Supreme Court Permits Some Light Into the Black Box of Jury Deliberations

A photo of the Supreme CourtJury deliberations are the proverbial black box. After passively receiving the law, evidence, and arguments at a trial, the jurors will retire to discuss the case in secret. When they return with a verdict, no explanation will be required for their decision. Afterward, the jurors will normally be instructed that they need discuss the case with no one. The parties are left to wonder how well the jurors understood the governing law, attended to the key evidence, and faithfully attempted to apply the former to the latter.

Occasionally, the public catches some glimpse of what happens inside the black box. But when this happens, the law’s typical response echoes the famous admonition of the Wizard of Oz: “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” This position is reflected in Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b), which generally prohibits jurors from testifying about their deliberations and thought processes when the validity of a verdict is challenged.

Although it seems perfectly sensible to discourage losing litigants from harassing jurors in the hope of uncovering errors, it is not so clear that the system benefits when judges are required to turn a blind eye to substantial evidence that a jury’s decisionmaking went off the rails. 

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Women in Wisconsin Law: Jessie Jack Hooper

This is the third part of a three-part series on Women in Wisconsin Law. 

Not all women who were influential in Wisconsin law were lawyers. Among these influential women was Jessie Jack Hooper, a suffragist and politician who made history by running for one of Wisconsin’s seats in the United States Senate in 1922.

Jessie Jack Hooper was born on a farm in Iowa in 1865. In 1888, she married Ben Hooper and moved to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to begin a new chapter of her life. Mr. Hooper, a graduate from Columbia University Law School, was extremely supportive of his wife’s passion for the women’s suffrage movement. Even before women were given the right to vote, Mr. Hooper went to great lengths to share his right to vote with his wife. One year he would vote as he saw fit, and then the next year, he would vote according to his wife’s wishes.

Once in Oshkosh, Hooper joined a variety of progressive movements in the state, including the Women’s Club and the Wisconsin Federation of Women’s Clubs. Although she was active in a variety of organizations, she was primarily involved in the women’s suffrage movement as a member of the executive board of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association.

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The Uncertain Future of Title VII LGBTQ Rights

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), employers may not discriminate against individuals based on their gender.  Whether Title VII protections extend to sexual orientation and gender identity is less clear.  Numerous federal courts have taken the position that sexual orientation and gender identity are not covered and it is up to the legislature to amend Title VII to explicitly provide protection from or redress for discrimination on these bases. Hamner v. St. Vincent Hosp. & Health Care Ctr., Inc., 224 F.3d 701, 704 (7th Cir. 2000); Spearman v. Ford Motor Co., 231 F.3d 1080, 1085 (7th Cir. 2000).

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has been critical of the federal courts’ position.  Beginning in 2013, the EEOC issued a number of decisions finding that gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination were forms of “sex discrimination.” In the recent past, the EEOC has been the driving force behind seeking protection for employees from discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.  For this reason, many people expressed concern that the Department of Labor (DOL) took down the EEOC’s “Advancing LGBT Workplace Rights” document from their website the day President Donald Trump was elected.   Activists worry that the EEOC will not continue to advance LGBTQ protections under the new administration.  It is unlikely that Congress will advance any express protections based on gender identity or sexual orientation.

Reprieve may come from the courts.

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