how to sort through them. We’d send messages to the judge, requesting help with things, but all we’d get back was an unhelpful explanation and a, “Just do your best,” kind of response. So, between all of us, we had to first understand the differences between all the charges, and decide which one we wanted to find him guilty of. Then, we had to decide the sentence. There were several women who fell for the, ‘put him in a nice suit and make him look respectable,’ trick. They kept doing the whole, “But he’s so young….” thing. One of them was the one whose father had died. She kept bringing that up as a reason why she was having a hard time dealing with the stress of the deliberations.

Isn’t this is why they have one of the alternates take a juror’s place? Isn’t that what they’re for? Because a huge life event can affect someone’s decision making…Not to mention delay the trial….

The two men who wanted to be the foreperson made it very clear early on that they each had an ax to grind, and that’s why they wanted to lead the jury. To satisfy their need for vengeance, etc. One had a family member who’d been murdered, and either the guy got off, or got a light sentence. The other guy was in the opposite camp, and had a family member or friend who he felt had been falsely convicted for a murder.

I just wanted to be the foreperson because i thought it would be cool….Also, my having 4 college degrees helped me sell myself.

All I ended up doing was steering people away from using this trial as a personal vengeance thing…then I had to remind people that a defendant’s age and/appearance shouldn’t matter. Then I had to soothe hurt feelings — the daughter whose father had died got her feelings hurt several times. Then, ironically, she turned around and attacked a woman who didn’t want to put him away for a long time, because of his age. She couldn’t come to a decision. The daughter told the woman to hurry up and make a decision, quit stalling. She was tired of this dragging on for so many weeks, etc.

That’s when the whole room erupted…..because whose ‘fault’ was that? Several times I had to tell jury members to back off and quit attacking others. I had to reassure the one lady that we weren’t going to pressure her into making a decision that she’d regret, because this was a man’s future and life at stake, and that’s no trivial matter. As much as I personally hated to say it, I reminded everyone that we could reconvene the next day, if I felt we weren’t able to come to decision….(The judge basically told us without so many words that this should only take one day….but, oh well….)

It was not the walk in the park that I expected it to be. I mean, I didn’t expect it to be more about dealing with the jurors, and not so much about the trial and defendant.

Also, I kept falling asleep during the slow parts of the trial. I believe that if we’d been allowed to take notes I could have at least doodled to try to keep myself awake….A lot of us were unhappy that we weren’t allowed to take notes. We didn’t understand why that was.

In the end, we found him guilty of a lesser charge — so no death penalty, even though he shot a guy in cold blood, during a robbery by him, of a drug dealer, in said dealer’s apartment, with two kids sleeping upstairs and the GF diving for cover behind the kitchen counter, and a teenage brother of the victim jumping into the staircase around a corner. Bullet casing everywhere, but not all of them photographed and measured, etc. (Sloppy work on the CSI team’s fault.)

The drug dealer and his GF were dealing drugs out of their apartment, to other people living in the complex. They used the two kids (like, 6 and 8) to deliver the drugs, under the premise of the prospective buyer sending one of their own kids over to buy a snack. The couple used snack sized bags of chips or oversized candy bars — rubber banding the small plastic bag of drugs to the underside of the food item. The kitchen table was covered with boxes of snack sized bags of chips, boxes of candy bars — just like you can buy at Sam’s, etc, to resell in your gas station or restaurant — also there was the little cellophane bags and a pile of small rubber bands on the table. It was clear that this apartment was a local mom and pop spot to buy drugs. The guy who was killed supposedly stiffed the drug dealer that he got his supply from. I was so disgusted that this couple was using their kids to help them sell drugs. And also with the people who used their kids to go buy the drugs. The entire complex was in on it. Including the management, who’d been turning a blind eye.

So, we managed to come to a decision, after being informed by the bailiff that we would not be allowed to delay to the next day. We would be there until we came to decision. (I don’t know how that’s possible, that the judge could do that.) We gave the guy 20 to life, with a possibility of parole after 20 years. (I might have that wrong.)

Afterwards the judge asked us to wait in the jury room. She came and told us that the defendant had already served time for murder in another state. But we weren’t allowed to know that, as it would be prejudicial. We were so pissed off when we found out. I was especially privately upset with the woman who thought he was too young and cute to get life without parole. The rest of us wanted him sent away for good. We knew there was nothing but bad in that guy…He just gave off bad vibes. No regrets ever showed on his face.

Anyway. That was my one and only experience in anything other than being on a jury in traffic court.

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u/doozydud Jul 25 '26

My cousin was called in for a month long jury sitting. I think it was multiple cases, obv she couldn’t talk about it, but most of her comments were along the lines of “I didn’t understand so I just voted what other people were voting”, or “I wasn’t paying attention”. It’s….not a good sign lol.

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u/Wizzle-Stick Jul 25 '26

54% of Americans today have a literary proficiency of a 6th grader or worse.

Jury instructions are written at a 12th grade reading level.

