jury instruction Archives

The Bias in the flip of a coin!

The Judicial Council of California Civil Jury Instructions- Instruction 5009 on Pre-deliberations- admonishes jurors who are about to retire to decide the verdict that while the judge knows that the jurors will not do so, he/she is “required to advise you that you must not base your decisions on chance, [Read More]

An “Unreliability” Admonition?

An article last month in the New York Times got me thinking that perhaps in my mediations, I should warn people that their memories and perceptions may be unreliable, especially where the situation involves parties of different ethnicities. In To Curb Bad Verdicts, Court Adds Lesson on Racial Bias for [Read More]