By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Imagine you are in a grocery store standing in the cereal aisle in front of a dizzying variety of choices. You pick up one box, and being the healthy person that you are, you check the nutritional information on the label. Then you pick up another box. The second cereal […]
Don’t “Narrow Bracket” Your Choices in Jury Selection Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: In a new law journal article, University of Kansas law professor Melanie Wilson asks us to consider a situation in which a stranger approaches us on the street and politely asks us whether we’ve ever been a victim of sexual assault or abuse, whether we’ve ever been investigated by the
Jury Selection: Probe But Don’t Embarrass Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The case of The United States versus John Edwards has everything: politics, sex, life, and death. The former vice-presidential and presidential candidate acquired a mistress and fathered a child during the campaign, behind the back of his cancer-stricken wife, then called upon a couple of key supporters to pay vast sums of
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: For once, a social science concept that comes with an easy to understand label! “Low effort thinking” refers to a mental approach or habit that serves as a short-cut in lieu of a more systematic or careful analysis. In the spirit of full disclosure, though, the concept is sometimes dressed up
Complex Case? Beware of “Low Effort Thinkers” Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: While researching for a previous post, I was reading Professor Dru Stevenson’s (2012) article in the George Mason Law Review, and I came across a jarring sentence asserting that “modern approaches to jury selection” focus on biases relating to factors “such as race and gender.” The author then followed up
Don’t Select Your Jury Based on Demographics: A Skeptical Look at JuryQuest Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Q: What is a jury? A: A group of citizens who aren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty and aren’t interesting enough to attract the attention of either side. Okay, so that is an unfair joke, but it hints at a reality of the jury selection process:
Don’t Build Your Jury Out of Leftovers Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The “Googling Juror” has emerged as a massive concern in the courts with plenty of stories on the process being thrown into mistrial by panelists who had to look up a fact, couldn’t take their finger off the Tweet button, and felt the need to “friend” parties, attorneys, and other
Rely on Instructions to Curb the Socially Networked Juror Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It is a reliable maxim that your voir dire should target the experiences of your panel that bear most closely on your case, because that will be the source of the most relevant attitudes. That seems obvious, but I find that litigators often focus on a level that is more
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: If you are in court with a sitting jury, you can’t help but watch them for facial responses. Whether you are at the lectern, counsel table, the witness box, or the gallery, it is irresistible to observe the panel and it is inevitable to form conclusions about their attitudes toward what
Don’t Be Too Sure About Face Reading Your Jury Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Sometimes you come across a document that challenges your view of basic human goodness. The stomach-churning Grand Jury Report relating to the Pennsylvania State football scandal is one such document. What stands out, based on the allegations, is just how many times former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was caught. In locker rooms, workout
Define “Reasonable Person” As Your Jurors’ Idealized Version of Themselves Read More »