* President of San Francisco’s Federal Reserve says the economy is getting better. “For the first time in a while, there is some good news to savor.” If by good news, you mean that laid-off lawyers have taken to wearing track suits around the house “savoring” comfort food instead of 6-figure salaries, then yes, there is reason for optimism. [Bloomberg.com]

* Meanwhile, Chrysler’s bankruptcy judge Arthur Gonzalez paved the way for a fire sale of most of the company’s assets. [Reuters]

* A Miami juror, who was on the jury deliberating the case of 6 men accused of conspiring to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago, was replaced for refusing to deliberate. Got to hand it to her for getting out of jury duty. [The New York Times]

* Souter says goodbye, telling the U.S. Court of Appeals that a jurist’s satisfaction is “not in the great moments, but in being part of the great stream.” [The Washington Post]

* Should there be more women in the “great stream” Souter described. Justice Ginsburg says the Court would benefit from another woman. [USA Today]

* Senator Chuck Schumer went to bat for Loretta Lynch, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, who held the job under Clinton and who has just been re-appointed by Obama. [The New York Times]

Personally, I love jury duty. I’ve never been picked to actually sit on one, but I still hope to have the opportunity one day. It’s a great opportunity to participate in your community.

I know I hold the minority opinion on this. Most people find jury duty annoying, some find it outright insulting.

But few are willing to put it in writing. That’s what makes the jury affidavit below so special.

“I don’t believe in our ‘justice’ system and I don’t want to have a goddamn thing to do with it.” This is why we need states like Montana. It’s important for these people to have someplace where they can go, breed, and keep America just a little bit closer to the edge.

Earlier this month, lawyers for a building products company asked an Arkansas judge to overturn a $12.6 million judgment because “Juror Johnathon” had been sending out tweets on Twitter about his thoughts on the trial. Here are our thoughts in Twitter fashion:

atlblog: Everyone’s talking about Twitter these days and the ability to broadcast your thoughts continuously in 140 character tweets.

atlblog: We really should have done a full post on it last week when that NYT story about twittering jurors and mistrials made its way around the Web.

atlblog: Jurors aren’t supposed to talk about a case outside the courtroom. Twittering is talking. What will judges do about this?

atlblog: We wonder which firms will go to the Final Four in the ATL March Madness contest… Oh. Sorry. Off topic.

atlblog: @WSJ’s Ashby Jones. We liked the headline for your piece: Twelve Twittering Men? Very clever. We imagine Henry Fonda with a BlackBerry.

atlblog: That WSJ article has a weird Bob Dylan non-sequitur at the end. Apparently, Dylan’s outhouse stinks up his neighborhood… Sorry. Off topic.

atlblog: @davidlat. Please stop twittering about the recession and how the ship be sinking. It depresses us… Sorry. Off topic.

atlblog: Why are we so addicted to broadcasting our thoughts that we can’t not tweet and update Facebook statuses during jury duty?

atlblog: Jurors doing their own online research is the more serious problem. Lots of good letters to the NYT editor from lawyers & one law student.

atlblog: Please feel free to tweet your thoughts about jurors, social networking, technology, and twittering in the comments.

Appeal says juror sent ‘tweets’ during case [Associated Press]
As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up [New York Times]
Twelve Twittering Men? [Wall Street Journal]
Letters to the Editor about “As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up” [New York Times]

Having traveled down to D.C. to cover the Woodstock of Washington, we’ve fallen behind a bit in our Wall Street Journal reading. So a “Science Journal” article from Friday’s edition only just came to our attention: The Brain, Your Honor, Will Take the Witness Stand.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University have identified the parts of the brain that become active when we render legal decisions. The study is part of a larger $10 million three-year project funded by the MacArthur Foundation to study how “experimental brain findings may alter traditional notions of guilt, responsibility and choice.”

Vanderbilt law professor Owen Jones collaborated with researchers for the experiment. We’re guessing he came up with the legal questions posed to 16 volunteers as their brain activity was monitored with an MRI machine.Two areas of the brain became active as the guinea pigs thought about “50 hypothetical scenarios ranging from theft of a music CD to rape and murder.” It seems like 12 volunteers would have been more appropriate, perhaps with two alternates.

Any hoo. Here’s what they found:

No one part of the brain stands in judgment of others, they found. Instead, at least two areas of the brain assess guilt and assign an appropriate penalty. An area associated with analytical reasoning, called the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, became very active, they reported. But the decision process also electrified emotional circuits.

[One of the researchers] Dr. Marois found so much emotional activity during an impartial legal decision surprising. “This reasoning may not be so detached. It shattered my preconceived ideas of the legal system,” says Dr. Marois. “But for a lawyer, maybe it doesn’t.”

