I was on a mock jury today to let the lawyers sharpen their cases before presenting them at trial. The woman who recruited me is an SEI, and apparently, she does this for a living. She recruits random people she meets and then asks them to hear a case before the case actually goes to trial.

What I found interesting was the makeup of the twelve jurers.

1. LIE male, older (me), tended to lead the discussion when no one else spoke, and after eight hours of deliberation, was being looked to for opinions.
2. ESI female, 41 yo, involved in health care. She basically related her own experiences to those in the case.
3. LSE female, about mid-40's, didn't say much, seemed a bit nervous and looked to others to speak up first.
4. SEE female, late 30's, also worked in health care, and was easily the smartest person there. I gave her the cookie from my box lunch and wished like hell she were ESI.
5. IEI female, 40's, black, who did not like the IEE. She tended to ramble when talking and would not stick to a logical train of thought.
6. ESI male, overweight, possibly early 40's, didn't talk unless prompted, but was fairly clear when he said something.
7. LII female, Chinese, again didn't talk unless prompted but was smart and demonstrated clear reasoning.
8. ILE black male, fairly talkative, wanted to see more and more evidence before making a final decision.
9. EII female, late 60's early 70's, talked all the time and made little sense, was usually outraged at something she saw as unfair, and tended to wander in her speech. The defendant was LSI, and the EII just did not like her for no reason that was obvious. All the other jurors thought the LSI was both competent and likeable, but a bit cold.
10. EIE male, mid 30's, incredibly ethical and sensible. Made many good arguments regarding personal responsibility and procedures.
11. LII/ILI male, late 20's, spoke only twice to clarify his written opinion.
12. LSE male, late 60's-early 70's, seemed anxious to award almost $1M to the plaintiff. Later reversed his guilty vote in the face of overwhelming opposition. Wore a grey mustache and a baseball cap.


What struck me was the fairly uniform distribution of types, and how well each type conformed to their generally accepted type description.