Jury In Apple v. Samsung Case May Have to Agree on 700 Points

puddingebola writes "Jurors in the Apple v. Samsung case will receive a 100 page 'instructions to the jury' document. They will also receive a multi-page form with numerous questions to come to a verdict. From the article: 'The document, which both sides have yet to agree on, is still in its draft stage. In Samsung's case, it's 33 questions long, and stretched across 17 pages. For Apple, it's 23 questions spread over nine pages.' Perhaps this is standard in patent trials? Perhaps road sobriety tests will soon include hopping on one foot while juggling?" As usual, Groklaw has the juicy details on the battle over writing the jury instructions.

Here is how it shakes out

[Anonymous Coward]

From Groklaw: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120820111527257

" There was a lot of back and forth about email spoliation. This revolved around a few points:

First of all, when they established the date by which evidence needed preservation, it became a concern of having a double standard on when Samsung and Apple should have started preserving evidence and putting people on litigation hold. For example, they didn't put Steve Jobs on litigation hold until much later than other people. Judge Koh said something to the effect that surely the plaintiff, Apple, knows better than the defendant when litigation is about to commence. So why, then, didn't it put a litigation hold?

Apple seemed to present more evidence of spoliation on Samsung's part. Samsung however made the argument that they had similar evidence of the same on Apple's part. After arguments by Apple's lawyer, in the end, Judge Koh seemed focused particularly about why Steve Jobs wasn't on litigation hold and the company's policy of automatic notices when your email box gets full.

In the final analysis, Judge Koh said that she was going to make a similar adverse inference on both sides but offered not to do it on either. The Apple lawyer consented to that."

Re:Jury instructions on emails

[lordbeejee]

I don't understand that this blatant lying by Apple about the mails isn't outright punished, every company I've known urges the higherups to keep their old mails for stuff like this so the judge must know they've been deleted to hide something. Same goes for Samsung, just deleting them and acting like it's normal practise. They should both get penalised instead of cancelling it out when the 2 say 'fuck you' to the courts.

Re:Consider this.

[jellomizer]

I think getting paid minimum wage is probably the best thing they can do.

You don't want "Professional Juries" where it is their economic interests to make the trial as long as possible. Then also there is an issue of being fair and getting a good cross section of the population.

The Jury you will often have a guy who makes minimum wage, someone else 20 and hour and someone else 40, 80 an hour. If we pay the people who make more to match their income, then there will be pressure for the judge to get a poorer jury.

Minimum Wage, is enough to keep the jury to try to keep the trial speedy. There is a fair amount of one's integrity, if someone chooses to be a juror (they have plenty of excuses to get out if they want) then it is usually because they are willing to be part of the process, and try to stay just as long to get a fair trial.

Re:WTF? Apple doesn't back up email?

[Trepidity]

Having good backups would greatly complicate one's ability to accidentally lose email, though, so isn't recommended as enterprise best practice.

Re:Consider this.

[luis_a_espinal]

Juries are relatively unpaid or underpaid, and I can't imagine any of them devoting serious time to so many different points.

From my experience as being in jury duty, I disagree with this generalization. YMMV obviously, but in the end, this is just a generalization.

Although, I guess it depends on one's integrity.

At the risk of engaging into a generalization myself, people that show up to jury duty and get selected might have a bit or two of integrity. Most people simply ignore or forget to go to a jury duty row call. And of those who show, a lot do the most innane of things to avoid getting selected. Things I've seen:

1. A guy saying he didn't believe in the US legal system, and that he felt getting a US citizenship was one of his biggest mistakes.
2. A guy asking if he needs to read stuff because he really didn't like reading
3. Gratuitous mentioning of using drugs

Some people have genuine reasons to ask not being selected (say a doctor, a struggling businessman, or a parent.) But you get some shitheads showing up saying the most bestial of things just to skip jury duty. Those who stay know they'll lose salary and convenience, and still try to remain honest and useful (myself included.) My experience has been that jurors do their best to judge the evidence at hand and to follow the judge's instructions.

Again, YMMV.

As a side note, and I realize I'll get modded down as off-topic, should jurors get paid minimum wage?

Yes. Or maybe not. But it will be unreasonable for the state to compensate everyone at their daily rates for doing a civil service (which is a responsibility that comes with all the rights we have in a civil society.)

Factor in how many hours are being stolen from their lives,

Stolen? Why stolen? Society gives you a lot of rights and safegards, infrastructures and services, and above all, the right to trial by a jury of your peers (as opposed to jury by the sole hand of a despot or potentate.) In return, you are asked to give a service in return. That service, which is a small token in the grand scheme of things, will cost something in return (inconvenience and loss of some of your salary.)

And no one really forces you to participate if you are really, really cash strapped. You can always ask the selection process to give you a green light to go because of financial duress.

So it is absolutely fucking stupid to use the word "stolen" when it is something that is, much more often than not, a voluntary thing by people who thing it is a fair thing to give back to society some of their time for a very important fabric of civil society: a trial by peers.

and how little that should really cost given the expenseof everything else involved in the judicial process.

The judicial process is already expensive to begin with. It is not unreasonable to ask willing citizens to give some of their time at a lower cost as part of their civic duty to society (in exchange of the many, many, many other things we get.)

Re:WTF? Apple doesn't back up email?

[BronsCon]

This. Both are wrong for doing it, but Apple is more wrong for calling Samsung out while they, themselves, were doing it. Meanwhile, Samsung was right to point out that Apple was *also* doing it. Had Samsung been the first to point the finger, I would hold the opposite stance.