AIBU to not know how jury is supposed to weigh up evidence?

[JetTail]

I'm thinking specifically about JD's defamation trial. I've seen some of AH's testimony and if true, he's a c u next tuesday.
My question is, what if you don't believe her?
Are you supposed to come to a decision based on the assumption that everything you hear from a witness is true (as they are under oath) or are you supposed to consider credibility?
And what if there are conflicting accounts from opposing sides and you believe both accounts?
Mind a bit boggled today lol

Once the defence & prosecution have finished the Judge gives their summing up which is directed to the jury. This is guidance on what to consider in the case and a reminder on what to disregard & points of law. A Foreman is appointed & during the deliberation they can ask the judge for clarification.

Thanks for the explanation but that doesn't really answer my question?

based on the assumption

I don't think you are meant to assume anything. You are supposed to question and examine all the evidence. Because, as we all know, people don't necessarily tell the truth.

What, your question is you don't understand how people make decisions or reach conclusions?

Don't you do this like... literally every day?

And what if there are conflicting accounts from opposing sides and you believe both accounts?

If you believe both accounts then she is guilty of exactly what he is suing her for, surely?

Its up to the jury to decide. That's why there's a jury and not just one person.

Not sure if it's different in the US but in the UK at least, I believe juries are only meant to reach a guilty verdict if they believe the crime has been proved "beyond all reasonable doubt". In practice I doubt many of them actually think about what that means and follows it. We can all reach our own private judgement on whether the dependent is guilty or not, but to believe objectively that there's no reasonable doubt is surely very difficult much of the time? So people probably take it as a yes/no choice instead.

I mean that I've listened to a lot of his testimony and hers. I find him to be believable but I also found her dramatics believable when she described the cavity search. By that I mean that I wouldn't believe a word out of her mouth, based on the testimony against her, however, she acted fairly plausibly to an innocent observer. In my own experience, the last place that you will get emotional about something extremely hurtful or painful to recall is in public. That is something you do alone and it is something that you will probably only do after months of therapy when you feel like you can trust the therapist to not exploit your vulnerability. I felt personally that she was acting out how she believed a sufferer of abuse would act. I.e. the tears.

To put it in plainer language.
Is a juror instructed to take all sworn testimony as fact? Or are they instructed to draw their own conclusions as to the authenticity of the sworn testimony?

You have to decide which evidence is the most compelling.

I think expert and/or witness evidence is more trustworthy than testimony from the main players. In this case we have their former marriage counsellor saying she considered their marriage to involve 'mutual abuse' and that AH had bruises. And audio recordings of AH admitting to hitting JD.
I don't know what terms they use in the US system, but in English courts, IME as a jury member, we were told we had to be 'sure' the defendant was guilty.
I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean the claimant has to be NOT guilty of that or another crime, but they're not the one on trial.

The second. The judge may instruct on some specifics, if there is a point of law involved. But with the evidence, witness testimony, it is down to the jurors to decise what they believed.

The judge takes quite a time to explain all of that before telling the jury to go away and think about it. I

...Well, thank you for illustrating the problem with the jury system: people judging by their own limited experience. The fact that that's how you reacted to trauma doesn't make it the way everyone reacts to trauma.

Would that not mean in a murder case for instance if they said no I didn't do it then you would have to take that as fact and find them not guilty? I can't see how that would be the case.

The judge sums everything up for the jury at the end of the trial. They tell you which evidence you are allowed to consider and talk through the law. They then ask you to decide, based on what has been presented, to go away and discuss whether you feel there is enough evidence to give a verdict.

The jury, in private, discuss how they feel about everything: Whether they could morally cast a guilty/not guilty verdict based on the evidence. If you feel strongly either way then you try to explain to your fellow jurors why you feel that way and what evidence (or lack of) is swaying your opinion. That too and fro debate often goes on a while unless the evidence has been overwhelming.

Finally, when enough of them feel they are morally happy with their decision then they feed that back to the court. Sometimes the judge will only accept an guilty/not guilty answer when the entire jury is in agreement, sometimes they’ll take a majority vote.

To add, my experience is in the UK. In this case, both of them are equally compelling in some areas and not in others. At the end the jury will be told by the judge to consider various points and told that if they think a, b, c , d or e then they should find for the defendant But if they think w, x, y, or z then they should find against them.

Given what has ben said I doubt anything much has been proven other than they are both utterly bobbins! And who knows what the judge's summing up will be!

This trial is a civil matter so in the UK the test would be on the balance of probabilities so on balance do you think the person bringing the case (in this case JD) has proved all the things he needs to prove to win. In a defamation case (in uk) that would mean proving that her statement damaged his reputation, that they were false (that a statement is true is a complete defence to a claim of defamation) or if it was true that it was made maliciously.

standing the opinion of the UK case I think there is no prospect of JD winning.

to answer your specific questions, yes you have to consider whether the witnesses are being (a) reliable (ie do they have an accurate recollection and can they explain well what they do and do not remember and (b) are they credible (ie are they lying/not talking the whole story)

In serious crimes like murder, there has to be a good weight of evidence for it even to get to court, so you wouldn't see a murder trial where the only material to deliberate on was the defendant's testimony.

Is a juror instructed to take all sworn testimony as fact? Or are they instructed to draw their own conclusions as to the authenticity of the sworn testimony?

If this were the case nobody would ever be found guilty surely? If someone is accused of a crime it only comes to court if they deny that charge.

