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- You know about story-telling, but do you know to wear red?
- Simple Jury Persuasion: The ‘Scott Peterson Effect’—Displayed remorse and conviction
- Your brain is a liar: It will find what it wants before it even starts looking
- Contempt for Gen Y: It’s everywhere—including law firms!
- Simple rules, beer pong, hysterical laughter & jury questionnaires
- Can you assess juror morality by counting tattoos?
- Biased hearts, biased cameras and biased verdicts
- Simple Jury Persuasion: “How likely are you to…”
- How a picture can be worth less than a hundred words
Archive for the ‘Generation or Age of Juror’ Category
Contempt for Gen Y: It’s everywhere—including law firms!
While every upcoming generation is regarded as flawed by their elders, it seems Gen Y is seen especially negatively. A recent article at In These Times focuses on whether Millennials are cursed. According to sources cited, “everyone born since the mid-1970’s” is “coddled, overexposed and overindulged”. Having grown up with reality TV, they want to be instantly famous. Paradoxically, they also “reflect a new sense of existential aloneness and a desperate need to be recognized”. They are, in other words, narcissistic and disconnected. Or perhaps, they are torn between narcissism and empathy. The jury is out.
A blogger (Valley Girl with a Brain) who defines the Millennials as those born between 1980 and 1995 lets her peers know that she watched 60 Minutes and learned that “Mr. Rogers lied” and they really “aren’t that special” and “there is no perfect job”. And she worries about whether her decision to go back to graduate school was a really special bad decision.
So are Millennials truly that much more narcissistic and disconnected than the rest of us were at that age? David DiSalvo at True/Slant blog says there are not really strong differences between us. We are all embracing technology. We agree on ‘green’ technologies. We believe in diversity. Younger people are more open to increased security measures (with X’ers and Millennials saying “bring it on”!). We are all more accepting of gays and lesbians. We say we don’t much care for reality TV. We are, in truth, much more alike than different.
As we work in litigation advocacy, we hear a lot of negativity directed toward younger jurors and younger lawyers (especially new law school grads). Their work ethic (seen as poor by older attorneys) is blamed for their trouble in finding jobs. If they were not so lazy, the opinion seems to go, and if they did not want instant success, they wouldn’t have such a tough time finding work. It is, in short, their own fault they are unemployed. They have bad values.
Turns out that is likely untrue. A new editorial in the LA Times points out that from 2004 to 2008, the legal field grew less than 1% on average (and the same growth rate is predicted until 2016). The number of likely attorney positions opening per year is thus 30,000. US law schools are graduating 45,000 new JDs every year. Fully one-third of US law school graduates will likely not find employment as attorneys.
It isn’t ‘bad values’ for newly minted attorneys. It’s a bad job market. Perhaps instead of being critical, we should start looking at ways to be inclusive—all the way from enrolling a sensible number of students to law schools each year to finding room for talented graduates in traditional law jobs and non-traditional positions.
Can you assess juror morality by counting tattoos?
Maybe you can. While ink on the skin doesn’t mean what it used to (see our post here) it still is a concern for many among us. Body art/ink has become mainstream as evidenced by its presence among a wide cross-section of the population. Even the very educated have tattoos. One of the blogs at Discover Magazine’s website recently uploaded a variety of ‘science’ tattoos which decorate the bodies of scientific researchers. Very amusing.
But parents worry. And so do litigators choosing juries. What do those tattoos mean? There’s research for that! Thanks to researchers at Texas Tech, parents and litigators everywhere can know what those tattoos mean. In essence, tattoos are like real estate: “The key factors are density and location, location, location”.
Here’s what they did:
Researchers counted the number of tattoos and piercings (and noted just where on the body the markings or piercings were located) and then assessed ‘deviance’ (in the form of marijuana use, occasional use of other drugs, being arrested for a crime, cheating on college work, binge drinking, and/or having multiple sex partners).
And here’s what they found:
Those who had 4 or more tattoos, 7 or more body piercings or piercings of their nipples and genitals (which hopefully will be difficult for most parents and litigators to assess) were more likely to report deviant behavior.
To a very significant degree, tattoos and piercing is a sign of style and fashion, rather than rebellion. Researchers concluded that the growing acceptance of body art means those with truly deviant tendencies have to go a step further (multiple tattoos or nipple piercings) to maintain their sense of social distance. You have to try harder to make it clear that you are an outsider. So you might be able to assess social alienation and disenfranchisement by counting tattoos, but take it easy on wondering about the ones you can’t see.
Generation Y (aka the Millennials): Just the facts
Members of Generation Y (as with other generations before them) have been derided and maligned. People love to generalize about ‘ the younger generation’, and do it all the time. And it’s been going on for centuries.
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they allow disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children now are tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” Anonymous (widely mis-attributed to Socrates)
And one of my personal favorites from Clarence Darrow:
“The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.”
Those older demean those younger (and the youth are not particularly admiring of their elders). Whether we do this in our personal lives or not, is naturally, a personal choice (and just as naturally, has consequences for our relationships). But in the courtroom and in voir dire, it is wiser to make choices based on what we know to be true of human nature rather than what we assume or choose to believe.
Here is (courtesy of the Pew Research Center) what we know now about Generation Y—the newest members of the jury panel.
- The oldest members are approaching 30 (the youngest are approaching adolescence).
- They are more inclined to trust institutions than either Gen X or Baby Boomers when they were coming of age.
- They are the most ethnically and racially diverse cohort of youth in the nation’s history: 18.5% are Hispanic; 14.2% are Black; 4.3% are Asian; 3.2% are of mixed race; and 59.8% are White.
- They are the least religiously observant/practicing cohort since religious behavior was added to survey research.
- They are the most politically progressive of any age group in modern history.
- They see social networking as normal and everyday activities and internet use as routine (e.g., tweeting, texting, Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia).
All of these factoids have relevance for voir dire, case presentation and witness preparation. Millennials are often frightening for litigators because they are so ‘unknown’. Yet, many of them are old enough, sufficiently well educated, and assertive enough to be forces in the deliberation room. It is unwise to assume “young people are bad for plaintiffs” just as it is unwise to assume “women are good for plaintiffs” or “women are tough on crime”. It simply all depends.
We will watch as more substantive research emerges on Gen Y/Millennials. Undoubtedly we will write a paper on attitudes and values and litigation advocacy with Gen Y as we did with Generation X (http://www.keenetrial.com/articles/htm). In the meantime, watch yourself. Bias is often a subtle and insidious thing. Seeing this generation as different from those that have gone before (as indeed all generations have been) can help you avoid pigeonholing assumptions.
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