During court, when something happens and the judge tells the jury to ‘forget that’ or ‘not include that,’ if the jury heard it, how could I, as someone on the jury, possibly just ignore what I heard? Whether the evidence is admissible or not.

    • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      edit-2
      3 hours ago

      Juries often have one or more alternates. Those are jurors who sit in the jury box for the entire trial, but under normal conditions they aren’t in the jury room during deliberations. If a juror is unable to remain, for whatever reason, then the judge replaces that juror with one of the alternates. I sat on 2 days of a 3 day trial but tested positive for Covid the morning of the third, so I was excused. The judge replaced me with one of her alternates.

      If the judge got wind that a juror was disregarding such an order then that juror would likely be kicked out & replaced with an alternate. If the transgression by the juror was severe enough the judge could potentially also refer the juror to the Attorney Generals office for investigation and possible charges.

    • FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      7 hours ago

      I would guess they declare a mistrial and have to start over with a new jury. This is one of the reasons justice is slow