Did the Judge believe that we were actually going to decide the case based on all the stuff he told us to do, or does he know that most jurors don't care about all the due process crap? In modern jurisprudence, shouldn't you have to be trained to make these sorts of decisions?
I have a relative who was a fairly high-level judge, and as a consequence have gotten to casually question a couple about issues like this.
They know. Oh god, do they ever know.
But they also know that allowances for that kind of thing are built into the system. There are appeals, there are hung juries, there is the unanimous requirement (in criminal trials anyway.)
Well, the more charges you tack on the greater the risk that any individual charge results in a hung jury for the lot.
But in reality, it sound here like what happens is whoever is holding out on that charge will likely eventually roll and go with the majority.
It's a balance. You're supposed to group those things together which can reasonably be tried and proven together, as a single "case." If this 7th felony count (actually it was the 6th of 7) had been tried separately, it is very unlikely it would have gone guilty. Or, at the least, the DA would have to submit all the same evidence that was submitted on the other 6 charges in order to convince a jury to convict on the very weak evidence that was realted to the 7th.
However, like I said, we got a sense that this guy also had charges against him for burglary, obstruction of justice, and other stuff not in this case. Had all of that been lumped in, there is an even greater chance of a jury getting hung, or getting lost and voting NG on charges.
Just to be clear, we can decide guilty on some charges and not guilty on others. In fact, the spec tree on our decision also included additional charges that we would need to deliberate on in any case where NG was determined on one of the main charges. It's just that we must have a unanimous G or NG on each item before we can turn any of them into the clerk and the judge can begin sentencing.
that is weird, in my state, jury can hang on some counts and not others
wonder what the national trend is
seems silly to declare a mistrial on all charges if you can't come to a verdict on one of them only
I am sorry about your experience. I went through the same thing on jury duty in a alleged rape case about 6 months ago. I still feel sick about the whole thing. We had a woman that was the very epitome of stereo typical super feminist womens college (either profressor or admin) whos arguement for his guilt being "he has a penis, therefore hes guilty".
It's amazing to me that someone had their phone on them to do that in your case. If you are found with a phone in the courthouse in my area, you are found contempt of court and put in jail(and I live in a very small redneck area). You empty your pockets at the door and walk through a metal detector, I am not saying its impossible to get one in, but they keep it for you if you try to walk in with it.
triple edit: the case was two people have sex. girl has boyfriend. afterwards boyfriend beats the shit out of guy because girl claims she was asleep during the whole thing and they had been drinking. 1-2 weeks later she decides to press charges. wouldnt give up her clothes to police for testing becuase she might not get 8$ walmart jeans back. It was shady, but there really wasn't any proof. It's obvious that if we werent in a rape case, we would be in an assault case for the boyfriend and 2 other people beating on the guy.
edit: In the end we hung. day one it was 8-4 innocent/guilty, the next time we walked in day 2 it was 4-8 reversed, which surprised the hell out of me. we hung in the end, and there was 0 evidence in the case but testimony, all the characters involved shady. So I doubt itill get retried.
double edit: dont know if it actually works this way in other places, but I was a "Im too smart to actually sit on a case" kind of person, then I noticed that they basically only called enough to hear the case that we went in and sat on.
If the mob boss on trial wants to target the jurors, he won't do it by watching them on video and then trying to figure out their identities by looking at their faces. He'll just bribe the court clerk to hand over a copy of the juror roll, complete with name, address, phone number - the works. The court bureaucracy already knows the specific identities of the jurors, and is much easier for the mob to penetrate.
It's actually even easier than this. Just have someone tail the jurors as they walk from the courtroom to their cars. The mob probably has access to someone who can look up your license plate information, or in the worst case they could just tail you all the way home. Now with GPS transponders, they could just make a note of what car you were driving, and the next day simply bug your car.
While I can see why jurors might be expected to eschew contact with the outside world in some cases, I'd say we're past the point where we can completely sequester a jury for any reason and should probably just rethink that whole aspect of the system. I really can't see how juries having access to an internet's worth of information during a trial can be anything but a net positive: more information would almost always seem to, in this day and age, favor the accused, especially when a lax defense attorney or uninterested public defender is involved.
