To view this email online, paste this link into your browser:
[link removed]





Three Link Thursday!

Hello John,

It's been a busy week with a couple of high profile trials going through jury selection, some of which is viewable online. I am turning what I'm learning from those as quickly as I can into resources to prep people to be ready if they get called for jury duty. So I will get straight into links!

1

Lessons from Real Jury Trials ([link removed])

Did I mention that I've been watching parts of a couple of jury trials currently in progress? One is the trial of Travis and Greg McMichael and William Bryan for the death of Ahmaud Arbery. The other is the capital trial of Markeith Loyd for the death of a police officer, with a possible death penalty on the line.

Please remember that the Fully Informed Jury Association takes no position on what should be the outcome of any case in progress. What we are concerned with here is the process, so the subject matter of the trials isn't my focus.

Rather, I am watching these trials to see what we can learn about processes related to the jury that will help prospective jurors (like you and me!) better prepare for jury duty, actually get on juries, and serve conscientiously as fully informed jurors. I've written up a number of my observations on FIJA's Fully Informed newsletter on Substack, and I expect to share more like this from time to time. 

2

Oral Arguments in Picard v. Magliano ([link removed])

The link above may look like nothing special if you are clicking it around when I send this email. But come Monday, 25 October at 10 AM Eastern/7 AM Pacific ([link removed]) this link will have a live broadcast of oral arguments in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Picard v. Magliano. (If you open the tab now and leave it open, you may have to refresh the page at the appointed time to access the livestream.)

Though this case did not feature FIJA's brochures in particular, it is a free speech case of great importance to our juror outreach work outside of courthouses. In December of 2017, Michael Picard was arrested outside of the Bronx Hall of Justice for general juror rights education (holding a sign and handing out flyers) within 200 feet of the courthouse. He was not prosecuted, ostensibly because police did not measure and record how far he was from the courthouse.

Equally or more likely, in my opinion, is that the prosecutor knows the statute on its face and/or as applied to general juror righs education as Picard was conducting is unconstitutional. Though there is no criminal case in play, Picard fears he can be similarly accosted should he conduct such outreach again and filed a civil lawsuit seeking an injunction.

The government officials who are being sued are seeking to have this lawsuit dismissed. So far Picard has won in the U.S. District Court ([link removed]) for the Southern District of New York with a ruling from Judge Denise Cote denying the defendants' motion to dismiss. They have appealed that ruling, and the matter will now be heard in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

3

Jury Rigging in Texas ([link removed])

I mean it looks like juries may have actually been rigged—as in fraudulently manipulated—in one county in Texas. 

District clerk Rhona Barchak in Brazoria County, Texas, reportedly retired the day after her—let us say "unique"—system for jury selection became widely known ([link removed]). It seems that she and others under her direction may have been physically stacking cards turned in by jurors in four piles separated by who lived in the county's largest city and who didn't, and then again into white and non-white jurors. Then from these four piles, juries were apparently assembled rather than random jury selection as called for by law.

This reportedly came to light during the pandemic when this process moved out of a locked room in the courthouse into a gymnasium where social distancing could be maintained but with less privacy.

It now looks like hundreds of jury trials may be called into question. The link above is to a detailed article on the situation as well as the first request for a new trial by someone whose jury was likely assembled via this apparently illegal process. That person's motion for a new trial was denied in the first court it was heard, but they have now appealed to Texas' First Court of Appeals. I'll be keeping a close eye on this one and will update you as the situation unfolds.

As I am once again getting this out technically under the wire, I will wish you a good evening if you are reading this now, a good morning if you're opening it first thing tomorrow, and a good weekend to all! 

For Liberty, Justice, and Peace in Our Lifetimes,

Executive Director
Fully Informed Jury Association





P.O. Box 5570 | Helena, MT 59858 US

This email was sent to [email protected].
To ensure that you continue receiving our emails,
please add us to your address book or safe list.

manage your preferences ([link removed])
opt out ([link removed]) using TrueRemove(r).

Got this as a forward? Sign up ([link removed]) to receive our future emails.