As a jury consultant (AMA) I take issue with some things in this article, the most important of which are: 1. It is generally accepted as true that the number

As a jury consultant (AMA) I take issue with some things in this article, the most important of which are: 1. It is generally accepted as true that the number of trials per year in the U.S. is shrinking (both criminal and civil). However, the data are spotty at best. Most of the data come from the National Center for State Courts, and their data are admittedly incomplete-- to the tune of no data on a number of states at all. Nor are any of the data particularly recent. My crunching of their data puts the decline at a mere ~1.8% per year, although it may well have accelerated since their last report. How much is unknown. 2. The focus on judges lamenting the decline of trials is on one hand commendable and on the other disingenuous. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of judges across the country do not like trying cases and put tremendous amounts of pressure on the parties to settle. These tactics range from straightforward admonishments to forcing the parties into endless mediation meetings and mandatory settlement conferences. I am sensitive to the "piling on" of charges in criminal cases, which strikes me as a patently unfair means of getting multiple bites at the apple. For example, I helped defend a case involving a tragic killing where we succeeded in dodging a first degree murder conviction only to find that during sentencing, the defendant got an extra 20 years simply because the murder was carried out using a gun.