While I can see why jurors might be expected to eschew contact with the outside world in some cases, I'd say we're past the point where we can completely sequester a jury for any reason and should probably just rethink that whole aspect of the system. I really can't see how juries having access to an internet's worth of information during a trial can be anything but a net positive: more information would almost always seem to, in this day and age, favor the accused, especially when a lax defense attorney or uninterested public defender is involved.
evidence is often deemed inadmissible if the police fail to follow proper procedure.
Information that may effect the Jury but doesn't have anything to do with the case is often left out.
These are both very good things that should not stop.
Its not hard to keep people from the internet. Deny them their phones and computers.
This is part of what needs to be reconsidered IMO: I don't at all disagree with what you say of course but it's hard to reconcile the way we do things now with the idea that more and more widespread knowledge is pretty much unanimously a good thing, especially when justice is on the line. Juries digging up excluded evidence may not be good for the system (or society) but it is good for justice in the individual case, although that isn't what I had in mind.
Excluded evidence is excluded for a reason. Juries should NEVER be allowed to dig up outside information. if there's outside information either side should know about it, or it can't be admitted for a HUGE variety of legal reasons that most jurors do not know.
At it's most basic: (Assuming federal here, and most states have this rule too) Fed Rule of Evi 403: Judges are to weigh every piece of evidence's probative value vs its prejudicial value to the other side. If this were an assault case and something is majorly prejudicial, such as previously convicted of murder, but not really probative, it just proves he is willing to attack people, it gets excluded, even though it would be useful.
Juror should not have the right to choose what extra evidence they want to look at.
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
I was selected for state grand jury duty. It was six weeks long. THANK FUCKING GOD the jury I lucked into was a five minute drive from my parent's house and the clerk told us which days she needed us.
I would up actually going about 12 times over six weeks. Also, my company has an infinite jury duty, we'll keep paying you policy.
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
I've been summoned twice and it just ended up with me sitting in a waiting room for 10 hours only to be sent home with nothing to show for.
I was selected for state grand jury duty. It was six weeks long. THANK FUCKING GOD the jury I lucked into was a five minute drive from my parent's house and the clerk told us which days she needed us.
I would up actually going about 12 times over six weeks. Also, my company has an infinite jury duty, we'll keep paying you policy.
that's really nice. a big problem with jury duty is it causes people to lose work and they don't get properly compensated.
Although it is generally considered magically confidential, a few different cases and reports have given insight to how a typical jury deliberates
it is a terrifying thing, and Yar's experience with it is unique only that he has the (not particularly uncommon) benefit of dealing with someone who is at least guilty of something. "Well, the store owner says they had a gun and the defense says they didn't and why would the store owner lie? Obviously they just found someplace really clever to hide the gun and avoided showing it on cameras, they had guns. Guilty!"
My most recent direct experience with a jury included a juror in a sexual assault case who used the opposite reasoning to what I alluded to earlier in the thread. He wanted to find the defendant not-guilty - even though he believed that the accused committed the crime, he felt like the victim was "arrogant" and "deserved it."
And yes it was supposed to be super-duper-confidential, so it's not really a matter of public record, which makes it extra frustrating.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Despite my cynicism, I would certainly like to do my civic duty, given the chance, if for no other reason than I know that I would take it seriously and decide on a verdict that the defendant truly is deserving of, given the evidence presented. But that probably just means I'd be weeded out of the selection process after answering their questions honestly, eh?
I've been called a few times, served once. It was...terrifying. DUI case, we're in the first section of jury selection. The judge asks: "There has been no evidence presented. As of right now, who would find the defendant guilty?"
Every. Single. Fucking. Person. Raised their hands. Except for me.
I think about half of them were trying to get out of it. A lot of the rest were shooting me dirty looks until the judge cut in with a "You're all wrong except for that guy" kind of remark.
