Jury Selection in No Man's Land

Late today, I received a promotional e-mail from a Southern California jury consultant I had never heard of before, Harry Plotkin.  His site is quite good, and he had a terrific little piece on the "analytical juror."  The concept is that when we try cases involving science, hard facts, etc., we should seek jurors who are "analytical."  More after the jump.

According to Mr. Plotkin:

In identifying analytical personalities, search for jurors who have chosen jobs that involve investigative, intellectual, and problem-solving work.  Critical thinkers, scientists, researchers, lab technicians, investigators, journalists, computers, economists, engineers, surgeons and doctors, professors, architects, consultants, do-it-yourselfers, avid non-fiction readers, and people who watch the discovery channel and Jeopardy are likely analytical personalities.

Analytical jurors.  Well, that's hard to quarrel with when you're trying product liability cases, toxic tort cases, science cases, etc.  The question is, where do we find these folks?  A few years ago, I was defending a tragic toxic tort wrongful death case for an oil company.  The case  involved a wonderful young man who had allegedly mopped floors with benzene, then died of acute myelogenous leukemia (a disease  associated with benzene exposure) leaving an equally delightful young widow and toddler.  Just the kind of case that calls for analytical jurors.

Anyway, one of the reasons this case is so vividly set in my mind is that I remember during jury selection, I had a company representative there from California's central valley.  We were on about our third panel of prospective jurors.  They were mostly good citizens, working folks, all wanting to do the right thing, but not a scientist, doctor, engineer, lab technician, journalist, etc., etc. in the crowd.  And my client representative asked me, "Bruce, when is the jury of my peers going to be coming into the courtroom?"  I had to explain to him that this was San Francisco, and the folks he saw were who he was likely to get.

Don't get me wrong, I love San Francisco, and San Franciscans.  But if you're on the defense side, you have to play the cards you are dealt.  With these decidedly non-analytical jurors, we were fortunate enough to get a defense verdict.  The key, of course, was to speak honestly, clearly, reasonably and fairly to the jury we actually had, and not spend time wishing for a jury we were never going to get.

I still agree with Mr. Plotkin that jurors who are scientists, doctors, engineers, lab technicians, etc. are a very good idea if you are trying a product liability or toxic tort case.  If I ever find any potential jurors like that in San Francisco, I'll do my best to keep them.  And Mr. Plotkin's site is still very much worth checking out.

Comments

[Harry Plotkin]

Thank you for writing, Bruce. You bring up an excellent point, that while some venues have a healthy mix of all juror types, certain venues are more homogenous than others. Rural areas, for example, are flush with practical personalities, while cosmopolitan areas like Los Angeles and certainly San Francisco tend to have far more artistic and sympathetic jurors than average.

However, I should mention that analytical personalities aren’t limited to high-tech and high-level scientists, doctors, and engineers; a technician in an eye-glasses lab or photo lab is just as analytically-inclined as a NASA physicist (but probably much less knowledgeable and sharp), as are auto mechanics or your Maytag repairman. In many cases, occupation may not reveal an analytical personality, but you can identify analytical jurors by judging their approach to problem-solving using test voir dire questions. But I wholeheartedly agree that, in some venues, the juror types you need most are not always readily available.

Best wishes,

Harry.