Almost 30 years ago I served on a jury. A man was accused of assaulting and robbing another man. There was little doubt that the defendant had committed a crime, but if we were to find him guilty we would also have to determine what degree of assault based on whether he had caused "significant physical injury" to the victim. The defendant was also accused of resisting arrest.
The first thing the jury foreman did after we sat down for deliberations was to say "Well, let's take a vote and see where we are," and he proceeded to hand out slips of paper. I abstained. How stupid is it to reach a conclusion before you've had a chance to examine and reflect on the evidence? I was surprised that most of the jurors immediately voted guilty/not guilty on the various charges even though they had just been instructed by the judge to weigh the evidence carefully before reaching a conclusion.
We proceeded from there, most jurors now having to take a defensive position about their votes rather than just being able to review the testimony and evidence. (I was one of the pains in the ass that insisted on having a portion of the testimony read back before deciding on the most serious charge. Surprise, right?)
I'm glad I insisted, because I was leaning one direction on one of the charges but changed my mind after listening to the testimony a second time and getting clarification on the legal definition of "significant physical injury".
Eventually we found him guilty of the more severe level of assault, and not guilty of the resisting arrest charge. I believe we got it right, but it was not easy sifting through some conflicting testimony and we wasted a lot of time getting to a place where we could just look at the evidence calmly and (somewhat) objectively.
Why am I writing this? Because it occurred to me this morning while reading this article that the media does a terrible disservice to the public by beginning its coverage of elections with polling. They ask for a conclusion before many voters have even had a chance to find out who the candidates are, what they stand for, and if their records match their rhetoric. As soon as an outlet conducts one poll, it biases their coverage (and coverage by other media) from that moment forward, resulting sometimes in their flat-out refusing to cover anything that doesn't fit their narrative.
Unfortunately, when voting for public officials, we don't get to keep voting until we reach consensus like a jury in a criminal trial. We get one chance and if we get it wrong because a plurality of the voters made hasty, ill-informed conclusions cemented in place by pollsters anxious to pick their brains, we're screwed. Again.
