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by ratliffchrisb 3727 days ago
No, nothing near it. There are tons of small details about jury selection that is common knowledge to attorneys that are based off very general, singular, facts. For example, a prosecutor will almost always strike a social worker if they get the chance because they are supposedly always driven by mitigating circumstances that make them highly unlikely to convict. Backing up, or refuting, things like this and finding more of them once you have actual data is child's play.

A probability based off a set of given facts and not every fact is still useful and doesn't require AI.

To fully replace a jury consultant, yes that would require AI, but at their going rate of >$250/hr I think an app could find a price point reflecting the diminished result that is still very attractive in comparison.

1 comments

I see three qualms, one "my reckons", one empirical, one moral.

1. If you're already going to trial, especially with "millions on the line", paying out a few thousand / tens of thousands to a consultant doesn't necessarily seem to bad.

2. Given how much jury tuning is going on right now, I would have worries about the quality of the "actual data" and how much insight you could get from such a contaminated corpus.

3. Prosecutors already have an incredible amount of power in jury selection, why do they need more?

1. I agree. I think this app could be useful to the consultants too by making their jobs easier. I think I would still see a sale, just from a consultant not the attorney. I think two separate markets would be those who can't afford or it doesnt make sense to hire consultants and the consultants themselves.

2. The biogdaphic/demographic data is all from forms and attorneys would have no reason to lie to their own device they are using to reference juror information from. I think most of the information would be reliable.

3. The defense cab use it too ;). But seriously, the juror selection process is designed for each attorney to be able to get rid of anyone they think is biased against then with the hope that by both attorneys doing this those left create a fair hury. Is this optimal? No. Would my tool make a suboptimal solution better? Yes I believe it will.

I think it is the programmer optimization drive in us that makes this seem crappy that it isn't being completely overhauled since it isn't optimal, but my solution does help.