The actual case was much more mundane. The defendant was really stupid. She might have gotten away with it if she'd kept her mouth shut (there was some doubt, she removed it with her own testimony).
This is part of what needs to be reconsidered IMO: I don't at all disagree with what you say of course but it's hard to reconcile the way we do things now with the idea that more and more widespread knowledge is pretty much unanimously a good thing, especially when justice is on the line. Juries digging up excluded evidence may not be good for the system (or society) but it is good for justice in the individual case, although that isn't what I had in mind.
Yes, if I were on trial, I cannot think of anything I would desire more than Joe Dittohead telling everyone in the jury room what Fox News thinks about the case.
The only question I have is whether a failure to reach a verdict on one count would affect the guilty verdict on the others...I'm assuming not, though that would change matters a bit.
We had to be unanimous on all counts before we could turn in any decision.
Wait, so you can't deadlock on a single charge, but convict on the rest? This seems absurd, and if so it needs to be fixed.
No, it doesn't - that's the safeguard against the DA throwing the kitchen sink, in theory.
Except that as we've seen here, it...doesn't work? As a society, we seem to lump people (erroneously) into "good people" and "criminals," and once you're a criminal we don't really feel too bad tossing a couple extra years your way if you were guilty of most of that shit.
Isn't this compensated for by the fact most criminals end up serving half their sentence (well in the UK at least). Face it, our whole system is completely fucked.
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
I took a lot of criminal justice classes in college. The professor was fond of talking about how studies show that "beyond a reasonable doubt" translates to what people would otherwise describe as "about 70% sure".
That whole Casey Anthony thing annoyed the piss out of me because all these people on the news were like she's guilty send her to jail rah rah rah.
Like, those are the kind of people who get on juries. I Don't want any part of that and hope I'm never on the receiving end of that. Especially the way people just ate up what that paula dumbfuck lady kept telling them.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
This week's This American Life (Last Man Standing) has a juror's experience for the first chapter. It mirrors the OP's experience so closely as to be creepy.
Yeah from what I understand smartphones are playing hell on the system. Juror #7 googles the case and it's a mistrial.
Yeah, eventually the bailiff came in and grabbed all our phones and said the judge threatened to fire her for forgetting again. But it made me mad. Two jurors were going mad on their phones, experimenting with things and looking up things and basically trying to make the case that the DA didn't make. No one but me realized why this was a problem.
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
I was selected for state grand jury duty. It was six weeks long. THANK FUCKING GOD the jury I lucked into was a five minute drive from my parent's house and the clerk told us which days she needed us.
I would up actually going about 12 times over six weeks. Also, my company has an infinite jury duty, we'll keep paying you policy.
that's really nice. a big problem with jury duty is it causes people to lose work and they don't get properly compensated.
Yeah, I avoided jury duty for 6 years because my employers had the "civic duty? FUCK YOU" mindset.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
My dad was jury foreman on a civil trial once, and it convinced him of the complete brokenness of the legal system.
A woman had had a hysterectomy at a local hospital, and about a week later started feeling strange and uncomfortable, so she called her general doctor. Her doctor said there was little he could do since it wasn't his surgery, so he advised her to go to the ER at the hospital she had the surgery at.
There, the ER assured her that nothing was wrong, but only ran cursory blood and urine tests, and encouraged her to finish her antibiotics and gave her some more narcotic pain pills.
Two days later, she was feeling worse and had increasing abdominal pain, so she went back to the same ER. They did no tests and told her that the narcotics they gave her previously probably made her constipated. They sent her home with laxatives.
The next day she felt even worse and went back to the ER again. At this point, they sent her for a psychiatric evaluation to counsel her on "wandering womb" syndrome and other psychological effects that can stem from having your reproductive organs removed. At this, she was furious and left the hospital and made an appointment with her regular doctor, who sent her to an imaging center to get a CT scan of her abdomen.
And you know what they found? Nine sponges and a surgical tool! Still in her belly! From the hysterectomy! Nine!
