Larry Hickey: Defending A Disparity Of Force Shooting In Court

[quatin]

One simply cannot devise a "bias" test before knowing what kind of case the jury will try.

I don't think you understand what I meant. All the jurors gather in the waiting room to be assigned to a judge. There's maybe a dozen or so judges at the courthouse. While they prepare for the case and file settlements, we wait, often a couple hours. When we are assigned to a judge, we get questionnaires, which we fill out and wait some more before being sent to the courtroom. My point is, while we were waiting in the main pool, we had plenty of time to fill out the questionnaires for all the cases instead of stare at the wall.

Well, consider that when a gun guy shoots at unarmed women, he starts off at a disadvantage when it comes to a defense of justification. Compound that with the fact that the investigation started off disadvantageously for the shooter, and add the evidentiary problems citied in the article. With the exception of participation of the lawyer, who should have been excluded, I do not see any reason to believe that Hickey's case was harmed by the jury selection process.

Despite the problems with the investigation, all the evidence was presented at trial, except for what the judge didn't allow. The "Jury Hung Again" section of the article discussed the exact circumstance I oppose. Forcing people who didn't want to serve on a jury to serve on a jury.

 

[Frank Ettin]

....All the jurors gather in the waiting room to be assigned to a judge. There's maybe a dozen or so judges at the courthouse. While they prepare for the case and file settlements, we wait, often a couple hours. When we are assigned to a judge, we get questionnaires, which we fill out and wait some more before being sent to the courtroom. My point is, while we were waiting in the main pool, we had plenty of time to fill out the questionnaires for all the cases instead of stare at the wall....

So you'd rather waste your time filling out a bunch of questionnaires for cases you're ultimately not going to called for than simply sit and read a good book while waiting? I sure wouldn't.

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by quatin: I don't think you understand what I meant. All the jurors gather in the waiting room to be assigned to a judge. There's maybe a dozen or so judges at the courthouse. While they prepare for the case and file settlements, we wait, often a couple hours. When we are assigned to a judge, we get questionnaires, which we fill out and wait some more before being sent to the courtroom. My point is, while we were waiting in the main pool, we had plenty of time to fill out the questionnaires for all the cases instead of stare at the wall.

I still do not understand what you are getting at.

Are you suggesting that the attorneys for every trial on the docket prepare tailored questionnaires for their respective trials that everyone who has been called for jury duty would have to respond to?

You have mentioned the idea of conducting this "test... before people are entered into the jury pool". Under your proposal, would everyone who answered a question in such a way that would cause an attorney to eliminate that person from a particular trial jury be eliminated from the pool in advance and prevented from serving on a jury for any trial on the docket?

I would not want a jury by which I would be tried to be selected based solely to the ay they responded to a questionnaire. That would be fine for eliminating persons who are not legally qualified, but not for evaluating possible bias as it would related to a particular case.

The "Jury Hung Again" section of the article discussed the exact circumstance I oppose. Forcing people who didn't want to serve on a jury to serve on a jury.

You are apparently referring to this:

...the jury included a mix of retired folks and citizens who Hayes characterizes as being “antsy, because they just wanted to get back to their jobs.”

I might suggest that that would describe most juries, everywhere. Are you suggesting that fair trials could be conducted if all juries were comprised of people who do not have jobs? There is a reason that it is called jury duty.

I do not think that having people on the jury who were employed contributed to Hickey's problems. Rather, as this booklet describes, the disparity of force argument can be a very difficult one. In Hickey's case, his previous role as a firearms instructor, together with some of the course material (such as notes saying "always cheat; always win,” and "treat every one else in a polite manner while simultaneously having a plan to kill them") could be used to try to persuade jurors that he was likely predisposed to the use of a firearm on the street, and the fact that he fired at unarmed women surely didn't help.

If there is anything related to the composition of the jury that may have helped to prevent Hickey's acquittal, I think it was the presence on the second jury of an attorney who did not believe that disparity of force could justify the use of deadly force against unarmed attackers. One can assume that his credibility as an attorney likely influenced some of the other jurors to accept that argument.

 

[quatin]

I still do not understand what you are getting at.

Are you suggesting that the attorneys for every trial on the docket prepare tailored questionnaires for their respective trials that everyone who has been called for jury duty would have to respond to?

You have mentioned the idea of conducting this "test... before people are entered into the jury pool". Under your proposal, would everyone who answered a question in such a way that would cause an attorney to eliminate that person from a particular trial jury be eliminated from the pool in advance and prevented from serving on a jury for any trial on the docket?

I would not want a jury by which I would be tried to be selected based solely to the ay they responded to a questionnaire. That would be fine for eliminating persons who are not legally qualified, but not for evaluating possible bias as it would related to a particular case.

The elimination is being done based on the questionnaire anyways or else why are we filing them out? It's rather obvious when they ask, "Have you have been a victim of sexual assault?" what they're trying to get at. Instead of elimination the juror in the court room, they could eliminate the juror before the pool and let him/her serve on another jury.

I might suggest that that would describe most juries, everywhere. Are you suggesting that fair trials could be conducted if all juries were comprised of people who do not have jobs? There is a reason that it is called jury duty.

If both juries were the same, he wouldn't have made it a point to make that statement. Few people like jury duty, but then there are those who really don't want to serve. I believe that's what he was referring to about the second jury. It might have been a group of wage workers, who aren't getting paid while they serve. It's a different for someone who gets their salary, but doesn't like getting up a half hour earlier. Point being, it made enough of an impact such that he explicitly made the statement that the jury was antsy.

 

[TexasRifleman]

Well we're into debating jury selection issues, and as interesting as those might be they are not really anything you can plan a strategy around.

There have been some very good discussion points brought up here, and a LOT to think about as we try to apply any lessons learned from this case to our own potential self defense situations.

Since that seems to be wrapped up, we'll call this one done.