Our ideas of the legal system aren’t shattered. Our ideas about the insight of researchers are a bit wobbly.

More about studies to come, including one on “a group of inmates diagnosed as psychopaths,” after the jump.

O.J. Simpson is set to stand trial, but this time the jury is all white (“So it’s all right,” says Chris Rock).

But let’s dig beyond identity politics for a moment.

Over at Deliberations they’ve posted a study that looks at jury issues based on jurisdiction, instead of ethnic origin. The study compares juries from urban districts to suburban ones. One can argue that splitting jury pools in this way is “code” for making a black-white distinction, but once the jurisdiction is picked it becomes harder to voir dire yourself into a conviction/acquittal.

The study finds urban juries to be “softer” on crime than suburban juries. D’uh. What is interesting is why there is this split.

Apparently, urban juries don’t trust the police, while suburban juries do.

Isn’t this a point that makes a lot of sense? Regardless of your race, if you live in a big city most of your interaction with the police involves them hassling you, your friends, and your rights. A tourist breathes a sigh of relief when they are walking down a dark alley and a patrol car rolls by. A city dweller avoids the stupid alley altogether, unless they are doing something that requires the privacy of dark, dank urban escapes.

Tempting fate after the break.

When it comes to seating juries, desperate times call for desperate measures. Like arresting — and shackling — jury duty deadbeats, which is what’s done in D.C.

Out in Oregon, they conscript jurors from off the street:

A juror shortage forced a judge to look through a phone book before sending sheriff’s deputies out into the street to round up enough people for a trial.

Lane County Presiding Judge Mary Ann Bearden said an unusually large number of criminal trials combined with an equally unusual number of no-shows for jury duty forced her to invoke a little-used state law.

“I dealt with some angry people,” the judge said. “They didn’t think it was fair.”

Their anger is understandable. These folks were out for a nice morning stroll, on a sunny day in August. The next thing they knew, they were jurors on a sex abuse trial — for a man accused of screwing the pooch aggravated animal abuse. And the defendant wasn’t even a federal judge.

Democracy: what a bitch.

Oregon judge tries dialing, rounding up jurors [AP via Seattle Times]

Lawyers tend to respect the call of jury duty due to their line of work, but for the general population, a jury summons is sometimes seen as optional. Most come up with a good excuse for exemption, while others simply ignore it. Fed up with those who were ignoring the summons, the D.C. Superior Court issued 100 bench warrants.

A good amount of residents responded to the warrant, but five people were arrested and taken into custody. And then shackled and brought before the judge. Harsh.

From the Washington City Paper’s City Desk:

Earlier this week, five residents were taken into custody, according to court spokesperson Leah Gurowitz. These five spent some time behind bars. At least some, appeared before a judge — to explain their jury-duty failings — in shackles.

In an e-mail, Gurowitz explained the court’s actions: “The Superior Court issued bench warrants only for those people who had ignored two court orders: a jury summons and an order to appear at a ‘show cause hearing’ to explain their failure to appear for jury service.

Our goal is not to arrest people, but to underscore the requirement of obeying court orders and the importance of jury duty. It is not fair to those who do serve jury duty for others to simply ignore it… [F]or those who shirk their civic duty, there are consequences.”

Be warned: Shackles are a possible consequence. Maybe D.C. should take it a step further and set up a pillory in front of the courts for truant jurors. Or make them wear a scarlet J.

We’re a little sympathetic to the errant jurors. D.C. has a population of around just under 600,000 and a whole lot of crime, so it seems like the jury summons comes to residents all too frequently. It’s a good thing that most residents work in the law and feel obligated to serve.

Truant Jurors Arrested, Shackled [City Desk / Washington City Paper]

The Sudoku obsession seems to be on the decline in the U.S., anecdotally speaking. But it’s still all the rage in Australia, at least in one courtroom.

Almost half of the jury in a drug conspiracy trial was whiling away the hours playing the numbers game. From CNN:

An Australian judge has aborted a drug trial after discovering that some of the jurors were playing the puzzle game Sudoku while evidence was being given.

The $950,000 drugs trial was aborted after the judge discovered that jurors had been playing Sudoku.

Sydney District Court Judge Peter Zahra ended the trial Tuesday for two men facing drugs conspiracy charges. The trial had been running for 66 days and had cost taxpayers an estimated US $950,000.

The judge was alerted after it was observed the jurors were writing vertically, rather than horizontally. It had been assumed they were taking notes.

Sixty-six days in… can you really blame them?

Jurors of the future, be warned: stick to games that require you to write horizontally.

Sudoku-playing jurors halt $950,000 trial [CNN]

Twelve Angry Men, move over; now there’s someone meatier. A juicy judicial celebrity sighting, from the Las Vegas Sun:

Suspended District Judge Elizabeth Halverson returned to the Regional Justice Center on Friday — for jury duty.

