Is It True That Those With Doctoral Degrees Are Not Allowed On Jury Duty

Is it true that during your jury duty, if you're biased, that you'll be asked to leave and become exempted?

The answer to this question is that it depends on how the juror answers the magic question.Even if a juror demonstrates bias during voir dire, the judge can ask whether he/she can put aside those beliefs and judge the trial strictly on what takes place in court. This is known in some jurisdictions as the magic question.If the juror answers in the affirmative, then the record reflects the juror has been rehabilitated. Consequently, the judge can deny a motion by either party to remove the juror for cause. The denial of a motion to remove a juror for cause will require the exercise of a peremptory strike to remove the juror. If neither party exercises a peremptory strike, however, then the juror will remain on the panel.But peremptory strikes are limited in number, unlike motions for cause. Additionally, if an appellate court finds the judge erroneously denied the motion for cause which resulted in the unnecessary use of the peremptory strike, then it might be reversible error.The foregoing is the TL;DR answer. When I was in law school, I researched and wrote a case comment about this topic that was published in the Rutgers Law Journal. If you would like to download a PDF of it, please visit this site: Comment, Criminal Procedure - The Quintessential Exercise of the Peremptory Challenge: Denial of Peremptory Strike Possibly Violates Section One of the Kentucky Constitution by Michael Smolensky :: SSRN

Is the jury allowed to ignore evidence and vote for not guilty because they liked the defendants or they believe a deeper truth is being served?

Sorry, it’s not correct or proper to view and describe things like the jury ‘ignores’ the evidence. The situation is actually one of:—The jury didn’t ‘ignore’ the evidence but just came out with a verdict that we thought went against the evidence presented.In most countries, the jury is perfectly allowed to disregard this or that evidence presented for whatever reason.THE JURY IS MEANT TO DO THISThere’s nothing wrong with this — this is how juries reach guilty and not-guilty verdicts. It regards this evidence and disregards that evidence. That’s what “weighing the evidence” means.Regarding and disregarding evidence presented to reach a verdict are the functions of the jury.If weighing the evidence always result in a guilty verdict or a not-guilty one, then the jury verdict isn’t one based on weighing the evidence.This is taught to all law students (certainly in the UK and some other countries) during the first 13 weeks of their Year 1 law degree studies.A SPECIOUS LINEThis “jury disregards evidence” line is pretty bad, fallacious and defamatory about the functions of the jury — a line often propagated by those with some sort of an axe to grind against the judiciary or legal system.The judge explains and gives the law about the offence to the jury. The jury is then required to weigh the evidence in the way they know how as ordinary laypersons with ordinary reasonableness.The jury isn’t meant to assess the evidence according to some objective methodology and/or with any conceivable level of expertise. That’s an assessment panel and not a jury. That’s expert evidence and assessment — the stuff that’s going to be weighed by the jury.Final wordSo the jury has weighed and then disregarded it. That’s perfectly allowed in law.Whether the judge has to accept the verdict is another story altogether, and that depends on the country or jurisdiction.In English law, the judge is permitted to override a guilty verdict but not a not guilty one — the reason ultimately is to uphold the idea of better to let go a culpable defendant than to punish an innocent defendant.Thanks for the A2A.

During the jury duty selection process, am I legally allowed to answer the judge and lawyers’ questions privately, away from fellow potential jurors?

Yes. The judge told us that if we wished to give an answer privately in chambers, all we had to do was say so. I don’t know if it’s within the judge’s discretion to deny such a request, but I think it would be highly unusually to do so, and potentially grounds for appeal. Of course, when the judge asks if anyone has a criminal record, and you rise your hand and ask to talk in chambers, that in itself would signal that there is something you don’t want made public. When I served, many of the potential jurors were pretty open about their run-ins with the law (I was suprised at the number - something a like a quarter raised their hand!), probably to get themselves dismissed as soon as possible).

Have you ever been called for jury duty?

Yes, I’ve been called for jury duty numerous times. Many times I had legitimate reasons for being unable to serve, but I’ve sat on a jury once.A young man of twenty had been in jail for over 100 days because he couldn’t afford to post bail. That right there deeply offended my sense of justice. Then they had thrown the book at him, piling up all kinds of ridiculous charges including not only possession of cocaine, but also possession of cocaine with intent to sell (although he was carrying a tiny amount of cocaine, the amount was enough to be charged with intent to sell because it was deemed more than he would use in one sitting). resisting arrest with violence, resisting arrest without violence, interfering with police communications (the police said he had pulled the radio off one of the cop’s uniforms, which the dash cam didn’t show), and possession of cocaine within X feet of a school (he was nowhere near the school, but he was close enough to be within the statutory number of feet).Basically, he’d seen the police and had run because he was carrying a gun without a concealed carry permit. When the cops caught up with him, they beat the crap out of him with their billy clubs, and in the melee, one of the cops had his radio fall off his shirt. The beating with billy clubs was egregious—the guy was already on the ground and being handcuffed at the time of the beating.Again, my sense of justice was deeply offended by his beating and by the entire pile-on of charges. I refused to vote for conviction on any of the charges except possession of cocaine (which he had admitted to). Since conviction requires unanimity, he was only convicted of possession of cocaine.I will never forget the look on his face, his public defender’s face, and the face of one of the clerks in the courtroom (who was clearly on the side of the defendant based on her facial expressions) as the various counts were read once again and every count (except possession of cocaine) was announced as “failed to adjudicate.”He was only 20 years old and he would have been locked away for years in state prison if he had been convicted on some of the other charges. I was very proud to be the hold out, and felt I’d really contributed some home-cooked justice with my decisions.

