Is &#39;You the Jury&#39; TV show really legal? Recently I saw an ad for a new reality TV show on FOX called "You the Jury". On Thursday, the network announced "You the Jury," a new prime-time, unscripted reality show that allows the audience to render a verdict in a civil case. Can this be real? Where anonymous people decide someone's fate in a civil case.
Civil cases are frequently decided by arbitration (a non-court process), so there's nothing particularly problematic here. Both parties have to agree to participate in the process, and one may (but need not) assume that there is a clause that the losing party has to live with the outcome. Odds are good that the parties are paid to participate, so there would be incentive to accept the verdict. One difference between this show (apparently) and a normal binding arbitration clause is that with the latter, this is part of the original contract which would state that all disputes must be resolved by such-and-such arbitration firm. Such verdicts are generally enforceable, unless there is some extreme impropriety (e.g. the defendant bribes the arbitration firm to flagrantly overlook the law). In the present case, torts as well as contracts can be the subject of a show, and the arbitration agreement would be separate from and after any underlying contract. A lot depends on the agreement that the show has participants sign. The Facebook-jury would, of course, not pass any form of scrutiny in a real court. So it is possible that afterwards, an unhappy party can press the case in real court, without prejudice.
Civil litigation involves general causes of action that are available to anyone, including both private parties and the government. Civil courts are designed primarily to provide restitution to the injured party. Criminal courts exist for governments to exercise their police powers: specific, limited authority held only by the government. The principal purposes of criminal law are...well, they're debated, but broadly speaking, it's to punish and/or rehabilitate the criminal and deter future criminals. Because criminal conviction can result in jail time and even the death penalty, there are more stringent procedural protections accorded to criminal defendants than there are to civil defendants. So when the government's goal is to recover damages, it's easier for them to use the less burdensoome civil procedures, just the same as anyone else would. Let me give you an example. Someone steals your identity and runs up $100,000 on your credit card. You call the police, and they find someone they think is the guy. To convict him, the police must convince an entire jury panel that he did it, beyond a reasonable doubt--a high standard. He pleads the fifth, and without his testimony, the police may not succeed. If they do, he will be sent to jail, and he may also be ordered to give part or all of your money back. If the case is weak, however, the police may not want to spend their limited time on it--and that's their call, not yours. (This also applies to government agencies; only law enforcement can bring a criminal case, not any government agency.) However, you can also file a civil lawsuit. In that lawsuit, depending on the jurisdiction, you may only need to convince some of the jury--civil verdicts don't always have to be unanimous. You may even just face a judge, with no jury. And the legal standard is a "preponderance of the evidence," which in layman's terms just means "more likely than not"--a much easier thing to prove. Because the Fifth Amendment doesn't apply to civil litigation, you may even be able to argue before the jury that the defendant's refusal to testify suggests he's guilty. In summary: civil lawsuits use different rules and procedures, which may make it easier to recover money (or get other civil relief, such as an injunction) in cases where that's the goal. These courts are open to anyone, including the government. But if the government wants to use its special police powers to put someone in jail or get other criminal relief, they have to use the stricter criminal rules and procedures.
The most innocent of your scenarios is "against the rules", so less innocent acts fair worse. The idea behind researching legal theory and precedent (presumably not presidents) is that surely it is good for a juror to know what the law is. But that thinking is wrong. The judge will instruct you as to what the law is, and will also instruct you that "the law" is limited to what he says it is. I will draw on the instructions for an antitrust case, Best Buy v. Toshiba, HannStar. The core instruction is: It is your duty to find the facts from all the evidence in the case. To those facts you will apply the law as I give it to you. The preliminary instructions (the pattern instructions for California civil trials) say the same basic thing: At the end of the trial, I will explain the law that you must follow to reach your verdict. You must follow the law as I explain it to you, even if you do not agree with the law. The judge instructs the jury that: When a party has the burden of proof on any claim or affirmative defense by a preponderance of the evidence, it means you must be persuaded by the evidence that the claim or affirmative defense is more probably true than not true. Your research might find alternative statements of the law out there, which seem entirely plausible. That doesn't matter: you have to set aside whatever ideas (about the law) that you've gotten from anybody besides the judge. In fact, if the judge makes a (serious) mistake and rules against a party in a manner that is contrary to established law, and you know this (it doesn't matter how), you are supposed to apply the law (including rulings during trial as to admissibility) as given to you by the judge. As for a case of a juror knowing that the judge was mistaken (specifically, knowing based on his pre-existing knowledge of statutes and case law – not based on forbidden research during a trial), we can get the "should" from the absolute instruction to follow the judges instructions. Additionally, if you read transcripts of voir dire (not a trivial task), you can observe judges probing attorneys who happen to be in the prospective pool, asking questions to determine whether that person can just do as they are told. But it would be difficult to establish a "hard rule". There never will be an instruction that says "You must follow my orders even if you know for a fact that my orders are wrong" – jury instructions never admit the possibility of judicial error.
