Jurors Ask Questions
In the State of Washington jurors are allowed to take notes and ask questions of the witnesses. This has been the case for several years. I'm am not sure how many other states allow this. But if your state is contemplating doing it I would urge them not to.
This has been my experience in Washington. After the attorneys have questioned a witness, the judge turns to the jury to ask them if they have any questions. If they do they write the questions on a piece of paper and the bailiff collects the questions and hands them to the judge. The judge then looks them over and calls both attorneys to a side bar. At the side bar the attorneys look at the questions, the judge indicates whether or not he or she is inclined to allow the questions and then asks the attorneys for their input. The judge then decides which questions will be allowed and then asks the witness the question. No explanation is given to the jury as to why certain questions were not asked.
The first problem I have with the process is that it adds a lot of time to the trials. The second problem is that it appears to the jurors that there are some kind of shenanigans going on between the judge and the attorneys. Further they are very puzzled as to why certain questions were not asked. So if the point is to empower the juries, I think the opposite happens and they become more suspicious of the systerm.
For those who have not experienced this process this is what you can expect when you look at the questions. Many times you will scratch your head and wonder if you and the jury are at the same trial. It makes you very uneasy when you are left wondering whether or not you are gettting through to the jury. On the other hand it does give you a heads up as to what the jury may be focusing on. Many of the questions are just plain improper (asks for hearsay, irrelavent etc.). And, some of the questions are actually good questions, are ones the attorneys hadn't thought of and make the attorneys a bit uneasy because they often times do not know the answer to the question.
But, ultimately, is it really an aid to discovering the truth? I do not think so. While there are good questions on occasion, most of them do not add much to the facts that the jury has already been given. Therefor, what you are left with is one more reason for juries to not trust the system.
