Jury duty problem: Attractive…but guilty?
Jury duty problem: Attractive…but guilty?
When a juror finds the defendant attractive, does this make it harder to be fair?
Writer’s note: This post was originally published on Medium’s “We Need to Talk” on October 18, 2022.
I was in a meeting when the guy next to me whispered a joke near my ear. I let out a loud laugh before I could stop myself. My boss at the time scowled at me and told the two of us we’d have to sit in different seats if we didn’t knock it off. I was startled by how mad my supervisor was at me for laughing — and that his threat felt like something I’d hear in an elementary school classroom.
The guy told another joke. I bit my lip to stifle my laugh. I couldn’t help myself. I was doing that thing people do when they’re too easily amused by someone they’re attracted to. As much as I hate to admit it, I know if another man made that same joke in the same tone and even with a similar voice, I’d have given him a blank stare and ignored him. Attractive people can get away with stuff that those who you’re not attracted to can’t, which makes it that much harder to pick jurors in a court of law.
Recommended Read: “The trial that I recalled from #TalkAboutBias ~ Why I’ll never complain about jury duty notices”
I thought about this recently when I heard the news that a juror was dismissed after accusations of flirting with an alleged kidnapper. In the Washington Post report, one of the three men who was accused of a kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer caught the eye of a juror. During two days of the trial, attorneys caught “non-verbal communication” between one of the defendants (24-year-old Paul Bellar) and a woman juror making repeated eye contact and smiling at each other.
“It didn’t just happen on one day — it happened over multiple days,” said Judge Thomas Wilson, according to ABC. “I decided it’s safer to err on the side of caution.”
The judge went on to say he’d never seen this kind of behavior in 35 years of practicing law, and the juror apparently understood his decision. Call me superficial, but I wanted to see what in the world Bellar looked like to be getting this kind of action during a criminal trial. I searched for him. Then I searched again. I searched a third time because I just didn’t get it. I kept looking for another person. Granted, kidnappers shouldn’t make a woman all giddy inside, but nothing about the man impressed me. I shrugged. To each her own.
Recommended Read: “Election Day: Here comes the judge … you don’t know ~ Don’t treat judge votes like the Scantron multiple choice test you didn’t study for”
I felt the same way when Netflix’s Jeffrey Dahmer documentary came out, and several gay men on Twitter admitted that they probably would’ve been suckered into going to his Wisconsin apartment. I was a child during the Dahmer killings, so I didn’t remember what the serial killer looked like. I searched for him. My reaction was the same as Bellar. To each his (or her) own.