My Experience as a Law Professor Juror

I thought I would flag in response to Josh’s post that I served on a criminal jury three years ago—and that, unlike Josh, I recommend that other law professors do the same.  I tweeted a bit about it shortly after my jury service:

In his post, Josh suggests that law professors might have trouble being good jurors:

The role of the jury is to find facts, not law. Law professors are professionals at conveying the law. I would like to think that I would follow the law exactly as the judge instructed me–indeed, I told the judge I would during voir dire. But I think it would be hard to entirely set aside my views on what the law is.

I didn’t find that hard at all.  In addition to be an officer of the court as a bar member, I swore an oath as a juror to render a “true verdict . . . according only to the evidence presented to [me] and to the instructions of the court.” I took that oath with utmost seriousness. It didn’t occur to me to violate my sworn oath out of some personal sense of what the law should be.

Josh also suggests that other jurors will be unable to think independently after hearing the views of a law professor:

The bigger problem is that other members of the jury pool would look to the law professor to explain the law. And even if I resisted offering any statement of the law, my view would be given undue deference.

That wasn’t my experience. In my case, the other jurors knew from the open court voir dire that I taught criminal law and procedure at U.C. Berkeley (where I was teaching at the time). They knew that I was a former prosecutor who did occasional criminal defense work, too.  And the case we had was in my area: Not only was it a criminal case, but it was a case involving offenses that I teach—although I teach the Model Penal Code version rather than the California Penal Code.

Nonetheless, the other jurors were independent and made their own judgment calls.  I like to think that I made some good arguments about the evidence, and whether the government had proved particular elements of particular offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. (I thought they had proved some offenses but failed to satisfy their burden of proving other offenses.)  But I was just one of the twelve jurors, and everyone had their own take on things.  I intentionally took a light touch and tried to avoid saying too much.  I explained a particularly confusing jury instruction once, and I tried to focus the discussion on the elements of the crime and the evidence.  But no one was giving undue deference to me, at least as far as I could tell.

Anyway, maybe I’ll write more about my time on the jury some day, as it was a fascinating experience.

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