The Jury Nods

(photo from Aspen Advocacy Books)

Dismissing jurors who fall asleep is now a thing:

Last week, federal judges in two New York trials—one involving charges of sanctions evasion, the other concerning allegations of corruption in international soccer—dismissed jurors who were dozing off....

In one current trial, Manhattan federal prosecutors are seeking to convince a jury that a Turkish banker is guilty of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions. The testimony has focused on emails, spreadsheets and wiretapped calls—mostly in Turkish and translated by a live interpreter.

The alleged scheme is so complex prosecutors asked one witness to draw the banks and front companies involved on a large sheet of paper. By the end, the witness had drawn a maze of boxes connected by multicolored lines and arrows to indicate the money flow.

Some have attributed juror napping to the "short attention span" and lack of sleep that are phenomena of the smartphone era. However, to this observer the practice of law gets most of the blame.

Everyone, except lawyers it seems, has adapted to the need to tighten up presentations, to practice getting one's message across in an elevator pitch. (Watch a few TED talks to see how experts distill big, complex topics to five minutes.)

Well, at least lawyers have the good sense to let the judge wake the sleepers:

The government and defense are generally careful not to call out a sleeper in open court, to avoid embarrassment and turning the juror against one side.

Interesting...and amusing...throughout.