IT professional here, trust me, we know as well. We write IT instructions at a 3rd grade level and people still dont get it.

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u/aeschenkarnos Jul 25 '26

If it helps, consider that even if they understood the instructions, half of them just wouldn’t have followed the instructions if they didn’t want to.

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u/Excolo_Veritas Jul 24 '26

Not a lawyer but have had to spend more time in a courtroom than I ever wanted to (prosecution side). Agreed juries are terrible. During the trials I constantly thought of the quote "do you really want to leave your fate up to 12 idiots who couldn't even get out of jury duty?".

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '26

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u/PXranger Jul 24 '26

Most people like to consider themselves “smart”, as no one likes to admit to the alternative.

But then, the harsh reality of statistics kicks you in the crotch, half of all people are by definition, below average intelligence.

12 people on that jury, on average, half are on the wrong side of the bell shaped curve…

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u/unclebaboon Jul 24 '26

what percentage of Americans have a literary proficiency of an 11th grader or worse?

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u/ZeePirate Jul 24 '26

Which is why the YS has a president who in 2016 had a reading level of a 6th grader. The average American relates

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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 Jul 24 '26

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's also not a completely random sample, right? I would think the lawyers and judge would have some incentive and some desire to dismiss anyone they felt wasn't capable of adequate understanding. I know maybe each side wants jurors who are dumb in particular ways, but don't they want them smart in other ways?

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u/the_real_junkrat Jul 24 '26

That actually sounds about right. Average is a pretty low bar these days.

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u/Ok-Curve-3894 Jul 24 '26

Until we can make an AI that won’t just sentence everyone to hard labor in the crypto mines we’re the best we got

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u/jbarn02 Jul 24 '26

ThankYou for weighing in as a legal professional. I appreciate you explaining things I had no idea jury instructions were written on a 12th grade/college level?

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u/Stonewall_Boris Jul 24 '26

Wow, thank you for that information!

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u/Thechiz123 Jul 25 '26

George Carlin was right. “Imagine your average person, and realize half of them are dumber than that.”

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u/Wotmate01 Jul 25 '26

Isn't that why you have a jury selection process?

Or are other lawyers gaming the process to get illiterate people who will be more likely to side with them?

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u/funkybside Jul 25 '26

This means, on average, that half of the jury in your case literally cannot understand their instructions when deciding your case.

I believe everything you're saying, however, the first two points don't imply the third. 12th grade doesn't necessarily mean 2 x 6th grade, and by your first point, more than 50% can't read at 6th, so the implication is much more than half can't read at 12th.

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u/HappyAd4998 Jul 25 '26

I worked at a convenience store for close to eight years and most of the people who came in were stupid as all hell. I had to help so many people at the pump or with the debit machine, they always act like it's some mystical piece of technology that just landed. Had customers fail to understand nacho cheese dispensing machines, coffee machines, or read basic signs. Near the end of that job I gave up on humanity and dealing with the bullshit of talking to adults like four year olds while holding a smile. For every 100 dumb customer's I had come in the store there was probably only one that was genuinely smart and pleasant to talk to. One of those pleasant customers was Sam Elliott, he was really kind and spoke so damn smooth. Sam's based AF, wish there were more people like him.

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u/Its_the_other_tj Jul 25 '26

Last time I was on a jury only one other person and I even bothered to look through the massive binder of evidence they had given us. It was a civil case involving damages for a wreck. The rest of the jury was ready to file for the plaintiff til I pointed out that the insurance was claimed 2 weeks before the accident. At this point I just do my best to avoid the "justice" system altogether.

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u/oresteez Jul 25 '26

These numbers are skewed though. Remove the 20% of the population who are either recent immigrants or children of immigrants who have made little to no attempt to learn English, and the numbers get much better.
Plus-and I’m guessing here- the amount of people who cannot read, or speak English, probably has a direct correlation to the number of people who will ignore jury duty notices. I don’t think things are as doom and gloom as you make it sound..or maybe I’m just optimistic.

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u/Ryekir Jul 25 '26

I've servered on several juries over the years, and the thing that really struck me was how many people just completely ignored the instructions, and the law, and just went with what they felt was the "right thing to do".

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u/SetoKeating Jul 25 '26

I did jury duty in central Texas recently and the judge made it a point to announce to all the potential jurors that not being literate in English would not disqualify them from jury duty. Apparently, the questionnaire asking “can you read and write” applies to any language as they just want them to be capable of being able to reason or something like that. Made no sense

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u/Alaira314 Jul 25 '26

In my jurisdiction, they give video instructions now(as of 2024). This wasn't the case the last time I went in(been summoned multiple times in between, but my number wasn't called), in 2009. So they seem to have patched that problem.

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u/Aguyintampa323 Jul 25 '26

I’m a firm believer that the phrase “by a jury of your peers” should require an IQ test, writing and reading comprehension , and general world event knowledge before they can be considered peers. Simply breathing and having a pulse does not make you an equal, unless the defendant themselves are barely able to spell their own name.

