Comments on: Great Moments in Voir Dire

By: Ted Frank

Ted Frank — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:56:33 +0000

It is well known that there is no evidence that people can read people.

I’ve played too much poker to agree with this sentence.

By: William Nuesslein

William Nuesslein — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:16:53 +0000

Julian,

You post a very plausible theory.

It is well known that there is no evidence that people can read people. For example parole boards are no better than random number generators. I understand that effective jury consultants use demographic – in the extensive sense – data in their work. Do you know of any data that supports your theory?

By: Julian

Julian — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:34:48 +0000

Actually, this is not really surprising and frankly makes for good trial tactics. “Psychics” and other con-artists are usually very good at reading people – especially those suggestible to manipulation and appeals to emotion, which is precisely the sort of person you’d want as plaintiff’s counsel.

Someone who’s made a living at confidence games and manipulation would almost certainly be better at choosing plaintiff friendly jurors than a degreed psychology professional – it simply comes down to real-world experience and motivation. When your livelihood depends on finding the most gullible sucker, in time it would become second nature to you.