Jury duty is often described as a consequence of
citizenship. "It's a civic duty!" and "Give back to your community!" are two of
the more guilt-laced arguments which pressure people to fulfill this monotonous
service.
Even though CSI and Law & Order can make jury duty seem just like Hollywood, first-time jurors
are almost always disappointed. I've been called for jury duty twice in my life
and here is the sequence.
1.
Arrive on time. Wait.
2.
Walk into a room. Wait.
3.
File brief paperwork and drink bad coffee. Wait.
4.
Walk into a courtroom-wait for judge.
5.
Get excused.
6.
Wait for 5-10 years for another jury duty
notice.
It could be a lot worse. I could get stuck on a trial that
takes months to deliberate. Or it could be a menial tax trial or grand jury. Instead,
my inconvenience is getting to read only one chapter of the book I brought.
After all, most jury summons include a paid excuse from work.
So while I'm not an engineer, and never claim to be, it
could be that my occupation in a technical field (tech writing) has eliminated
me from prior juror pools. I'm exposed to scientific principles, arithmetic,
and engineering resources quite often, and it's not impossible that my
familiarity with Socratic method has tainted my perspective.
Apparently, it's quite common for scientists and engineers
to be eliminated from juror pools. There are a couple of reasons why this might
be. In many cases, lawyers argue passionately for their side based on a series
of assumptions-a liberty scientists and engineers do not have and often fail to
entertain. Prosecutors and defense attorneys might be intimidated by a
well-cultivated mind; it's rumored doctors, even retired ones, are often
excused from criminal cases as well.
Bloggers at Scienctopia recognized
two issues when they examined why jury duty should be hated by everyone,
not just scientists. First, jurors are instructed to arrive at a conclusion
based on the "preponderance of evidence." That means that a person who is able
to analyze information and draw conclusions, without the interpretation of the
lawyer, can't be (or at least shouldn't be) swayed by an emotional argument.
Second, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is pretty much nonsense. Evidence either is
or isn't; there is no open interpretation of the circumstances set forth.
While researching this blog post, I came across this reddit comment
where the user mentioned his professor was excused because he needed to know
what confidence interval described "beyond reasonable doubt." I wonder what
unit of measure they used?
While this is a humorous way to examine why engineers get
tossed from juror pools, it beautifully illustrates how constructive
information processing affects decision making in unforeseen ways, and is also
understood by other professionals, even if it goes unobserved amongst peers.
Interestingly, the jury selection system used in the United
States is known as scientific jury selection (seems like an oxymoron). So do
engineers have an internal bias that can't be overlooked? Would less wrongfully convicted people end up
on death row or with a life sentence if more intelligent people served on
juries? Can this question even really be answered?
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