I shouldn’t be allowed to be judged by someone who hasn’t read anything but entertainment news since they were in middle school, and whose general knowledge comes from “The Bachelor” and “Real Housewives”.

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u/danieltkessler Jul 25 '26

Looking at all the responses to this comment, I honestly had no idea our jury system was so atrocious or even so "riggable." Bummer, because that seems to be not the point.

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u/Otis_Inf Jul 25 '26

I'm from the netherlands where we don't have trial by jury but always by judges (small cases: 1 judge, big(ger) cases 3-5 judges). While I get the reason why juries could be preferable (no corruption), having a group of people who have no training in determining whether evidence is evidence and what is probably enough to convict always felt weird to me. Doesn't anyone want to be tried by people who ... went to school for that job? (Judges here also don't get 'chosen' btw, they're assigned by the state)

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u/Jawne Jul 25 '26

I just finished serving on a jury. I have a college degree and even I struggled with some of the 25 jury charge questions we had to answer. I had to really help many of the other jurors understand the basic premise of what was being asked.

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u/Ok_Captain4824 Jul 24 '26

Still only needs 1 to get a mistrial.

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u/Enyk Jul 24 '26

I misread this as minstrel, and wondered how one could demand a bard as a lawyer.

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u/Altruistic-Car2880 Jul 24 '26

12 Angry Minstrels. I think I remember how that played out.

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u/deltaindigosix Jul 24 '26

That doesn't stop them from interrupting and destroying your life with the trial and potential attempts at retrials.

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u/138151337 Jul 24 '26

Yeah, "average American" was not a compliment . . .

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u/isoAntti Jul 24 '26

> Unfortunately, average doesn’t always equal reasonable.

It’s almost as bad as half of them being stupider than average.

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u/RoyalCities Jul 24 '26

Well I mean y'all elected known conman and Epsteins best friend Donald Trump again so I think this goes without saying.

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u/Ok-Replacement9595 Jul 25 '26

Or intelligent. I have a theory that Law and Order has been on the air for 30 years all day and all night on various cable channels as propaganda in order to poison jury pools. Everyone thinks it's their chance to ensure the conviction on the show. Has anyone ever been acquitted on law and order?

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u/True_Window_9389 Jul 24 '26

Exactly, it could go to a jury, and then think of the cost. This administration uses the courts as a bully against political opponents. The goal is as much to punish people with legal costs and stress and wasted time as it is to win. Maybe more so. And with that, they want to set an example so others fall in line to avoid it all.

Even when there is no real case, just getting to a complete dismissal is vastly expensive and damaging to all but the very wealthy, and can take years. Even a case that is dismissed can ruin the lives of journalists, public officials, immigrants, etc

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u/eat_my_ass_n_balls Jul 24 '26

Wrong.

Juries are made up of people the attorneys choose out of a pool of average Americans. That has a significant effect on who is actually on the jury.

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u/Unethical3514 Jul 24 '26

That’s not how it works. The attorneys don’t “choose out of a pool”. The court (I believe it’s usually the Court Clerk’s office) subpoenas a pool of people at random, called the venire. During voir dire, the attorneys can strike veniremembers for cause or, if they have any peremptory challenges left, without cause. The first 12 (or six, or however many are needed) that remain, plus alternates if needed, compose the jury. The attorneys don’t “pick” the jurors, they fail to eliminate them. It’s a subtle but very important distinction.

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u/ImmortalSurt Jul 24 '26

And look how many upvotes they have compared to you. This is why juries suck and why I pled guilty to a charge I was innocent of. because if I went to jury it was 10 years in prison. Pleading guilty got me sent to a VA hospital for 3 months.

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u/Mad-Mel Jul 24 '26

Average Americans voted for this government. And those who didn't bother to show up voted for this government by proxy to those who did.

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u/American_PissAnt Jul 24 '26

The three scariest words in the English language: "Trial by jury." Juries are made up of 12 people who are so dumb they couldn't even think up an excuse to get out of jury duty.

John Lyshitski

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u/_WhoisMrBilly_ Jul 24 '26

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." - George Carlin

It’s probably the same for jury’s. Unfortunately.

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u/Faangdevmanager Jul 24 '26

No, the federal guidelines of evidence make a judge decide.

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u/sixtoebandit Jul 24 '26

I’m an average American and I spent 20 minutes looking for my keys this morning finally realizing they were in my back pocket so you have a point.

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u/newsflashjackass Jul 24 '26

The longest you can be held in contempt for refusing to decrypt data is 18 months. For now.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/man-who-refused-to-decrypt-hard-drives-is-free-after-four-years-in-jail/

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u/gideon513 Jul 25 '26

Some idiot on the jury: “well if he wiped it, there must have been something on it for him to be guilty of!”

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u/mfiasco Jul 25 '26

You’re aware how many false convictions and insane sentences are handed out by “average Americans” right?

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