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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 26 2012 @ 04:27 AM EDT |
He's quite clear on the matter - definitively no misconduct.
Not "I'm not aware of any misconduct", or waiting to hear
what the allegations are, or how they involve him.
If I were in that situation, I'd certainly hedge more until
I found out what it was that was alleged, simply because the
process and case were so complex, and I might be unaware of
something I or other jurors may done wrong. Especially if
I'd rushed the case to the point where it was apparent I
couldn't have read and understood the instructions.
It seems a pattern is being reinforced of someone who speaks
authoritatively on matters he has little understanding of,
which would explain some of the more glaring and public
errors, and would go a long way towards explaining how he
(according to his own reports) swung the jury.
I wonder if anything else will show up about this that isn't
publicly known.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: dobbo on Wednesday, September 26 2012 @ 08:27 AM EDT |
I must say that I find all this talk damning Hogan to be
very unsettling.
Sure, the guy didn't do his job properly,
but that is no reason to pin the poor
guy to a wall.
Firstly, during the jury selection it was the Court that
failed to ask Hogan if he had any other examples of
litigation that were
relevant to the case. Should Hogan
have interrupted the Judge when she moved
on? Of course
not. The Court has absolute power in that arena - and as we
have seen here one can be thrown out for just tapping a
laptop keyboard to
loudly.
Second, how could the jury system work if mistakes made
by
jurors were punished? I'm not taking of illegal actions,
I'm talking about
mistakes, misinterpretation, not getting
it. As PJ has said, the law is complex
and you need an
expert to navigate it.
Yes, Hogan stated that he could
put
his "expert" knowledge to one side and then showed that he
didn't. But
eleven other members of that jury had received
the exact same information from
the Court on how to act
and they all didn't see Hogan's mistake.
Should
they be prosecuted too? Surely they are just as
guilty; if you see someone
commit murder and do not report
it your an accessory after the fact. IANAL,
but it seams
reasonable to assume that it applies for all illegal acts.
And
even if it is only applicable to criminal law perjury is
a criminal
act.
So if Hogan is prosecuted (whether he is found guilty or
not)
one's course is clear. If you are called to do jury
service then you must
claim, at the very least, that you
read Groklaw and that you have read lawyers
and others
opinions on the law and how it is applied and that you are
sure
that you can not put that to one side and decided just
on what the Court tells
you. That way if you do make a
mistake during deliberation you have a defense:
You claimed
you could do the job and you were right, it was the Judge's
mistake for keeping you on the jury.
So Hogan made a mistake, but he
made it innocently. As
Judge
Koh said, you are supposed to bring your real
life
experiences
to bear. For us non-lawyers how are we to know where "real
life"
ends and the law begins. Sure the system is imperfect, sure
it
will
make mistakes from time to time. But there are
procedures
for correcting
those mistakes. And the system, however
imperfect, is better than what when
before it: trial by
combat
and trail by ordeal! [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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