Jurors pre-judging before trial I was arrested on charges in North Carolina. During the ongoing investigation, but prior to trial, the local news ran a piece showing my mug shot. They didn't say my name, but did say some bad things about me, and what was allegedly found on my property. This was done a few weeks before jury selection, and I am worried that my potential jury has already judged me before the trial. Is it legal and/or proper for the news station to do this? Does this impact my ability to get a fair trial?
There's nothing illegal about the media discussing your case. In fact most media outlets don't hold back many details about the accused, because it's all public information that anyone curious about it can get from the court clerk's office for free and with no reason specified. If jury selection hasn't started yet, then asking each juror about what they might know about the case is a pretty standard question that any competent defense attorney would be asking, even without knowledge of media coverage. If they already know about the case and say they can't put that knowledge aside when rendering a verdict, they are almost always dismissed. If you're concerned your defense attorney isn't aware of the media coverage, that's something you need to bring up with them. If jury selection already took place, and nobody bothered to ask them if they had prior knowledge of the case, then there's pretty much nothing you can do. A judge might ask the jury if anyone's seen the coverage, but it usually results in nothing happening. The media talking about your case is not grounds for a mistrial; it's rarely even grounds for a change of venue. Getting a mistrial would require you to prove a specific juror engaged in misconduct somehow.
Whatever crime or infraction you are charged with, it applies to you personally however they spell your name and however you spell your name. Whether or not you should go depends on the alternative that you face (large fine or jail time for failure to appear?). An argument that you didn't commit the offence because they misspelled your name would hold zero water.
Misstating the truth is not perjury Perjury is deliberately lying under oath to gain a material advantage. For the situation you describe: You might be wrong and they actually do live where they say they do they might be wring and they genuinely think they live where they say they do, being wrong is not perjury it’s unlikely to administrate info in the form actually carries the penalty of perjury, it probably isn’t testimony unless it will positively and substantially affect the outcome of the case in their favour, it isn’t material You lack standing to interfere in the case in any event If this were brought to the attention of the court the most likely outcome would that it would just be corrected.
The government must have reasonable suspicion to stop you and ask you questions. The government must have probable cause to arrest you. The government cannot question you if you have invoked your 5th Amendment rights The government must release you if you post bail which is set by a magistrate in some cases but can be posted without conferring with a magistrate for many minor offenses for which the amount is set in advance. Also, you can only be constitutionally held for a certain period of time without appearing before a court for an initial appearance at which you are charged and typically you have an attorney assigned for you if you cannot afford one. Generally speaking a lawyer for a defendant will either post bail on behalf of the client, or will seek to invoke the client's 5th Amendment right to silence and 6th Amendment right to counsel (including the right of a lawyer to visit his client in jail) making further detention much less useful, while challenging law enforcement to articulate probable cause for the arrest with the implication that a civil lawsuit and suppression of evidence and loss of credibility with the local judge could follow if they fail to do so. If the client is not brought before a court by the constitutional deadline (unusual, but not unheard of), the lawyer can bring this to the attention of the court and have the court demand that his client be brought before the court. Of course, strictly speaking the defense lawyer can't force the police to do anything. Instead, the defense lawyer persuades the police to do something based upon what a court is likely to do, or has already done, as a result of their conduct so far. Also, of course, it isn't always possible for a lawyer to get his client out of jail. If the police do have probable cause and the offense is not one for which bail is set in advance, it is not possible for the client to be released until bail is set by a judicial officer such as a magistrate and bail (if granted at all) is posted, which may be beyond the client's means in the case of a serious offense, particularly if the client is considered by the magistrate to be a flight risk. On TV and books, the person that the police have arrested is usually someone that the police had no probable cause to arrest but suspect of a crime anyway, and the police usually fold when called on the fact that they lack probable cause by the lawyer. Less commonly, on TV and in books, the lawyer facilitates the payment of bail on behalf of his client.
The details depend on jurisdiction, but all jurisdictions I know of will excuse jurors if they are medically unfit for jury duty. So the best option would be to try and obtain a medical/psychological certification that you are not fit for jury duty. Of course this assumes you have someone (such as your psychologist, your psychiatrist or your general practitioner) who is willing to write such a certification. Also, find out what it takes for this to be accepted by the court; for example, must it be from a physician, can it be from a psychologist? Finally, if you are honest with the authorities, you will hopefully be excluded. Keep in mind that the court system needs reliable jurors; if you have a nervous breakdown in court, that could cause a mistrial with significant cost, it's in the court's best interest to avoid that.
An interrogation isn't necessarily a sit-down-in-a-room thing. Miranda v. Arizona clarifies what they mean by "interrogation" for the purposes of that opinion: By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way. If any post-arrest questioning might happen, it is prudent to inform the defendant of their rights. Miranda also reminds us that: Any statement given freely and voluntarily without any compelling influences is, of course, admissible in evidence. The fundamental import of the privilege while an individual is in custody is not whether he is allowed to talk to the police without the benefit of warnings and counsel, but whether he can be interrogated. [...] Volunteered statements of any kind are not barred by the Fifth Amendment, and their admissibility is not affected by our holding today. The police are not required to give a Miranda warning in order to make use of statements that the defendant volunteers while in custody. But, police generally can't predict when they might ask the defendant a question (or otherwise make the defendant feel compelled to answer).
In the UK this is just called &quot;an appeal for the suspect to come forward.&quot; The UK police are not allowed to lie or mislead as suggested in the OP, and any reduction in punishment is in the hands of the courts when passing sentence (unlike some other jurisdictions, I believe).
The phrase "reasonable doubt" was formed hundreds of years ago, and does not hold any mathematical or probabilistic meaning. It is for each individual juror to decide for themselves what constitutes "reasonable doubt", and whether the evidence presented to them has crossed that threshold. EDIT for extra clarity: As stated above, the definition of "reasonable doubt" is intentionally vague*, and left to be decided by each juror for themselves on a case by case basis; as such there is no single rule that can be applied to jurors (also note barring accepting a bribe, a juror cannot be legally sanctioned for their conduct as a juror, nor their vote, regardless of the evidence before them). So one juror might judge by P(A|B), another might judge by the defendant's appearance, another might judge by the majority of their peers (so that they can go to a ball game that evening, such as in the film 12 Angry Men), another might disagree with the law (see: jury nullification) and so vote not guilty on that basis, and another might bow to social pressure and convict despite overwhelming evidence that the defendant is not guilty (for example, at the end of To Kill A Mockingbird). A prosecutor cares about convincing the entire jury that the defendant is guilty(outside of Oregon and Louisiana, where only 10/12 vote is needed to convict, so the prosecutor only cares convincing 10 jurors). The defense only cares about convincing a single juror (or three in LA or OR), although more can be useful to prevent a mistrial. The defense (in theory) should not care whether or not the defendant is guilty. *The origin of reasonable doubt was in Britain, where certain jurors would refuse to convict, despite any evidence, due to religious prohibitions of "Judge not, less ye be judged".