Articles Tagged with Juries

There’s a new term that’s making the rounds, which might make us reconsider whether common wisdom is always wise and might make trial lawyers re-think how they select jurors: pre-crastination. As we’ll see, it means that maybe trial attorneys shouldn’t decide whether someone can be a good juror in spite of his old age and frailty, but because of them.

Everyone’s heard of procrastination: Why do something today when it can wait until tomorrow? Most people procrastinate even though they know it’s not a good idea. There might be nothing more productive than the last minute but, when you’re counting down to a deadline, you always could use more time. The right thing to do, we all know, is to get it done now, right away, with time to spare. The only problem is that might lead us to make bad choices and irrational decisions.

We previously wrote about how older jurors might be a better fit for some cases. They generally have a wealth of knowledge and experience to draw from. It might take them a little longer to come to an answer, but that’s because of the large amount of information they have to process, not necessarily because they are becoming feeble minded. Maybe, if you can convince them, they can sway the other members of the jury for you. That, however, may not be the only reason to select an elderly juror.
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