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To add to: he performed his task to try and sway others | 380 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Does it seem the jury foreman mis-used his authority?
Authored by: PJ on Thursday, May 24 2012 @ 01:15 PM EDT
Well, because of his strongly held views, there
will now have to be another trial, costing more
millions. A juror is not supposed to be intransigent,
although he can't vote with the majority if he
honestly feels otherwise. But there is a reasonable
balance.

But this guy sent a note asking why it had to
be unanimous, after being told in the instructions
it had to be. So I think in all fairness he went
too far. Part of the jury's job is to be
reasonable. In the end, he was won over,
in the patent phase, but the copyright
case has to be done over because of him,
essentially.

I wonder if his views were worth that, if he
even knew that would be the result.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

To add to: he performed his task to try and sway others
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 24 2012 @ 01:22 PM EDT

It was also their task to try and sway him to their point of view. Ultimately he decided that since no one else thought Oracle had proven their perspective, that he must logically conclude Oracle had not.

That's what happens in discussion where the end result must be unanimous:

    Either everyone discusses the various points and "tries to sway others to their perspective" in order to reach a unanimous verdict all the while "considering others perspectives in order to see if they can be swayed to the others perspectives".
Or
    They accept they simply can't support the same position and are therefore "hung" on the decision.
Now... they could have just walked in to the "deliberation", cast their votes once on each of the questions and decided they were totally hung. But if they did that... would they really be complying with the intent behind the word "deliberation":
    Long and careful consideration or discussion.
I'd think not.

Bottom line: You can't have careful consideration and discussion if either:

    A: you're not willing to listen to others
or
    B: you're not willing to explain your position to others to help them understand your position
And really... sway is just a word, for some it's only used in a negative context:
    The ability to exercise influence or authority
So yes... he could have been trying to exercise his authority as foreman. But he could just as easily been exercising nothing more then his influence of logic and words... the same as the rest of them.

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

I have seen this done before.
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 24 2012 @ 06:42 PM EDT
I was on a criminal jury several years ago. When the jurors went back to
deliberate, there was one juror who asked to be foreman. Turned out that she
was convinced that the jurors had not heard the entire story and that she
thought that the defendant was not the only responsible party. She could not
identify a single bit of testimony or evidence for why she thought this way and
afterwards voted to convict with the rest of the jury.
The lesson of this , is that if you are ever on a jury, try to get a jury
foreman who does not want the job but is open minded. Avoid those who want to
be foreman, they have an agenda.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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