While waiting for an assignment, Halverson, who can’t roll through the courthouse on her motorized scooter without attracting attention, turned quite a few heads, including those of several prosecutors at the district attorney’s office, which is on the same floor as the jury service room.

Las Vegas lawyers: If you’re hoping to have Halverson on your jury, sorry. Her Honor wound up being assigned to a civil trial that was subsequently postponed, “bringing an abrupt halt to her brief public service on the other side of the bench.”

Suspended judge can’t even get out of jury duty [Las Vegas Sun]

We seem to be on a drug bust kick today. ATL says: “Just say no!”

Especially while you’re hanging out behind the courthouse on a jury break. From the Houston Chronicle:

Judge Sherman Ross tried to assemble a jury of peers for a woman accused of possession of a marijuana on trial Tuesday.

But authorities say prospective juror Cornelia Mayo might have taken that concept a bit too far after she was caught smoking a joint outside the courthouse during a break.

Give that juror a bong hit, and she will acquit.

In other drug news, Georgia has a law going into effect July 1st that bans retailers from selling marijuana-flavored candy to kids, punishable with a $500 fine. The man responsible for pushing the bill forward in the Georgia state senate? Senator Stoner.

It targets businesses that sell the candies with drug-inspired names such as “Kronic Kandy” and “Pot Suckers.” The law says the candies promote drug use.

Senator Doug Stoner pushed the bill in the senate. “I don’t think that folks are aware this is going on,” Stoner told Channel 2 in April. “It’s mainly, from what I can tell, particularly targeted to minority communities.”

Remember the good old days, when retail stores only tried to push candy cigarettes?

Prospective juror in pot trial caught smoking marijuana [Houston Chronicle]
Georgia Law Bans Retailers From Selling ‘Pot Candy’ To Minors [WSB TV]

* NRA defends the rights of hurricane victims to shoot at the National Guard keep guns. [AP via How Appealing]

* French “aid” workers sentenced to eight years of hard labor in Chad “orphan” case. [Jurist]

* Apparently if you’re a rapper you can show up at court when you damn well please. [Athens Banner-Herald]

* If you feel guilty about it, at least you can take comfort in the fact that you’ve helped set up an appeal. [CNN]

* We know you guys never tire of talking about the tough job market for graduates of non-top-tier law schools. Here is Sam Kamin’s take on Amir Efrati’s WSJ piece. [PrawfsBlawg]

* Can’t get a Biglaw gig, perhaps because you’re a Tier 2 (or Tier 3 or Tier 4) grad? Why not hang out your own shingle? [Build A Solo Practice, LLC]

* Still on this week’s non-top-tier law school theme, Dave Hoffman wonders: “[I]s there a point to law school beyond sorting students?” [Concurring Opinions]

* Vault is beloved not just by prestige-obsessed law students, but by investors, too. A private equity firm just bought a stake in Vault that values it at $60-$85 million. [alarm: clock]

* We have no difficulty believing this SCOTUS clerk gossip. [BeldarBlogs]

* Maybe Vanessa Hudgens should pay her lawyer in kind. Autographed nudie pics would surely fetch a pretty penny on eBay. [E! Online]

* Wondering whether there’s a double jeopardy issue with respect to the state charges against Michael Vick? [WSJ Law Blog]

* Want to pick up some advice on the voir dire process — and catch up on the last week of legal blogging at the same time? Check out Blawg Review #127, by trial lawyer and jury consultant Anne Reed. [Deliberations via Blawg Review]

Or if you do, be discreet about it. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A Milwaukee woman who became verbally abusive to jury management staff and walked out of the Milwaukee County Courthouse without serving her jury duty time has been charged with violating a seldom-used state law.

According to a complaint, Zandra Rodgers, 40, was initially summoned to jury service in November 2006. She postponed the service four times before she showed up May 21.

According to a statement of Milwaukee County sheriff’s Deputy Jeffrey Paape, he was summoned to the jury room to deal with a “disgruntled juror.” According to Paape, Rodgers was loud and profane, prompting him to ask her to step into the hallway to discuss her issues privately. She declined to discuss the matter and left the courthouse, according to the complaint….

Clerk of Courts John Barrett said most people realize the importance of jury duty, referred to in state law as the “most cherished constitutional right.”

Jury duty might then also qualify as the “most eagerly relinquished constitutional right.”

(Don’t get us wrong — we’d love to serve on a jury (and came thisclose to doing so). But most people view jury duty as a hassle and a burden.)

Woman charged with violating jury duty law [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

We love pro se litigants here at ATL. Like the guy suing Michael Vick, alleging that Vick stole his dogs and abused them, subjected him to “microwave testing,” and pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda.

