Quote Originally Posted by English assassin
Very true. Colleagues of mine who do jury trials complain bitterly about the "CSI effect" (where jurors are discomfited when they realise that the prosecution isn't going to show them a reconstruction of the crime in state of the art CGI, not to mention the fact that the trial is going to take longer than an hour and not have advert breaks)
I can understand the frustrations with the “CSI effect” but I swear to _____ (insert deity of choice), if just one person it the entire courtroom had just the slightest hint of personality it would have made many of the people on the jury, myself included, more anxious to be involved. I don’t think anyone in any of the cases I have been involved with were expecting a surprise revelation, Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with a candle stick! But a little drama sure would have solidified the verdict and kept us awake.

In the jury trial I was foreman for we did get to keep our notes and were actually encouraged to take them, not that we needed them. The guy was soooo overwhelmingly guilty it wasn’t real. A clear case of him trying to get an extra couple of months of freedom before being sent to jail (can’t blame him for working the system).

I’ll bet that if the jury asked for the definition of a specific word the court would have given it to them.