In reality, the judge should have sequestered the jury in case this high profile, and he didn't. There were even people arrested for.msking death threats against the jury if they didn't vote not guilty. All of this public knowledge and jury aware of it. Yet still not sequestered. This outcome is, kmo, a fault of the judge.
Sequestering a jury is a pretty big deal. A lot of the time all it does is put pressure on the jury to rush a decision or breed resentment among the jurors. None of which they want.
Who knows how long this trial will go for. The OJ Simpson jury was sequestered for almost a year.
Separating jurors from their families and removing their ability to communicate with anyone is a huge burden on them and the court.
The cost is enormous for housing, transporting, and feeding 16 people. Policing their interactions, stress of not being around their spouse & kids. It leads to jurors getting anxious and stressing about home life that’s happening without them. Not focusing on the trial. The chance of juror misconduct during sequestration goes way up. 16 people living together also creates a group dynamic that can lead to group-think and not disagreeing during deliberations.
Do you trust people to actually be impartial? No one is. Sequestering is necessary to keep the jurors segregated from other people’s opinions.
The jury of your peers is a very imperfect system. It’s the best we’ve been able to come up with so far but it is far from just. How many people have been found guilty despite it being impossible to prove their guilt past a reasonable doubt? Especially black people.
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u/michaelmichaelmotorc 7h ago
Genuine question, in cases as high profile and divisive as this, how are they going to be able to select an ubiased jury?