Last time I had jury duty, some un fatherly looking fellow walked in with a baby in his arms, and went up to the check-in window. After speaking with the clerk for about five minutes, he walked away, without his jury duty summons, and we never saw him, again. The rest of us all agreed the baby was likely “borrowed” from someone.
I am an attorney. I do civil litigation. No criminal stuff. No family law. No personal injury. Mostly insurance claims, real property disputes, contract disputes, trust and estate disputes, stuff like that.
I have been practicing about 30 years. I consider myself reasonably successful.
Number of cases I have litigated through a jury verdict in all that time: One. In that case, I represented firefighters, so I knew I couldn’t lose.
I tried one other case to the point where it was submitted to a jury. Then, the lazy judge finally read my brief, realized I was entitled to win as a matter of law, said she was thinking about ruling as a matter of law without waiting for the jury, at which point the other side decided to settle.
I have tried cases to judges many times. Less expensive, more predictable, much greater ability to set up a reversal on appeal in the event the judge rules against you.
Jury trials are just too expensive and random to justify their expense in most disputes.
About 60% of the judges I practice in front of are stupid, lazy, burned out, or some combination of all three. Because I practice in my state capital, I have been lucky enough to have practiced about 40% of the time before judges who do exactly what they are supposed to do: take the time to read the briefs, know the law, understand the facts, and make a real effort to apply the law in a principled way. Although I don’t always win, I generally do pretty well in front of such judges.
I also do a fair amount of appellate level work. You would think appellate judges would be smarter, and higher quality, than other judges. They aren’t.