Why Jury Experiences?
The jury system is a bulwark of civil liberty in the English-speaking world. Improving our empirical understanding of how that system functions is a worthy goal.
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Many of us serve on juries. Our experiences are often both extremely interesting and much different from what we expected. We emerge from our service with stories that we share with our families and friends. However, with the exception of notorious trials, and rare cases in which ex-jurors are interviewed for research purposes, most of these stories are eventually lost.
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The Internet provides an ideal medium for collecting and discussing our experiences. While there are numerous jury-related Web sites and, increasingly, blogs where individuals write about their jury service, few if any of these sites provide an open forum where ex-jurors and other interested people can discuss their experiences and exchange ideas.
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Jury Experiences is an attempt to create such a forum. By facilitating discussion about what really happens in jury rooms, court rooms and the jury selection process, in various courts and jurisdictions and especially from the juror's perspective, I hope to contribute to better understanding of our government and legal system by the public and legal specialists alike.
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About This Site
Jury Experiences is the work of one person. I am not a lawyer but have been blogging and observing the world of user-driven media for several years. I have also become interested in juries, particularly since I had a couple of jury experiences of my own (I wrote about one of them here). Those experiences were eye-opening. When I spoke with other people who had been trial jurors I routinely heard fascinating tales about the antics of defendants, quirky lawyers and the interpersonal dynamics of juries. It occurred to me that a Web site centered around juror narratives might be popular. Jury Experiences is the result of that idea.
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