So my dad thinks this is a pretty open and shut case of guilt and responsibility on the part of the hospital, and thinks the plaintiff's demand of $1 million + legal fees + hospital bills is a reasonable demand. After all, the woman missed about 6 months of work during this time and had to undergo a second operation to remove all the leftover hardware from the first botched surgery.
He couldn't get the rest of the jury on board, and they finally settled for a drastically reduced reparation. Among opposing arguments he heard from fellow jurors:
"When you go to a hospital, you're putting your life in your own hands. Anything that happens is your fault."
"A similar thing happened to me, and I didn't ask for money."
"Pain is just part of life you have to deal with. Not making a big fuss about it is a sign of maturity, and this lady obviously isn't very mature."
"You can't expect doctors to be miracle workers."
"If we give this award to this woman, every woman who gets an operation will start suing the hospital and pretty soon the hospital will go out of business."
I have been called twice, once I was actually empaneled, but then the DA used one of his peremptory strikes to remove me from the jury. I think it was because it was a DUI case for a 22 year old college student and I was a 20 year old college student at the time. The second time, I just waited around for 2 hours and then went home. Though now, as an attorney, people have told me that I will never be selected for a jury because attorneys involved in the case will use a peremptory strike to get me off the jury. This is supposedly because the jury will respect my opinion more owing to my legal knowledge. I have no idea if it is true, but there you go.
He couldn't get the rest of the jury on board, and they finally settled for a drastically reduced reparation. Among opposing arguments he heard from fellow jurors:
"When you go to a hospital, you're putting your life in your own hands. Anything that happens is your fault."
"A similar thing happened to me, and I didn't ask for money."
"Pain is just part of life you have to deal with. Not making a big fuss about it is a sign of maturity, and this lady obviously isn't very mature."
"You can't expect doctors to be miracle workers."
"If we give this award to this woman, every woman who gets an operation will start suing the hospital and pretty soon the hospital will go out of business."
What the fuck.
That's not even "pain" that's straight up negligence.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
The defendant was really stupid. She might have gotten away with it if she'd kept her mouth shut (there was some doubt, she removed it with her own testimony).
This basically led to a guilty verdict on the trial I was in. If the dude didn't say anything, he would probably have been free. But he had to speak and lie/forget about hard evidence that was already presented.
My dad was jury foreman on a civil trial once, and it convinced him of the complete brokenness of the legal system.
A woman had had a hysterectomy at a local hospital, and about a week later started feeling strange and uncomfortable, so she called her general doctor. Her doctor said there was little he could do since it wasn't his surgery, so he advised her to go to the ER at the hospital she had the surgery at.
There, the ER assured her that nothing was wrong, but only ran cursory blood and urine tests, and encouraged her to finish her antibiotics and gave her some more narcotic pain pills.
Two days later, she was feeling worse and had increasing abdominal pain, so she went back to the same ER. They did no tests and told her that the narcotics they gave her previously probably made her constipated. They sent her home with laxatives.
The next day she felt even worse and went back to the ER again. At this point, they sent her for a psychiatric evaluation to counsel her on "wandering womb" syndrome and other psychological effects that can stem from having your reproductive organs removed. At this, she was furious and left the hospital and made an appointment with her regular doctor, who sent her to an imaging center to get a CT scan of her abdomen.
And you know what they found? Nine sponges and a surgical tool! Still in her belly! From the hysterectomy! Nine!
So my dad thinks this is a pretty open and shut case of guilt and responsibility on the part of the hospital, and thinks the plaintiff's demand of $1 million + legal fees + hospital bills is a reasonable demand. After all, the woman missed about 6 months of work during this time and had to undergo a second operation to remove all the leftover hardware from the first botched surgery.
He couldn't get the rest of the jury on board, and they finally settled for a drastically reduced reparation. Among opposing arguments he heard from fellow jurors:
"When you go to a hospital, you're putting your life in your own hands. Anything that happens is your fault."
"A similar thing happened to me, and I didn't ask for money."
"Pain is just part of life you have to deal with. Not making a big fuss about it is a sign of maturity, and this lady obviously isn't very mature."
"You can't expect doctors to be miracle workers."
