4 ms·
The sad thing about all this is that this does not necessarily mean that the verdict can be thrown out. Post-verdict juror interviews can only be used to throw
by rprasad 14y ago
The sad thing about all this is that this does not necessarily mean that the verdict can be thrown out. Post-verdict juror interviews can only be used to throw out verdicts if they reveal gross juror misconduct. Juror incompetence is generally not sufficient grounds to throw out a verdict (assuming unlike in this case, that the verdict is otherwise coherent).
- ChuckMcM 14y agoYes, this is the sad thing. You have to prove that the jury tampered with itself or was too stupid to or too biased to do its job. Very hard to do. Alsup, in the Google trial, showed some great strategy here where he told the jury "assume you can copyright apis" while reserving to make a judgement as a matter of law on the issue later. So the Jury could say "guilty of copyright infringement" and he could say, "Thank you, oh by the way you can't copyright APIs, but if you could you would have infringed." If anything Judge Koh seemed more inclined to put as much into the juries hands as possible.
- fusiongyro 14y agoIt's sad in this case, but being unable to throw out the decision of an incompetent jury is the price of jury nullification. If judges could throw out jury decisions just because they disagree, there wouldn't be much point to having juries at all.
- lurker14 14y agoJudges can overrule juries, in extreme cases. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_a_judge_overturn_the_decision_of_a_jury http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_a_judge_overturn_the_decision_... Jury nullification is the only counter-example: a judge cannot overrule a nont-guilty criminal decision.
- makomk 14y agoNot really. Jury nullification in criminal trials is actually a special case - other kinds of findings by juries can be thrown out, including a jury finding the defendant guilty, but not guilty verdicts are sacrosant.