By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. This past week, King County Superior Courts in Seattle, Washington laid out their plans for the resumption of civil jury trials. In an effort to avoid having large groups of jurors in the same place, jury selection will be conducted mostly over Zoom, which is a fascinating development that should cause many to rethink their jury selection strategy. However, the court has also noted that it intends to rely on the expanded use of supplemental juror questionnaires, though the parameters will likely vary from case to case and judge to judge. We have seen a

By Jill D. Schmid, Ph.D. Protests, COVID, health care, stimulus package, Trump, news (fake or otherwise), monuments, and on and on and on. This country is more divided than ever on nearly every subject. A recent PEW research poll conducted between July 13-19 shows that one’s political leanings (e.g., their political opinions) are an important factor for determining their beliefs about the severity of COVID with 85% of those Democrat or leaning Democrat believing it is a major threat to the health of the public, versus only 46% for those Republican or leaning Republican believing it is a major threat.

By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. Yesterday, Seattle Public Schools announced that remote learning will continue indefinitely, meaning public school kids are not going back to school in the fall. A city-wide collective groan followed the announcement. While parents recognize the importance of protecting the health and safety of our community, they also recognize that it is incredibly difficult to have the kids at home every day while they are trying to work from home or manage other aspects of their lives. This is just one of the many tough realities that your jury pool is facing during the pandemic. Many

By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. “I don’t think it would make a difference at all. I’m not even convinced this whole coronavirus thing is real. I don’t know anyone who’s had it.” The irony is that Robert, the mock juror who made this statement during deliberations, was exactly the kind of person who should be most concerned about the virus. He checked off many of the high-risk categories for those most susceptible. Yet, despite daily news reports about death tolls and infection rates, and despite his unique vulnerabilities, he was suspicious that it might all just be some sort of

By Jill D. Schmid For the past couple of years, we’ve been conducting national surveys on a variety of subjects in order to find out what kinds of widely held beliefs jurors bring into the courtroom. This data has helped inform many litigation strategies, witness preparation efforts, and jury de-selection strategies. Recently, we put all the questions together, added COVID specific questions, and conducted our largest nationwide survey yet.  All of the data was collected in May 2020. The data not only tells us about how the jury pool will likely be different in the foreseeable future due to the

By Scott Herndon, M.A. Traumatic national events, like the COVID-19 pandemic elicit a broad range of emotions in potential jurors. Jurors, like all of us, worry about the safety of our family and loved ones, keeping jobs, the state of the economy, or the stress of taking on new family and educational responsibilities. Recently, we have conducted some national survey research and the data demonstrates that the pandemic has heightened many latent juror attitudes about the government, corporations, and many other institutions and business. These stressors and biases combine to create a mix of emotions that potential jurors bring

By Jill D. Schmid, Ph.D. I, like most of you, have probably been having some difficult conversations lately. The most difficult, though, are not just steeped in real ideological differences, but in the ways in which the issues are being framed. For years, there have been a debates and differences of opinion about what “Black Lives Matter” and the “Take a Knee” movement truly mean. The framing of those phrases and movements likely moves someone in one particular direction over another. This past week, another phrase has come about that is doing the same thing: “defund the police.” I want

Mock jurors sit at least six feet apart with masks and other health and safety measures in place. By Jill D. Schmid, Ph.D. It was awesome to get back to conducting in-person mock trial research this past weekend!  While things looked a bit different, it still checked off all the boxes for a successful project and, as always, we gained some incredibly important insights that will help us prepare for trial. Part of the reason this project was so important is because so many attorneys are wondering if mock trial research is even possible in the coming months. The answer

By Jill D. Schmid, Ph.D. For years, I’ve successfully avoided Facetime calls and most video conferences. However, around  9 weeks, 2 days, 13 hours, and 42 minutes ago, that all changed. Not only did all of my work transition to video conferences, but so did my communication with my family and friends. Houseparty and Zoom are my new normal and I have to say, it’s not all bad! Yes, there are all the headaches we’ve known about for years: everyone talking over each other, followed by silence as everyone stops to let others continue; the frozen feed followed by everyone

By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. It is the question on every litigator’s mind: What impact, if any, will the pandemic have on jury decision-making once trials resume? Will there be more goodwill towards businesses because of the economic toll the pandemic has taken? Will perceptions of a widening rich/poor gap perpetuate social inflation and nuclear verdicts? The questions go on and on and it is important to have answers to them. I expect that many organizations will purport to have those answers, but those answers might be misleading or flat-out wrong for one very important reason. While everyone wants to