(below:  Dustin Hoffman puzzling over his jury in Grisham's Runaway Jury - directed by Gary Fleder  Memorable movie quote:  You think your average juror is King Solomon? No, he's a roofer with a mortgage. He wants to go home and sit in his Barcalounger and let the cable TV wash over him. And this man doesn't give a single, solitary droplet of shit about truth, justice or your American way)

Concurring Opinions covers juror blogs today by, among other things, quoting a foreman's juror blog as follows.  

Today was the last day of jury duty. I served as foreman of the jury. By the end of the case I thoroughly disliked the defending attorney. He had abused, postured and bullied his way through the entire trial, and had treated the witnesses for the prosecution, who were solid citizens doing their jobs, with disrespect and contempt. I was concerned that his histrionics were going to affect some of the less sophisticated among the jury to the degree that it would be hard to reach a decision on matters that were more or less clear. Just prior to the closing statements I decided to see what effect I might be able to have on the outcome given the limited set of tools available to me...

[I] . . . paid special attention to the participation of an elderly woman of color who felt out of place among so many white men, and a quiet Hispanic man who had also been swayed by the theater of the defense. Within an hour we had a conviction on both counts, and on all of the sub clauses of the counts. At the end of it we all felt that we had done the right thing, which I think we did.

I have either rarely, or perhaps never attempted such a conscious manipulation of my presentation of self as an adult. The fact that nobody knew me was an asset.

Of course, if you've attended as many jury focus groups as you've tried cases to a jury, you already know this.  Know what?  Just how unpredictable and uncontrollable that 12-headed creature the jury can be.  

I don't mean to bury the lede (I'll make this the subject of a full post later) but I was talking to an old friend and jury consultant, Chris St. Hilaire of Jury Impact today (both of whom I highly recommend) about the dwindling jury trial and the use of  professionally prepared mediation presentations and mediation focus groups. 

Much much more about this later.