Jury Jeopardy

Murdertainment (Copyright/Trademark LennerCo 2015) has become a staple in the television viewing rotation of our household. For those of you not familiar with Murdertainment ©, it refers to shows that focus on real murders for the viewer’s entertainment. HBO’s The Jinx – the story of Robert Durst’s killings/murders/somewhat confession - was the jumping off point for our Murdertainment © obsession. Currently we are in the midst of another Jinx-esque miniseries, Death on a Staircase. This series aired on Sundance Chanel back in 2004 but our thirst for Murdertainment © has taken us back in time. An interesting part of this miniseries is it was filmed in real time, so the viewer watches as the defense team puts their case together and the prosecution jokes about the evidence – funny stuff like the fatal injuries in the death of a woman.

Being allowed into the legal process this way has opened my eyes to parts of the system that I may not have otherwise seen without committing a murder of my own. One thing that really caught my interest was the way the defense attorney cross-examined one of the prosecution’s experts. It was clear the defense attorney had a ton of information that he wanted to share with the jury but he couldn’t just go on some rant spouting off all this contradictory information. Instead, he cleverly played a game of Jury Jeopardy (Copyright/Trademark BVDCo 2015). He proceeded to relay this information in the form of questions. He asked the witness if she was aware of the more than two hundred other fatal beating cases that occurred in the area over the past decade (the prosecution was trying to prove that this case was a homicide by beating). She responded that she was aware of other cases but not the exact number or the evidence of those cases. He was not discouraged by the fact that she had no knowledge of these cases because he didn’t really want her answer, he just wanted to use these “questions” to relay more information to the jury. His follow up question was, “did you know that in all of these other cases the victims had skull fractures and brain trauma, which the victim in this case did not?” Of course the witness didn’t know this. She just stated that she was unfamiliar with the details of the other cases! Next question – he asked if she was familiar with a similar case that was tried in Canada – she was aware of the case but not the details. His follow up to that… “Were you aware that in that case…” NO SHE WAS NOT AWARE, I screamed at the TV. He continued to relay information to the jury in the form of “question” after “question”. It was obvious what he was doing; yet there wasn’t a single objection.

I’m curious to see if the judge refuses to accept the jury’s verdict if it is not in the form of a question - “I’m sorry your honor, what is guilty?”