The Dignity of the Civil Jury

Empirical analysis of juries in tort cases

“…Moreover, whether we examine the behavior of simulated juries, review post-trial interviews with real jurors, or watch real civil juries deliberating, we find jurors who are highly suspicious of plaintiffs and unsympathetic when they encounter complaints from individuals they suspect may be whining or greedy (e.g., Hans, 2000). The few studies that have compared the liability verdicts of judges with those of jurors have shown no tendency for jurors to be more inclined to find for the plaintiff than are judges (Clermont & Eisenberg, 1992;Heuer & Penrod, 1994;Kalven, 1964). Of course, we cannot directly assess what win rate would be produced by an entirely unbiased decision maker, but the empirical landscape reveals no wild pro-plaintiff bias by juries and no evidence that juries are more pro-plaintiff on liability than are judges.…”

Demographics In Civil Trials: Biases And Implications

“…Concern for juror effectiveness led one federal judge, with consent of all parties, to experiment with selecting jurors on the basis of educational background (p.319). Several writers have addressed the jury competence issue, including Kalven and Zeisel (1966), Kalven (1964), Visher (1987), Kadish and Kadish (1971), Scheflin and Van Dyke (1980) , Williams (1963) and Greene (1983). Visher (1987) posits the most serious criticism of the jury system is that jurors are not competent to impartially consider evidence and decide issues of fact.…”

The New Legal Scholarship: Problems and Prospects.

“…35 From these and other data showing that plaintiffs in varied kinds of cases and forums win and lose about half the time, Kalven and others have inferred that reasonable levels of fairness are achieved. 36 However, "[f]or the rate of plaintiff verdicts to be an accurate measure of the influence of a legal standard, of judicial or jury attitudes, or of the substantive fairness of any adjudicatory process, litigated disputes must be representative of the entire class of underlying disputes." 37 They emphatically are not.…”