"If we give this award to this woman, every woman who gets an operation will start suing the hospital and pretty soon the hospital will go out of business."
Well to be frank $1million is pretty excessive. And people suing Hospitals for everything they can get every time a mistake is made are contributing to the fact hospitals are under staffed and under equipped. Not to say that she wasn't entitled to her costs being paid and some compensation for stress involved but I think she may have lost the jurors sympathy (and mine) somewhat because she was taking the piss with the amount of money she asked for.
My dad was jury foreman on a civil trial once, and it convinced him of the complete brokenness of the legal system.
A woman had had a hysterectomy at a local hospital, and about a week later started feeling strange and uncomfortable, so she called her general doctor. Her doctor said there was little he could do since it wasn't his surgery, so he advised her to go to the ER at the hospital she had the surgery at.
There, the ER assured her that nothing was wrong, but only ran cursory blood and urine tests, and encouraged her to finish her antibiotics and gave her some more narcotic pain pills.
Two days later, she was feeling worse and had increasing abdominal pain, so she went back to the same ER. They did no tests and told her that the narcotics they gave her previously probably made her constipated. They sent her home with laxatives.
The next day she felt even worse and went back to the ER again. At this point, they sent her for a psychiatric evaluation to counsel her on "wandering womb" syndrome and other psychological effects that can stem from having your reproductive organs removed. At this, she was furious and left the hospital and made an appointment with her regular doctor, who sent her to an imaging center to get a CT scan of her abdomen.
And you know what they found? Nine sponges and a surgical tool! Still in her belly! From the hysterectomy! Nine!
So my dad thinks this is a pretty open and shut case of guilt and responsibility on the part of the hospital, and thinks the plaintiff's demand of $1 million + legal fees + hospital bills is a reasonable demand. After all, the woman missed about 6 months of work during this time and had to undergo a second operation to remove all the leftover hardware from the first botched surgery.
He couldn't get the rest of the jury on board, and they finally settled for a drastically reduced reparation. Among opposing arguments he heard from fellow jurors:
"When you go to a hospital, you're putting your life in your own hands. Anything that happens is your fault."
"A similar thing happened to me, and I didn't ask for money."
"Pain is just part of life you have to deal with. Not making a big fuss about it is a sign of maturity, and this lady obviously isn't very mature."
"You can't expect doctors to be miracle workers."
"If we give this award to this woman, every woman who gets an operation will start suing the hospital and pretty soon the hospital will go out of business."
Well to be frank $1million is pretty excessive. And people suing Hospitals for everything they can get every time a mistake is made are contributing to the fact hospitals are under staffed and under equipped. Not to say that she wasn't entitled to her costs being paid and some compensation for stress involved but I think she may have lost the jurors sympathy (and mine) somewhat because she was taking the piss with the amount of money she asked for.
If a hospital put me through six months of misery and sent me to a fucking psychiatrist instead of actually, you know, figuring out what the fuck is wrong, I'd be asking for a lot more than a fucking million dollars. And I'd fucking deserve it.
Judges and lawyers will frequently get cut in jury selection, by whichever side knows that they don't fully have the law on their side.
Judges and lawyers will frequently get cut by both sides in jury selection. Not because the law isn't on their side, but because what they think isn't predictable, and they can practically decide the case by themselves (the other jurors will usually do whatever they say).
Yeah we're talking 6 months of lost work here, countless medical bills, psychiatric evaluations instead of doing a CT test like they should've. She should've sued the doctors too instead of just the hospital, you sue everyone.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Judges and lawyers will frequently get cut in jury selection, by whichever side knows that they don't fully have the law on their side.
Judges and lawyers will frequently get cut by both sides in jury selection. Not because the law isn't on their side, but because what they think isn't predictable, and they can practically decide the case by themselves (the other jurors will usually do whatever they say).
If that were true, then there would be no rationale to cut or not to cut.
I loathe this type of reasoning. It's dysfunctional and irrational.