This is entirely possible in a number of different motions that could have been made. At this point, Vinny had destroyed the Prosecutor's eyewitnesses by showing they had issues that called their testimony into question (The first has a timeline that doesn't line up with events, the second has poor vision and her prescription glasses were not doing their job, and the third had many obstructions blocking his view of the scene). His first witness tears apart the &quot;expert&quot; witness, who was only there to testify that the tires were the same brand (albeit, a popular brand at the time... loads of cars had the same tires). While it might go by a different name in different jurisdictions, the Prosecutor is allowed to make a motion to dismiss at any point prior to the jury goes to deliberation (as is the Defense; Also they might be able to make motions while the jury is in deliberations). If properly titled, the Prosecutor should have made a &quot;motion for nolle prosequi&quot; (not prosecuting). This can mean any number of things including the prosecutor no longer believes the evidence can prove the charges OR even that the prosecutor is no longer convinced that those charged committed the crime. In the &quot;My Cousin Vinny&quot; case, as the jury was seated the case cannot be retried by the State of Alabama at this point. This is possible because the Prosecutor's duty is to uncover the truth behind a crime, no matter what that truth becomes. In this case, despite his previous beliefs, the prosecutor in My Cousin Vinny, upon realizing he was wrong, admitted it and dropped the charges. Given his backstory of having worked as a defense attorney and making the switch after getting a client off some serious charges (and knowing the client was guilty) shows that he was inherently an honest man and dedicated to finding the truth of the matter (as a government employee, he undoubtedly took a pay cut when he switched to prosecution. Private industry almost always pays way more than a government equivalent). With that in mind, it is expected of prosecutors to be perfectly honest with what evidence they have and make the choices in the case based on that evidence. This comes up in another scene when Mona Lisa Vito explains to Vinny that the prosecutor was required to give Vinny all the files he had on the case... because Vinny, by representing the Defendant, is allowed to examine all evidence against his clients. The only dirty trick he pulled was the stunt where his expert witness was not disclosed and while bad, really it's the judge allowing the witness to testify that would have caused a problem with the trial (his response to Vinny's objection could have created a mistrial on appeal). To give a real world example, I was charged with driving on a suspended license which I had no idea I was doing at the time. As it turned out, the license was suspended for an unpaid traffic ticket that I had paid in the last minute... essentially the DMV forgot to unsuspend. A quick call fixed that issue but I still had to go to court over the charge. The day of the trial, I show up in the court room and the prosecutor walks over and tells me that they were going to enter a motion of &quot;nolle prosequi&quot; for the charge... essentially dropping it... because the matter was a clerical error on the state's part and not anything I did wrong. Edit: Additionally had the prosecutor not motioned to dismiss, Vinny certainly could have. In fact there are two points during the trial where Defense attorneys are expected to make these motions. The first is when the Prosecution rests their case. The second is before the jury is given the case to deliberate. As for why it was called a motion to dismiss in the film, it's likely to due with the fact that the audience would not know what a &quot;motion for nolle prosecui&quot; and it is a type of motion to dismiss.
An "inquisitorial" system is one where the Judge or Magistrate actively questions the accused and witnesses to attempt to determine the facts. The Judge may also determine, at least in part, what witnesses to call in what order. An "adversarial" system is one in which each side presents its case, and the judge acts as an umpire deciding on procedure, and possibly makes the final ruling (or directs a jury to do so) but is not actively involved in questioning witnesses or deciding what witnesses to call. I don't see anything which would prevent a common-law jurisdiction from establishing an "inquisitorial" system by statute except longstanding tradition, but as far as i know no such jurisdiction has ever had such a system in place for dealing with criminal matters. The informal procedures in some small claims courts do have judges more actively involved than in other courts. I think this is also true in some family courts as well. I think I have heard of some civil-law jurisdictions which use something like an adversary system, but i am not sure of that. Certainly a civil-law country could pass a law setting up such a system if it chose to.
If we go by Indian case law (as we should), you have to find a way. The relevant case is K.P. Adbul Gafoor v. New India Assurance Ltd, where appellant drove on a motor cycle on a learner's permit without a licensed driver positioned correctly, in violation of Rule 3 of the Rules, and smacked someone. The bulk of the case is about the insurance and liability consequences of violating the rule: the main point here is that the court deemed this to violate the rules.
When the required number of jurors vote &quot;yes&quot; (or &quot;no&quot;, or whatever the question is), then the jury has reached a verdict. There is no provision whereby the presiding juror can re-interpret &quot;yes&quot; as &quot;no&quot;. In the case you describe, if a unanimous verdict is required that despite a reasonable inference that the last juror believes the defendant to be guilty, he has voted not guilty so the jury has not reached a verdict. In case the guy in charge decides &quot;In this case no means yes&quot;, thus falsely presents a supposed unanimous verdict, there is still an option for juror polling, in which case the not-guilty juror gets a chance to affirm his not guilty vote; though one of the parties has to request jury polling. If during polling the juror's response is not a clear &quot;yes&quot;, then it could be more complicated.
No, but... Common law does not apply in countries that follow the legal school of Code Civil, aka civil law legal system, such as Germany or France. Some basic principles are common between them and common law: While there's generally no right to a jury, the innocence part actually stems in both cases from ROMAN law: in dubio pro reo - in the case of doubt, (you have to decide) for the accused. The similar Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat - Proof lies on him who asserts, not on him who denies - is the source: It was butchered into &quot;innocent until proven guilty&quot;, but the sentiment is the same. Other countries that have no relation to common law are based on Sharia and Fiqh. There is absolutely no relation to Roman law either. However, there is a presumption of innocence, or as one of the largest Scholars of Islamic law Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib said in the mid-600s: &quot;Avert the prescribed punishment by rejecting doubtful evidence.&quot; However, what is considered doubtful is quite different. On the other hand, presumption of guilt was the foundational principle in other legal systems!