Inside The Juror

Provides a comprehensive and understandable summary of the major theories of juror decision making.

Hastie, Reid and Steven D. Penrod, Nancy Pennington. Inside the Jury. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983. viii, 277 pp. Reprinted 2002 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 2002025963. ISBN 1-58477-269-7. Cloth. $95. * "A landmark jury study." Contemporary Sociology. An important statistical study of the dynamics of jury selection and deliberation that offers a realistic jury simulation model, a statistical analysis of the personal characteristics of jurors, and a general assessment of jury performance based on research findings conducted by reputed scholars in the behavioral sciences. "The book will stand as the third great product of social research into jury operations, ranking with Kalven and Zeisel's The American Jury and Van Dyke's Jury Selection Procedures." American Bar Association Journal.

This book discusses the conscious and unconscious psychological factors that influence juror decision-making. Jurors inevitably rely on the same "thinking tools" at trial that they use to solve problems and make decisions in their everyday lives, which makes it almost impossible for them to divorce instinct and emotion from decision-making. Their fight-or-flight reflexes are stimulated not only by predators but by information that makes them fear for their personal safety—even if the threatening information is something they merely imagine. Because self-preservation is a primal instinct, jurors tend to unconsciously respond by disregarding or altering the "threatening" evidence. Information that conflicts with their personal beliefs and biases often elicits a similar response. Therefore, what jurors hear and remember about a case will inevitably be a reflection of who they are, what they value, and what their life experiences have been. Because jurors unconsciously weigh information in a hierarchical fashion, the "hierarchy of juror decision-making" can serve as a blueprint for creating strategies to counteract the most common thinking errors that can skew jurors' perceptions of the case. This is a valuable weapon that should be in every trial lawyer's arsenal.

*** NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE YEAR *** A 52 year-old photographer and a 41 year-old anatomy professor are jurors sequestered during a sensational three-week trial: a toddler murdered by one of his twin sisters. At the court appointed cut-rate motel off the interstate, they fall into an intense, furtive affair, but it is only during deliberations that the lovers learn they are on opposing sides of the case. Suddenly they look at one another through an altogether different lens. After the trial, the photographer returns to her much older husband amidst an ongoing media frenzy over the case. But the judge has received an anonymous letter about the affair, and she is preparing to release the jurors names. From that point on, the photographer’s “one last dalliance before she is too old” takes on profoundly personal and moral consequences, as The Body in Question moves to its affecting, powerful, and surprising conclusion.

Based on author's thesis (doctoral - Princeton University, 2018) issued under title: Making the case for jurors: an ethnographic study of U.S. prosecutors.

Annie Laird is Juror 224. A sculptor with a career going nowhere. A single mother struggling to raise a son. A good citizen who has been summoned to what looks like a rountine tour of civic duty. But the trial she is called to serve on is no ordinary trial. It is a mob trial, whose outcome has been meticulously orchestrated by a man of insidious power and deadly precision. A man who lives by the teachings of Lao Tsu...whose magnetism is irresistible...whose mind is as brilliant as it is twisted. He is know to some as the Teacher, and he's set his sights on Annie Laird. Pulled into the most chilling depths of the criminal underworld, Annie will be seduced by double-edged promises, stalked by the spector of terror, then, finally, driven to a shocking decision by the most basic motivation a woman can know. THE JUROR is a tour de force of crime and obsession, evil and innocence -- a story that taps into fears so primal they linger long after the last page has been read.

A Trying Question traces the history of the jury in Canada and links its nineteenth-century decline to the rise of the professional class.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to them. They are at the center of a multimillion-dollar legal hurricane: twelve men and women who have been investigated, watched, manipulated, and harassed by high-priced lawyers and consultants who will stop at nothing to secure a verdict. Now the jury must make a decision in the most explosive civil trial of the century, a precedent-setting lawsuit against a giant tobacco company. But only a handful of people know the truth: that this jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him. He is known only as Juror #2. But he has a name, a past, and he has planned his every move with the help of a beautiful woman on the outside. Now, while a corporate empire hangs in the balance, while a grieving family waits, and while lawyers are plunged into a battle for their careers, the truth about Juror #2 is about to explode in a cross fire of greed and corruption—and with justice fighting for its life. Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!