In
my ongoing research of what jurors think and how they decide cases, I read
umpteen blogs, posts and articles authored by those who have served. Recently,
yet another article
appeared which pointed out to me the enduring “CSI effect,” and how lawyers
would do well to pay more attention to it.
Simply
put, the “CSI effect” is jurors’ over-riding, sometimes obsessive, need to
explore for themselves every bit of physical evidence in an attempt to come to
a fair and just decision. This is true whether the case at hand is civil or
criminal. Contracts are scrutinized, emails pored over and signatures examined
with the same zeal as skid marks and bloodstains.
In
the article referred to, jurors requested photos of the victim’s wounds and
examined them minutely. A mechanic among them categorically pronounced the
wounds as from a Torx screwdriver, despite the fact that apparently no such
screwdriver had been mentioned during the trial. The rest of the jurors seized
on this interpretation and what had been a stalemated jury with 8 finding
against defendant, and 4 equally adamantly finding defendant innocent, rapidly
became a unanimous “guilty” verdict.
What’s
the lesson here? That it’s up to you, the attorney, to look at your evidence
every which way and give a forceful, compelling, interpretation to your
evidence such that it cannot be re-interpreted in some unfavorable way by a
jury that examines the evidence with a keener eye than yours. Even when there
is no way for you or your experts to say with conviction “Here’s the smoking
gun!” offer the jurors the strongest probable interpretation that can be drawn
from the evidence. Leaving the interpretation up to the jurors is taking a
chance you can ill afford when you want to win.
