'Legally Blonde' star Reese Witherspoon was chosen as jury foreman after jurors thought she went to law school

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chuter

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This is what you risk with a jury, people this stupid. Of course it was in Kalifornia.


"Well listen, I did not want to do jury duty," Witherspoon said on the show. "But I remember it was after ‘Legally Blonde.’ It was probably like seven years after 'Legally Blonde,' I got called for jury duty and it was in Beverly Hills. I thought, ‘Surely they’re not gonna pick me.’ They picked me for a long trial, y'all. It was probably two weeks. I was on the jury."

She went on to explain that over the course of the two weeks, she got "very invested in this case," which she shared was a very clear "dog bite case."

At the end of the trial, the jury "went to deliberation" and when it came time to elect a foreman, Witherspoon shared "they all unanimously are like, ‘Her,'" while pointing at herself. She shared the most distressing part was when she asked them why they chose her, and they said, "You went to law school."

"I was like, ‘Y’all this is really upsetting. I definitely did not go to law school, I didn’t finish college,’" she said. "I played a lawyer in a movie once, but they fully made me the foreman and I started realizing people don’t know much about the law."
 

TerryMiller

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This is what you risk with a jury, people this stupid. Of course it was in Kalifornia.


"but they fully made me the foreman and I started realizing people don’t know much about the law."

Yeppers...

...I had a co-worker at the OSBI that was seated on a jury in a trial involving "possession with intent to distribute" as the charge. Her co-jury members didn't know that possession with intent to distribute was a more serious crime than simple possession.
 

Aries

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In a perfect world, jurors wouldn't need to know anything about the law. The judge would explain the law in question to them, and the attorneys would present evidence as to whether or not the law was violated.

What is more disturbing to me about this example is that people don't seem to know how movies work.
 

SoonerP226

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I had a co-worker at the OSBI that was seated on a jury in a trial involving "possession with intent to distribute" as the charge. Her co-jury members didn't know that possession with intent to distribute was a more serious crime than simple possession.
That’s a failure of the judge. The jurors are not supposed to know the law, they’re just supposed to evaluate the evidence and testimony presented to them during the trial. The judge is supposed to explain the legalities to them.
 

TerryMiller

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That’s a failure of the judge. The jurors are not supposed to know the law, they’re just supposed to evaluate the evidence and testimony presented to them during the trial. The judge is supposed to explain the legalities to them.

Well, the judge may very well have already failed by allowing my co-worker (an OSBI employee) on the jury.
 

Aries

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The judge doesn’t choose the jurors, the attorneys do. If neither of them struck your coworker, that’s on them, not the judge.
The judge can dismiss jurors as well, and probably dismisses most of those that get dismissed, most of the time. Each attorney usually gets a specific number that they can dismiss "without cause", or they can ask the judge to dismiss one for cause. The judge doesn't have a limit. I know it doesn't sound fair, buuuuut..... :rollingla

So if an OSBI employee was on the juror, the judge allowed it and the defense attorney probably did, unless he/she was out of dismissals. Most prosecutors probably wouldn't object, unless there was some other reason.
 


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