California Jury Pool Prefers New Plain-English Instructions, Survey Finds; Thirty-One Percent of Prospective Jurors Look Forward to Being Called to Duty.DAYTON, Ohio Dayton is a city in southwestern Ohio, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Montgomery County. As of the 2005 census estimate, the population of Dayton was 158,873. -- California's new plain-English jury instructions Jury instructions are the set of legal rules that jurors must follow when the jury is deciding a civil or criminal case. Jury instructions are given to the jury by the judge, who usually reads them aloud to the jury. are preferred by three out of four potential jurors, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a survey by the official publisher LexisNexis U.S., a leading provider of legal, news and business information services See Information Systems. . In an online survey conducted Oct. 26 - Nov. 3, California residents 18 and older found the new jury instructions are easier to understand, contain more familiar language and are overwhelmingly preferred to the instructions previously in use for 70 years. As official publisher, LexisNexis shipped copies of the new criminal jury instructions (CALCRIM) to attorneys in early November. The new instructions are already being adopted by courts across the state. "For centuries attorneys and judges have hid behind an impenetrable wall of words," said William Burton William Burton may refer to:
"The results of this survey show that it is possible to engage regular people in the law once you remove the barriers of stilted stilt·ed adj. 1. Stiffly or artificially formal; stiff. 2. Architecture Having some vertical length between the impost and the beginning of the curve. Used of an arch. , archaic legalese legalese - Dense, pedantic verbiage in a language description, product specification, or interface standard; text that seems designed to obfuscate and requires a language lawyer to parse it. ," Burton added. During the survey, potential jurors were asked to read compatible phrases from the old and new jury instructions and rate how easy they were to understand and if they contained familiar language. For example, "Innocent misrecollection is not uncommon," taken from the old instructions, was easily understood by 32 percent of respondents, while the new phrase, "People sometimes honestly forget things or make mistakes about what they remember," was easily understood by 70 percent of respondents and preferred over the other example by 87 percent. Similarly, this original jury instruction, "The law does not undertake to measure in units of time the length of the period during which the thought must be pondered before it can ripen rip·en tr. & intr.v. rip·ened, rip·en·ing, rip·ens To make or become ripe or riper; mature. See Synonyms at mature. rip into an intent to kill which is truly deliberate and premeditated pre·med·i·tat·ed adj. Characterized by deliberate purpose, previous consideration, and some degree of planning: a premeditated crime. ," was ranked easy to understand by 28 percent of respondents, while 13 percent said they didn't understand it at all. The new phrase, "The length of time the person spends considering whether to kill does not alone determine whether the killing is deliberate and premeditated," was completely understood by 51 percent, while only two percent said they couldn't comprehend it. The new jury instruction was preferred by 89 percent of potential jurors. Despite years of listening to phrases like malice aforethought A predetermination to commit an act without legal justification or excuse. A malicious design to injure. An intent, at the time of a killing, willfully to take the life of a human being, or an intent willfully to act in callous and wanton disregard of the consequences to and preponderance of evidence A standard of proof that must be met by a plaintiff if he or she is to win a civil action. In a civil case, the plaintiff has the burden of proving the facts and claims asserted in the complaint. , 31 percent of potential jurors still think it would be interesting to serve on a jury and look forward to being called. Others were either indifferent to jury duty (28 percent) or dreaded it but still view serving on a jury as a civic duty (26 percent). Only 13 percent said they dreaded jury duty and would do anything to avoid it. Thirty-seven percent said their perceptions of jury duty were based on previous experience. "California has taken an important step to improve the experience of serving as a juror juror n. any person who actually serves on a jury. Lists of potential jurors are chosen from various sources such as registered voters, automobile registration or telephone directories. and ensure the laws of the state are properly applied," said Aaron Graham, vice president and managing director at LexisNexis. "As official publisher of both the civil and criminal jury instructions, we have seen firsthand from attorneys how important these new instructions are to delivering fair and well-considered verdicts."
Additional survey results:
-- Original jury instruction: A witness who is willfully false in
one material aspect of his or her testimony is to be
distrusted in others. Easy to understand - 36%. Preferred -
26%
New instruction: If you decide that a witness deliberately
lied about something important, you should consider not
believing anything that witness says. Easy to understand -
64%. Preferred - 74%
-- Original jury instruction: A cold, calculated judgment and
decision may be arrived at in a short period of time, but a
mere unconsidered and rash impulse, even though it includes an
intent to kill, is not deliberation and premeditation as will
fix an unlawful killing as murder of the first degree. Easy to
understand - 25%. Preferred - 29%
New instruction: A decision to kill made rashly, impulsively
or without careful consideration of the choice and its
consequences is not deliberate and premeditated. On the other
hand, a cold, calculated decision to kill can be reached
quickly. Easy to understand - 46%. Preferred - 71%
About the survey The online survey of 326 legal citizens of California was conducted Oct. 26 - Nov. 3, 2005. Respondents were screened to be eligible jurors -- 18 years or older and never convicted of a felony. About the Burton Awards The Burton Awards for Legal Achievement is a non-profit program run in association with the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Its annual awards program, now in its sixth year, recognizes attorneys and law students who use plain, clear and precise language in their writing. The Judicial Council of California won the 2003 Outstanding Reform in Law award for their initial work to revise the California civil jury instructions. http://www.burtonawards.com/ About LexisNexis LexisNexis(R) (www.lexisnexis.com) is a leader in comprehensive and authoritative legal, news and business information and tailored applications. A member of Reed Elsevier Group plc (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange : ENL Noun 1. ENL - an inflammatory complication of leprosy that results in painful skin lesions on the arms and legs and face erythema nodosum leprosum Hansen's disease, leprosy - chronic granulomatous communicable disease occurring in tropical and subtropical ; NYSE: RUK RUK Reserviupseerikoulu (Hamina, Finland, Reserve Officers' School) RUK Are You Kidding? ) (www.reedelsevier.com), the company does business in 100 countries with 13,000 employees worldwide. In addition to its flagship Web-based Lexis(R) and Nexis(R) research services, the company includes some of the world's most respected legal publishers such as Martindale-Hubbell, Matthew Bender, Butterworths, JurisClasseur, Abeledo-Perrot and Orac. In the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. , LexisNexis(R) (www.lexisnexis.com) offers its customers total practice solutions comprised of an extensive range of online and print legal, regulatory, news and business information products, tools, customized Web applications and critical filing services that help legal professionals grow their business, win cases and manage their practice. |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion