A Texas appeals court has overturned a multi-million dollar verdict against Merck, the makers of the painkiller Vioxx. Retrials are currently pending in several other cases. Click on the link to read about the case and the latest developments.
http://www.setexasrecord.com/news/212383-texas-court-overturns-vioxx-ruling
The American Tort Reform Association released it’s 6th annual Judicial Hellholes report with their rankings of “America’s most unfair jurisdictions.” How does your home state compare? Click on the link to learn more.
Reports this week of a judge striking down monetary award caps on medical malpractice cases in Georgia may seriously impact tort reform law in the state. Click on the link to read more…
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/05/01/arrington_0502.html#
If social scientists are right and jurors only retain 10 percent of what they hear in a courtroom — more likely than not what they heard first — what can you do to make them remember the defense’s case?
Using only a few carefully chosen statistics or key numbers to illustrate a point is a great way to arm jurors with ammunition they can use in the deliberations room.
As an example, a general internal medicine patient died from a calf sarcoma after multiple tests in response to “arthritis-type” pain.
Focus group research in the case revealed that highlighting the extent of the efforts made to diagnose the patient’s condition was crucial. The defense formulated a phrase that was used repeatedly to reinforce its theme: “Four tests were done by three different radiologists, at two hospitals, and none of them saw any sign of cancer.”
After trial, exit interviews revealed those words rang out again and again during deliberations — “four tests, three radiologists, two hospitals, and no cancer!”
Used correctly, simple statistics and numbers help to illustrate a theme and help arguments resonate in jurors’ minds, which they will hopefully remember when it comes time to render a verdict.
It’s often asked whether there are sure-fire tricks to “picking the right juror.”
First, it’s important to keep in mind that you rarely “pick” anyone – the best you can do is eliminate the worst potential jurors. But if you can’t always pick the “right” juror, there are opportunities to educate the jurors you get.
Consider this: A defense lawyer represented a corporate client who had taken a beating in the local press over the case. Worse, the judge refused a venue change, even though nearly every juror on the panel was familiar with the press’ accounts.
After the lawyer used much of his allotted time to expose special biases among the jurors, he shifted his questioning from questions designed to expose and eliminate to questions designed to educate those who would ultimately serve.
“Who thinks there was a rush to judgment in the Duke Lacrosse case – I mean by the media?”
Nearly every hand on the panel went up.
The lawyer continued, “And who thinks that a lot of opinions about those three boys changed once the defense finally put forward its case – meaning what the media had originally written wasn’t fair, or was at least incomplete?”
Again, nearly every hand was raised.
In the end, the lawyer couldn’t “pick” the right jury, so he “made” it the right jury.
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