Weblog Part 1

From what I’ve heard all of my life, the hardest cases to decide in court are the ones that have emotional stories associated with them. In most tough cases, the deciding factors for the judges often come from the emotional appeals made by either the defense or the prosecution. As human beings, we often “put ourselves in other people’s shoes,” so to speak. We can’t help but align ourselves with the problems of others and often times the attorneys use this to their advantage.

In When Law Goes Pop, this is the same argument that the author, Sherwin, makes. He says that the jurors are interested in the lives of the parties involved in the trial and that often times the attorneys use this interest and compassion to their advantage. They don’t always play up the facts and hard truth so much as they play up the emotions involved and paint pretty pictures of the people’s lives.

As far as I’m concerned, however, I think I am an exception to the rule. If I were a juror in any of the cases discussed in class, Sherwin would have been dead wrong about me. In each of the cases, my first instinct was to empathize with the sob stories told by each group, but once I heard some hard facts from each case, I changed my mind. In the McDonald’s case, I first felt bad for the hardworking family. Once I heard that the nutrition information is posted in McDonalds however, I decided that that fact outweighed the fact that they were busy. In the affirmative action case, I originally felt bad for the struggles of the athletic girl. After I researched the facts behind affirmative action, I decided that it did more harm than good, regardless of the few sad stories that could be told. In the case with the Smith family, I started off thinking that it was the insurance company’s fault that the boy died. I looked further into the cost effectiveness of drug tests and actually considered the number of people that would have to be tested as well and realized that there was more the family could have done.