Why is it wrong to call the employee at the doctor's office "nurse" when they are not a nurse?

Because it misrepresents their qualifications. Nurses have more background in pharmacology and pathophysiology, among other things. If a medical assistant refers to himself or herself as a nurse, it implies that s/he has education and skills that s/he may not possess.That can be a significant problem if patients ask the MA for additional information or advice that s/he isn’t qualified to give. Medical assistants are often quite knowledgeable—I’ve known several who started out as paramedics —-but they aren’t nurses, and therefore it’s inappropriate and dishonest to give them that title.Some years ago, hospitals used to have unlicensed personnel (e.g. CNAs) dress exactly like the nurses, so it would appear that they had more nurses on duty than were actually there. This practice is now frowned on; in fact, hospitals often have (registered) nurses wearing badges proclaiming “RN” in large letters, so the patient can easily see the qualifications of the person caring for him/her.When you have a medical question, don’t you expect that the person answering it should be honest about their educational background?

Are jurors allowed to consider witnesses liars even if they haven't been found in contradiction of any facts yet? Do they have to accept testimony as truthful until proven otherwise?

Jurors are specifically instructed that they are permitted to believe all, part, or none of a witness’s testimony. They do not have to accept testimony as truthful until proven otherwise.Here’s a standard jury instruction on witness credibility:“You will have to decide whether you believe each witness and how important each witness’s testimony is to the case. You may believe all, part, or none of a witness’s testimony.“In deciding whether to believe a witness’s testimony, you may consider, among other factors, the following:“(a) How well did the witness see, hear, or otherwise sense what he or she described in court?“(b) How well did the witness remember and describe what happened?“(c) How did the witness look, act, and speak while testifying?“(d) Did the witness have any reason to say something that was not true? For example, did the witness show any bias or prejudice or have a personal relationship with any of the parties involved in the case or have a personal stake in how this case is decided?“(e) What was the witness’s attitude toward this case or about giving testimony?“Sometimes a witness may say something that is not consistent with something else he or she said. Sometimes different witnesses will give different versions of what happened. People often forget things or make mistakes in what they remember. Also, two people may see the same event but remember it differently. You may consider these differences, but do not decide that testimony is untrue just because it differs from other testimony.“However, if you decide that a witness did not tell the truth about something important, you may choose not to believe anything that witness said. On the other hand, if you think the witness did not tell the truth about some things but told the truth about others, you may accept the part you think is true and ignore the rest.”

During jury duty, if you know that an 'expert' is lying, how should you convey this to the other jurors?

I served as foreman on a jury in a medical malpractice trial where several doctors where being sued after an elderly patient died of infection after a procedure.There were two primary experts. The plaintiff’s expert had testified in many trials, was smart, smooth, confident, and convincing. The defendant’s expert had never testified before and was not as smooth and confident in her answers. In fact, when she was initially finished, I think we all felt that the plaintiff’s expert had “made” the case, even if we still didn’t quite understand everything. Then on cross an small point was brought up, and on redirect she finally spit out some very simple, clear, logical information that completely changed our interpretation of the trial. It was almost by accident!When we started deliberations, we found that in addition to myself (a lot of first aid training and college biological science courses), we also had a retired RN and a chemist in our group. How the RN made it onto the jury, or the chemist for that matter, has always amazed me.Anyway, the three of us all keyed on the defendant’s expert’s testimony, and that the timeline of the illness simply went on for too long to be related to the procedure (bottom line, we didn’t believe that you could live and be relatively active for over a week with an infection caused by an undetected and untreated bowel leakage into your body cavity).We convinced enough of the jury (10 of 12) to decide the case. Having the knowledge and opinions of the chemist and the RN were definitely a factor in our decision, as was my experience in high school debate and as a public speaker, which was hard to read to a grieving family (not so much to the ambulance chasing lawyer), but I am convinced to this day was correct. I have since become friends with the judge, and at one point about 2 years after the trail we discussed the case and he agreed we had reached the right conclusion.The scary part? The two holdouts. One was not well educated and felt that so many doctors had seen the patient that since she died one of them must have missed something or done something wrong, and at least one if not more of them should have to pay for it. The other was even worse - her opinion throughout the process had changed so as to always be in opposition with another juror whom she had taken a dislike to! Had we had to be unanimous, it would have been a very long process and I’m not sure we ever would have made it!