A glipmse of how jurors unfamiliar with medicine can be swayed so easily by lawyer tactics:
Juror: How can we not give them the money? You heard the Chiropractor: they had Cervical Myalgia!
My Friend: He was using big words to impress you. Do you know what Cervical Myalgia means?
Juror: Uhh….no
My Friend: Neck Pain. ‘Cervical’ is neck. ‘My’ is muscle. ‘Algia’ is pain. They had Neck Muscle Pain.
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- Swaying potential jurors via YouTube
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This brings up the wider problem of having non-specialists comprising the jury in specialized cases. This extends beyond medicine to areas like evolution. (Why should non-scientists be allowed to decide the legality of a scientific issue?) Naturally you could argue this for any case that requires specialized knowledge to come to an appropriate decision. (Engineering, law, business, etc.)
I wonder if this phenomenon will ever come to a head in some fashion?
I thought expert witnesses were supposed to inform the jury in specialized cases.
Are you suggesting that the jury consist of only doctors? I’m not sure that would be fair.
“Are you suggesting that the jury consist of only doctors? I’m not sure that would be fair.”
No, I don’t think it’d be fair, either. I don’t actually have a solution to the problem, I was merely “thinking out loud” so to speak.
The trouble with “expert witnesses” is that their job is to educate the jury. But how does one know if the jury has been adequately educated? The jury is not (usually) allowed to ask questions.
If it’s a case involving medicine, it might be a good idea to have someone in the medical field be a part of the jury. Not necessarily a doc, but certainly one who is not scared of the jargon…
I dunno. It’s a problem without a ready solution. (Duh, if it did, it’d be solved already…)
I don’t see why anyone should have a jury for civil or criminal cases except where a bias by the judiciary is in question. People are simply too shallow, stupid, and lazy minded for that responsibility. it is a farce.
How about selecting speciallized juries. A group of people would be selected to serve on juries in specific area for a period of time. They’d be paid slightly more than regular jurors. Before serving they’d be required to take a set of courses for a few weeks on some basics. This would include some basic epidemiology, terminology, the issues in most common lawsuits, and whatever else makes sense. It wouldn’t the same as all doctors or all scientists, but at least the jurors would have some basic knowledge. Obviously this would not make them experts, but they would know more than they do now.
Another possibility is changing the present expert witness system. Instead of having individual witnesses for each side to determine “standard”, why not just obtain an expert opinion on how they would handle a specific case. The experts needn’t even be told why their opinion is needed. For example, in a “this wasn’t detected early” lawsuit, the slides or X-rays in question could be sent to several experts for their diagnosis. The experts’ opinion could then be viewed as standard.
The problem with Kevin’s claims, which is common, is that the facts don’t back up his feeling that juries are swayed that often.
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