The American system is clearly different to the British one but in general I believe the just can only consider the facts put to them during the trial, they must consider any discrepancies, the answers that gave to specific questions and they will have to listen to the arguments and opinions of their fellow jurors.
I imagine it’s exhausting and very difficult especially in cases where emotions are running high and it’s impossible for the jurors to have no prior knowledge of those involved.

As a Juror, you are definitely NOT instructed to take all testimony as fact. In the UK the judge gives a lot of guidance. I once sat on the jury for a rape trial and the judge more or less told us how to vote. He said "unless you consider this woman to be a supreme actress". I suppose the problem is they are dealing with actors here.

When I say on a jury, we had one case where everyone was vile from defendant to victim and everyone lied. Even the ridiculous police officer said things that contradicted original evidence. The jury saw a "missing, can't be found" witness hanging around outside court with the kids asking questions (there's a reason why it was obvious). We got a bit bored with prosecution, defence and judge all repeating it all, it was particularly odd when the judge directed us to consider something that had been proven later to be false - and then confirmed that half an hour later! I can only think he just read out notes in order.

Anyway, as a jury, we all systematically went through to decide what evidence was definitely real / fabricated / indeterminate and agreed the defendant definitely and deliberately caused [insert life-changing injury] (even admitted it at one point) and it is definitely not ok to cause [insert life-changing injury], regardless of which of 3 stories you could choose to believe about why he did it. So we asked the judge about the meaning of the difference between the two sentences on offer and we were unanimous in our decision. We didn't know what the reason was why the defendant did it, but ultimately that didn't actually matter.

I've been thinking the case here may be similar. Vile people with lots of lies on all sides. Ultimately the jury can sift out bits that are proven true versus bits that are lies or indeterminate. Based on what they have, they can decide whether that means the case is justified or not. Juries don't need to like anyone, nor to take a side, they just pick out what's definitely factual and decide from there. It's probably easier in fact, when you don't like anyone involved, because then you know you aren't being emotionally influenced.

I think you have to remember that the jury are not being asked to decide whether each fact or piece of evidence is true and dtermine exactly what happened (I.e. did Amber shit in the bed)..that's what people on the Internet are discussing.
The jury have to decide whether on balance there is enough evidence to support Johnny's claim. If Amber's only supporting evidence is her own testimony which you feel has been shown to be unreliable and not much of the body of other evidence suports her account, then yes, you take all that into account in terms of how much weight you apply to her testimony...but crucially, when answering the specific question you need to answer. And that's why the judges guidance is key as he will remind the jury exactly what question it is they need to answer and provide guidance in his summing up on what the heart of the issue is.
A jury decision in depp's favour doesn't automatically mean that EVERYTHING Amber said is a lie...and it's worrying how many people seem to assume it is so black and white

This is a civil case, not a criminal one.

JD is trying to prove that he was defamed by AH in an op-ed she wrote for the Washington Times which, although not stating him by name, claims she is the victim of intimate partner violence, IPV.
He claims that because of reputation damage resulting from this publication, he suffered massive career and financial damage. He is trying to prove that her claims of IPV are false and in fact that she was the one who was the abuser.

She is counter suing him, which is common in these circumstances and to be advised.

It is for the jury to listen to both sides, weigh up the evidence presented and decide whether AH did indeed defame JD and if her claims of IPV are without foundation. Unfortunately in this case, it’s very much a he said/she said situation which makes much of the ‘evidence’ unreliable. It will be interesting to see the outcome. Personally I feel AH’s testimony to be highly questionable and it will be interesting to see how she does under cross examination.

When I did jury service I did think about this a lot. It's true that the judge gives a lot of guidance and jurors are allowed to send a note out to the judge for clarification of a point during their deliberations. But, thinking about it, I realised that the system is deliberately set up so that the jurors aren't expected to have any particular expertise or experience - their views are exactly those of 'the [wo]man in the street' and each has to make his/her own decision, based on what they've seen and heard. And, of course, we bring our own personalities and experiences to any decision, but there are 12 in the jury. The decision is informed up to a point by the discussion with fellow jurors, which can take days.

Since I did it, I've chatted (in general terms only, of course) to lots of other people who've done jury service. It seems quite surprising that anyone is convicted of anything, so the barristers have to do a good job to make sure the jurors have all the evidence available, including getting an idea of how truthful each witness might be. It's easier where there's non-verbal evidence, but even then people on trial for murder have been found not guilty even when there is a dead body and a weapon as evidence. I can see how hard it is to get a conviction for rape - two people were actually there and it's one person's word against the other, with a bit of influence from events just before and after if they were witnessed by any one else.

Another problem is when jurors have made up their minds early, or even in advance. 'I couldn't send another person to jail; you never know what's gone on in their lives' or 'S/he's obviously guilty; you can tell by ...' At least there are 12 and a majority verdict is usually accepted so hopefully those cancel each other out.

I would add that when I was on a jury we didn't all agree on every single detail of true or not, but there was agreement on most key points that matter and then the things that to me really crystallised my confidence in my decision might have been slightly different to another members...but point is, we all reached the same decision based on how much weight we put on things in our own judgement. We didn't all need the exact same agreement on every detail or every 'lie' in order to feel confident beyond reasonable doubt. I would stress it took us over a week of discussion of the minutiae to get there.
I don't think any jury member should know before they go into deliberation..you might have thoughts, but you do need to work through them carefully and methodically to reach a verdict

I think in a standard case, you listen to everything presented to you as fact (unless dismissed by the judge), and from that, decide that there is no doubts that they did it (guilty) or I still have my doubts that they did it (not guilty).

I honestly can't work out in the AH/JD case who is taking who to court, so can't comment on this specifically.