Judge or Jury?

• Author: Kenneth P. Nolan
• Pages: 31-39

Judge or Jury?

31

Of course you want a jury: the sympathetic Joes who will in-

tently listen during your opening, dismiss with contempt your

adversary’s hired gun, cry real tears during your masterful closing,

and award you Lotto numbers in a verdict, making you rich, fa-

mous, and the subject of a cover profile in The ABA Journal.

Of course you hate juries. You represent the oil conglomerate

that inadvertently spilled just a bit of an all-natural hydrocarbon on

a beach no one ever used. Your client employs thousands, feeds

and clothes families, but only a judge understands. She’s seen it

before and will not yield to the phony plight of the damaged. Any

award she makes will be reasonable, somewhere in the ballpark.

In the parochial Brooklyn neighborhood where I was raised,

stereotypes were not seriously questioned. You were called politi-

cally incorrect names. You were where your family emigrated

from—good and bad. Behavior was explained by ethnic group.

Education and exposure changed that perception but did not eradi-

cate it. For instance, when I married Nancy Cirrito, the seating at

the wedding was easy. Her family was near the buffet, while mine

was near the bar.

It is the same for law. Stereotypes and received wisdom (or what

passes for wisdom) persist: In civil cases, plaintiffs want juries; de-

fendants do not. In criminal cases, the prosecution wants reliable