Younger Jurors Have Trust Issues

Trial attorneys all have their own beliefs about who make the best jurors, and who make the absolute worst.  Many attorneys tell us they actively avoid younger jurors for a variety of reasons, including shorter attention spans, a lack of life experience and perspective, unrealistic expectations, or simply the attorney’s experience and gut instincts.  

Whatever the reasons for avoiding younger jurors, we have been crunching a lot of numbers lately and have some hard numbers to back up those intuitions and gut feelings.  First, a recent national poll of 18- to 29-year-old Americans by Harvard’s Institute of Politics revealed these younger folks’ trust in public institutions is at a five-year low, and cynicism related to the political process is at an all-time high.

The tendency of younger people to be more cynical, critical and suspicious of public institutions – which applies to most large entities including education, healthcare, health insurance and the judicial system – is what we are seeing in our own polling.  In fact, in a recent national Jury Impact poll of 834 Americans, younger jury-eligible respondents were most likely to believe plaintiffs “rarely or never” inflate their damages amounts, believe a family member of the plaintiff would be a credible witness, and to change their vote for the plaintiff if they learned they would receive no money – even if the plaintiff failed to convince them of their case.

Most troubling, those 29 years old and younger were 2.55 times more likely to conduct outside Internet research on a case during trial – even if a judge specifically instructed them not to.  Furthermore, younger respondents were the most likely to admit they would ignore a judge’s instructions not to consider lawyer’s fees when calculating damages, and not to allow sympathy to affect how they decide a case. 

So, not only are younger jurors more likely to be hostile to defendants who classify as “large institutions,” they are also less likely to respect the legal process and instructions.

Although these numbers are daunting, because there is no way to guarantee younger people won’t get seated on your jury, it is important to understand their unique mindsets when evaluating cases and developing themes and messages.  Using research to gauge the perceptions of jurors with shorter attention spans can help you develop a more concise overall message that appeals to those accustomed to instantaneously Googling the answer to any question the world has ever asked in mere seconds.  Furthermore, if you are able get through to the most cynical, skeptical audience members, then you can have confidence your approach will also appeal to the rest of your jury panel. 

As the attention spans of all generations get shorter (if you’ve ever surfed the web on your smartphone or tablet while fast-forwarding through commercials on your DVR, then you have firsthand knowledge of this trend), it is even more important to present case facts, themes and arguments in a clear, concise manner.  If you have an upcoming case that could benefit from an outside perspective – from jurors of all ages and backgrounds – please contact Senior Vice President Claire Luna at cluna@juryimpact.net or 714.754.1010.