It's not reasoning, so much as a defense of "too bad for you, you shouldn't have went to the hospital." It exists specifically because doctors are people and make mistakes, but sometimes they're just negligent. If life was all happy and sunshine no one would need insurance ever.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Yeah we're talking 6 months of lost work here, countless medical bills, psychiatric evaluations instead of doing a CT test like they should've. She should've sued the doctors too instead of just the hospital, you sue everyone.
Oh, it was a grouped suit against the hospital and the doctors' group.
Considering no collateral damage over a 6 month period from negligence, 1 million is pretty minimal. That's why they have malpractice insurance.
Especially considering that the plaintiff probably sees 50% or so of a settlement go toward lawyers and court fees, and then another 39% to taxes, that million dollar settlement quickly becomes a quarter-million dollar settlement.
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not in Oregon and Louisiana
that is weird, in my state, jury can hang on some counts and not others
wonder what the national trend is
seems silly to declare a mistrial on all charges if you can't come to a verdict on one of them only
It's amazing to me that someone had their phone on them to do that in your case. If you are found with a phone in the courthouse in my area, you are found contempt of court and put in jail(and I live in a very small redneck area). You empty your pockets at the door and walk through a metal detector, I am not saying its impossible to get one in, but they keep it for you if you try to walk in with it.
triple edit: the case was two people have sex. girl has boyfriend. afterwards boyfriend beats the shit out of guy because girl claims she was asleep during the whole thing and they had been drinking. 1-2 weeks later she decides to press charges. wouldnt give up her clothes to police for testing becuase she might not get 8$ walmart jeans back. It was shady, but there really wasn't any proof. It's obvious that if we werent in a rape case, we would be in an assault case for the boyfriend and 2 other people beating on the guy.
edit: In the end we hung. day one it was 8-4 innocent/guilty, the next time we walked in day 2 it was 4-8 reversed, which surprised the hell out of me. we hung in the end, and there was 0 evidence in the case but testimony, all the characters involved shady. So I doubt itill get retried.
double edit: dont know if it actually works this way in other places, but I was a "Im too smart to actually sit on a case" kind of person, then I noticed that they basically only called enough to hear the case that we went in and sat on.
evidence is often deemed inadmissible if the police fail to follow proper procedure.
Information that may effect the Jury but doesn't have anything to do with the case is often left out.
These are both very good things that should not stop.
Its not hard to keep people from the internet. Deny them their phones and computers.
At it's most basic: (Assuming federal here, and most states have this rule too) Fed Rule of Evi 403: Judges are to weigh every piece of evidence's probative value vs its prejudicial value to the other side. If this were an assault case and something is majorly prejudicial, such as previously convicted of murder, but not really probative, it just proves he is willing to attack people, it gets excluded, even though it would be useful.
Juror should not have the right to choose what extra evidence they want to look at.
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I would up actually going about 12 times over six weeks. Also, my company has an infinite jury duty, we'll keep paying you policy.
that's really nice. a big problem with jury duty is it causes people to lose work and they don't get properly compensated.
My most recent direct experience with a jury included a juror in a sexual assault case who used the opposite reasoning to what I alluded to earlier in the thread. He wanted to find the defendant not-guilty - even though he believed that the accused committed the crime, he felt like the victim was "arrogant" and "deserved it."
And yes it was supposed to be super-duper-confidential, so it's not really a matter of public record, which makes it extra frustrating.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Every. Single. Fucking. Person. Raised their hands. Except for me.
I think about half of them were trying to get out of it. A lot of the rest were shooting me dirty looks until the judge cut in with a "You're all wrong except for that guy" kind of remark.
The actual case was much more mundane. The defendant was really stupid. She might have gotten away with it if she'd kept her mouth shut (there was some doubt, she removed it with her own testimony).
Isn't this compensated for by the fact most criminals end up serving half their sentence (well in the UK at least). Face it, our whole system is completely fucked.
That should terrify you.
Like, those are the kind of people who get on juries. I Don't want any part of that and hope I'm never on the receiving end of that. Especially the way people just ate up what that paula dumbfuck lady kept telling them.
