cover image The Jury:: Trial and Error in the American Courtroom

The Jury:: Trial and Error in the American Courtroom

Stephen J. Adler. Crown Publishing Group (NY), $25 (285pp) ISBN 978-0-8129-2363-6

We respect juries for their supposedly high-minded deliberations, but they are too often ineffective or overwhelmed in both civil and criminal cases, suggests Wall Street Journal legal editor Adler, who here analyzes deliberations in seven trials. The working-class federal jury in Manhattan that in 1990 cleared wealthy Philippine former First Lady Imelda Marcos of all charges grew to identify with her as a ``fellow sufferer.'' Overmatched jurors in a seven-month trial in 1990 concerning a price war between two tobacco companies judged the case on the basis of witnesses' personalities, not testimony. Yet Adler wants to bolster the jury system, an anomaly among democracies--even Great Britain, source of the jury, relies more on judges. Among several well-founded reforms, he proposes scrapping professional exemptions and limiting lawyers' peremptory challenges to seating jurors, as well as allowing jurors to ask questions and take notes. Although the proposals don't fully address the problems posed by very complex cases or the variability of tort awards, Adler's book should further a debate that, after the Rodney King and Menendez cases, has new urgency. Author tour. (Sept.)