No notes for jurors

[CBL4]

Why aren't jurors allowed to take notes during trials?

When I first heard this, I thought it was a joke. As someone on NPR said, our legal system thinks the proper way to learn is to choose only ignorant students and then prevent them from taking notes, asking questions and doing research.

Apparently the bar association has recommended allowing note taking and it is now allowed at some trials.

CBL

 

[hgc]

I was under the impression that jurors are allowed to take notes, and often do. Where do you find that they are not?

 

[hgc]

Here's more info on that. There is a variety of rules, state to state, usually at the court's (judge's) discretion.

 

[aerocontrols]

I was under the impression that jurors are allowed to take notes, and often do. Where do you find that they are not?

My guess would be NPR, based on his post.

 

[Rob Lister]

Why aren't jurors allowed to take notes during trials?

When I first heard this, I thought it was a joke. As someone on NPR said, our legal system thinks the proper way to learn is to choose only ignorant students and then prevent them from taking notes, asking questions and doing research.

Apparently the bar association has recommended allowing note taking and it is now allowed at some trials.

CBL

The better question, given the evidence presented by hgc, is why are they not allowed to take notes in every case, every state?

Are there any legal implications of it? Such as the notes becoming part of the trial record? I can't imagine there would be but it may differ in other states. It could also 'get in the way' during small cases where the outcome is just not important enough [to the system] to make it worthwhile to explain the restrictions upon said note taking.

 

[Manny]

The thought behind prohibiting note taking is that they want the jurors in the room to have exactly equal access to information. If one guy took notes, a jury might be inclined to give him or her more deference than other jurors or to believe his notes rather than their own recollections, even to the point of not requesting testimony read-backs when it otherwise might be appropriate. Paradoxically, it was also proffered that a note-taker might miss important testimony or other probative evidence (looks on a testifer's face, for example) while in the act of taking notes.

As noted, this thinking is kind of falling by the wayside and an increasing number of jurisdictions are allowing jurors to take notes if they choose.

Here is a little ditty from the Delaware Bar Association which covers most of the major points.

 

[WildCat]

I once sat on a civil case jury, the sherrif' deputy passed out note pads and pencils so we could take notes.

 

[BillC]

I took notes when I served on a criminal jury.

They supplied us the most appalling short blunt pencils with tiny squares of cheap paper, as I recall.

 

[BPSCG]

When I first heard this, I thought it was a joke. As someone on NPR said, our legal system thinks the proper way to learn is to choose only ignorant students and then prevent them from taking notes, asking questions and doing research.

When the peremptory challenges were all exhausted, a jury of twelve men were impaneled—a jury who swore that they had neither heard, read, talked about nor expressed an opinion concerning a murder which the very cattle in the corrals, the Indians in the sagebrush and the stones in the street were cognizant of! The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty, and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury.

Mark Twain - Roughing It

 

[CBL4]

I heard of the rule in the one trial in which I was in the jury pool. I was rejected.

From Manny's link it appears that it was started when most people were illiterate. The assumption that the few literate people with notes would have greater say. This seems reasonable, not necessarily correct, but reasonable.

It seems to me that all the other arguments are bogus made by people who are scared of change. I am glad to see it is falling by the wayside.

CBL

 

[Skeptic]

The real reason juries are not allowed to take notes:


Lewis Carrol wrote:

The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates. `What are they doing?' Alice whispered to the Gryphon. `They can't have anything to put down yet, before the trial's begun.'

`They're putting down their names,' the Gryphon whispered in reply, `for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial.'

`Stupid things!' Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but she stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, `Silence in the court!' and the King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round, to make out who was talking.

Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down `stupid things!' on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them didn't know how to spell `stupid,' and that he had to ask his neighbour to tell him. `A nice muddle their slates'll be in before the trial's over!' thought Alice.

One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of course, Alice could not stand, and she went round the court and got behind him, and very soon found an opportunity of taking it away. She did it so quickly that the poor little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not make out at all what had become of it; so, after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to write with one finger for the rest of the day; and this was of very little use, as it left no mark on the slate.