Today’s pro se litigant is a defendant rather than a plaintiff. From an article warning that representing yourself can be risky (who knew?), in the Virginian-Pilot:

Charles Willis knew he was no match for the prosecutor.

Police had given him a citation for illegally parking in a fire lane at a home improvement store in Chesapeake, and the Hickory man wanted to fight it.

But on his income - he’s retired and lives on his Social Security disability check - he couldn’t afford it. So on Tuesday morning, the 58-year-old made his way to Chesapeake Circuit Court with his walking cane, armed with a briefcase filled with notes and pictures from the scene.

Like a growing number of defendants these days, Willis was going to represent himself.

Ruh-roh. We suspect this won’t end happily.

Read more, after the jump.

* Can you invoke the Fifth Amendment if you’re a juror being voir dired? [Southern District of Florida Blog]

* When it comes to the administrative state, you can run but you can’t hide. [DealBreaker]

* The Elizabeth Halverson saga rolls on — and social studies teachers are grateful for the judicial soap opera: “My high school students have never read the newspaper with such genuine excitement before… So please, let Judge Halverson stay on the bench, just a little bit longer.” [ABA Journal]

* Who’s up for an Italian sausage grinder? [New York Post]

* Washingtonienne, the sequel? But this time around, blame the “backdoor action” on the Spicy Mussel Soup. [Medill Reports]

* A compelling defense of Judge Dennis Jacobs’s “look ma, no eyes” approach to dissenting. [ProfessorBainbridge.com]

* “My friends said to me, ‘It would take a murder trial for you to meet the right person.’” [Associated Press]

* Because we need to use the “Weirdness” tag at least once a day. [Underbelly]

While we’re on the subject of reluctant jurors, check out this news story:

A female Muslim juror has been arrested in Britain after allegedly listening to an MP3 player under her hijab headscarf during a murder trial, police said Monday.

The woman in her early 20s was spotted by a fellow juror listening to music as she was meant to be helping try the case of a pensioner accused of bludgeoning his wife to death after 50 years of marriage.

The judge in the case thought that something might be up:

Judge Roger Chapple, presiding, said that he thought he could hear “tinny music” in the courtroom at Blackfriars Crown Court in Central London, but dismissed it as a figment of his imagination until another juror sent him a note.

We’re surprised this juror tuned out during a MURDER trial. What would she have done if the case were truly boring — whipped out a laptop and started watching movies?

British juror arrested after listening to music under hijab [AFP]
Muslim juror ‘listened to iPod under hijab’ [Times of London]

Don’t try this strategy, which didn’t turn out that well for one Daniel Ellis, of Cape Cod.

(Unless you want to get taken into custody. And face possible perjury charges.)

Jury duty excuse: I’m a racist, homophobic liar [AP via CNN.com]

Do we pay too much attention to appearances here at ATL? Maybe. Who else would sponsor a U.S. Attorneys hotties contest?

But at least we’re honest about our superficiality — unlike jurors in criminal cases. From the Evening Standard (London):

Good looks could help guilty defendants dodge justice, researchers have said….

[A recent study showed] that attractive suspects were more likely to be acquitted, despite there being no extra evidence in their favour.

Sandie Taylor, the psychologist who conducted the study, said: “We set out to consider the influence of physical attractiveness and ethnicity of a defendant depicted in a photograph on mock jurors’ decisions of verdict, extent of guilt and sentencing….”

“Attractive defendants are, it seems, rated less harshly than homely defendants, so perhaps justice isn’t blind after all.”

Also interesting:

The study showed that while the jurors were swayed by attractiveness, they did not let race cloud their judgment. Black and white suspects were treated equally. When black suspects were convicted, however, they were given longer sentences.

“It is interesting that being an unattractive black defendant only had an impact on sentencing and not on a juror’s verdict of guilt,” Dr Taylor told the British Psychological Society’s annual conference in York.

Upshot: If Naomi Campbell beats up another housekeeper and is tried before a jury, she’s getting acquitted.

Ugly defendants ‘more likely to be found guilty than attractive ones’ [Evening Standard via Drudge Report]

* This is in no way an admission that MTV is somehow partially responsible for your laziness and/or learning disabilities. [New York Daily News]

* More Heidi Fleiss-inspired antics! I keep forgetting this kind of thing is illegal — there should be a carve-out for the C-listed and below. [Los Angeles Times]

* This mom-of-the-year is kind of like a low-rent Joe Simpson, although we’re pretty sure Jessica isn’t faking. [MSN]

* The lurid nature of this trial may make the “sex, lies & videotape” qualifier okay, but that was, like, 18 years ago. Conversely, why do we remember Peter Gallagher only from The OC? [New York Times]

* Utah is that boring. [QuizLaw; Denver Post]