Yeah, eventually the bailiff came in and grabbed all our phones and said the judge threatened to fire her for forgetting again. But it made me mad. Two jurors were going mad on their phones, experimenting with things and looking up things and basically trying to make the case that the DA didn't make. No one but me realized why this was a problem.
Yeah, I avoided jury duty for 6 years because my employers had the "civic duty? FUCK YOU" mindset.
A woman had had a hysterectomy at a local hospital, and about a week later started feeling strange and uncomfortable, so she called her general doctor. Her doctor said there was little he could do since it wasn't his surgery, so he advised her to go to the ER at the hospital she had the surgery at.
There, the ER assured her that nothing was wrong, but only ran cursory blood and urine tests, and encouraged her to finish her antibiotics and gave her some more narcotic pain pills.
Two days later, she was feeling worse and had increasing abdominal pain, so she went back to the same ER. They did no tests and told her that the narcotics they gave her previously probably made her constipated. They sent her home with laxatives.
The next day she felt even worse and went back to the ER again. At this point, they sent her for a psychiatric evaluation to counsel her on "wandering womb" syndrome and other psychological effects that can stem from having your reproductive organs removed. At this, she was furious and left the hospital and made an appointment with her regular doctor, who sent her to an imaging center to get a CT scan of her abdomen.
And you know what they found? Nine sponges and a surgical tool! Still in her belly! From the hysterectomy! Nine!
So my dad thinks this is a pretty open and shut case of guilt and responsibility on the part of the hospital, and thinks the plaintiff's demand of $1 million + legal fees + hospital bills is a reasonable demand. After all, the woman missed about 6 months of work during this time and had to undergo a second operation to remove all the leftover hardware from the first botched surgery.
He couldn't get the rest of the jury on board, and they finally settled for a drastically reduced reparation. Among opposing arguments he heard from fellow jurors:
"When you go to a hospital, you're putting your life in your own hands. Anything that happens is your fault."
"A similar thing happened to me, and I didn't ask for money."
"Pain is just part of life you have to deal with. Not making a big fuss about it is a sign of maturity, and this lady obviously isn't very mature."
"You can't expect doctors to be miracle workers."
"If we give this award to this woman, every woman who gets an operation will start suing the hospital and pretty soon the hospital will go out of business."
I have been called twice, once I was actually empaneled, but then the DA used one of his peremptory strikes to remove me from the jury. I think it was because it was a DUI case for a 22 year old college student and I was a 20 year old college student at the time. The second time, I just waited around for 2 hours and then went home. Though now, as an attorney, people have told me that I will never be selected for a jury because attorneys involved in the case will use a peremptory strike to get me off the jury. This is supposedly because the jury will respect my opinion more owing to my legal knowledge. I have no idea if it is true, but there you go.
What the fuck.
That's not even "pain" that's straight up negligence.
This basically led to a guilty verdict on the trial I was in. If the dude didn't say anything, he would probably have been free. But he had to speak and lie/forget about hard evidence that was already presented.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Well to be frank $1million is pretty excessive. And people suing Hospitals for everything they can get every time a mistake is made are contributing to the fact hospitals are under staffed and under equipped. Not to say that she wasn't entitled to her costs being paid and some compensation for stress involved but I think she may have lost the jurors sympathy (and mine) somewhat because she was taking the piss with the amount of money she asked for.
:rotate:
If that were true, then there would be no rationale to cut or not to cut.
How much would someone be required to pay you to put a scaple in your gut?
I loathe this type of reasoning. It's dysfunctional and irrational.
It's not reasoning, so much as a defense of "too bad for you, you shouldn't have went to the hospital." It exists specifically because doctors are people and make mistakes, but sometimes they're just negligent. If life was all happy and sunshine no one would need insurance ever.
Oh, it was a grouped suit against the hospital and the doctors' group.
3.5$ pre op and then 1.25$ per day. Extra 5$ if I manage to poop it out.
Especially considering that the plaintiff probably sees 50% or so of a settlement go toward lawyers and court fees, and then another 39% to taxes, that million dollar settlement quickly becomes a quarter-million dollar settlement.