Word: juror
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...that from a man who supports the institution of juries, which are, after all, a group of ordinary citizens who sacrifice their time, comfort and sometimes income. It's not the jurors who are the problem, says Adler, but the ordeal they are subjected to. First, the most competent citizens are permitted to escape the jury pool. The pool is whittled down further by peremptory challenges, which allow lawyers to strike a potential juror from the panel without giving reasons. The lawyers have reasons, of course, often based on stereotypes of race, gender, age or income that lead them...
...penalty decision in the Simpson case but asserting that the decision had been made "independent of this concern." Yet that bland avowal, combined with a stated intention to comment no further until after the trial, invited immediate speculation that public concern -- or, more specifically, the concern of one potential juror who might create a hung jury -- was indeed Garcetti's paramount consideration. "I'm not suprised," says Wendy Alderson, a prominent Palm Springs jury consultant. "I don't think they would have found 12 people to put Simpson to death." Adds Laurie Levenson, professor of law at Loyola Marymount University...
...district attorney's office as a defense coup. "Johnnie Cochran is a better trial lawyer than the entire defense team put together," asserts one prosecution source. "Now add the race card. With Cochran in, you're going to have a hell of a time trying to find a black juror who will convict. All you need is a holdout...
...case. The prosecution has a lot going for it -- a realistic set, a good supporting cast complete with a couch potato who times his life by reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, waiters with ponytails and exotic accents, a lost dog and two grieving families. Still, persuading a juror who doubts that O.J. Simpson could be a monster capable of buying a 15- in. stiletto (requesting that it be extra sharp) and then plunging it into the bodies of two people will be harder than convincing the public that Donna Reed could preside over the machinations at South Fork...
While authoritative studies have yet to be compiled, jury consultants are beginning to correlate TV habits with a juror's likely behavior during a trial and deliberations. Talk-show watchers, says Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, a jury consultant in Pasadena, California, are considered more likely to distrust the official version and to believe there are two sides to a story. At the same time, jurors who regularly watch such reality-based police shows as America's Most Wanted may harbor strong law-and-order beliefs. "We want to find out what drives a potential juror to watch the shows," says John...