Permitting juror note taking

While permitting jurors to take notes had some history in American law prior to the jury improvement efforts of recent decades, the norm in most courts for most of the 20th century was that jurors were not afforded the opportunity to take notes. That situation has changed dramatically in the wake of jury improvement efforts. Every task force studying the jury has recommended that jurors be permitted to take notes. Viewing jurors as learners, this recommendation comports with common sense: most people who are trying to learn something are permitted to take notes, and are eager to do so because the notes act as memory aids. Nonetheless, there continue to be some objections to juror note taking:
 

• May cause jurors to miss something important that is occurring because the jurors are busy writing notes about what has already occurred

• May cause jurors to discount their memories of the testimony

• May result in jurors doodling rather than taking notes

• May result in the most prolific note taker dominating the deliberations

• Could be perverted by a note taker who is dishonest
   

None of these objections has ever been empirically verified, and the common-sense momentum for allowing jurors to take notes has been growing. Currently, several states have rules that require trial judges to inform jurors of their right to take notes, and many more states—and all federal circuits—give the trial judge the discretion to permit note taking. Currently, note taking is prohibited only in civil cases in Florida expected to last less than 5 days, in land condemnation cases in Louisiana, in Pennsylvania civil cases expected to last less than 2 days, and in Pennsylvania criminal cases.

To read of summary of the law of each state and federal circuit, click here.

To read the statutes, rules, and/or citations of court opinions in state and federal circuit, click here.

Social science research

There has been some social science research on allowing jurors to take notes, ask questions of witnesses, and discuss the case while the evidence phase of the trial is in progress. A 2001 summary of that research concluded: “[W]hat [little] evidence is available suggests that the positive impact on deliberation quality may be modest and limited to particular kinds of trials (e.g., long or complex ones). On the other hand, there seems to be little harm in allowing jurors to be more involved, and these procedures have not tended to elicit negative reactions from attorneys and judges.” Dennis J. Devine, et al., Jury Decision Making: 45 Years of Empirical Research on Deliberating Groups, 7 Psychology, Pub. Pol. & L. 622 (2001).

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