Can You Tell If A Juror Is Telling The Truth?
Transcription
Sari de la Motte here, I'm based in Portland, Oregon. I specialize in helping attorneys communicate with jurors. In today's video, we're going to talk about how can you tell if a juror is telling the truth.
I deal in nonverbal communication, and I try to stay away from the term, "body language," because people tend to assume that I am a body language expert. This means that I can train people to read another person's body language, and tell what their secret thoughts or feelings are.
I don't do that. I focus on a person's nonverbal communication and help make sure that the message is getting across and being received in the way that it was intended. When I look at the question, "How you can tell if a juror is telling the truth?" the answer is, you can't. You cannot detect lying through body language alone. Unless the person is strapped to a polygraph, heart rate monitor, and their breathing is being monitored, and even those can be faulty, you can't accurately detect whether someone is lying.
What we want to do instead, is change the mindset that a lot of attorneys walk into court with, which is, the jurors are my enemy. They will kill my case, if given the opportunity. Here's why that mindset is so dangerous. You've heard me say before that body language starts in the brain. If we stand in front of our jury, and look at this group of people as our enemy, we will communicate, based on that mindset. If instead, we go in and view the jurors as people who want to do the right thing, we are more likely than not to get that type of juror on our panel.
I would caution you against looking at nonverbal behavior as a way to determine whether someone is lying or not, because when you do that, when you're looking at blinking eyes, or scratching of the nose, or the shifty looking around, what you're doing is missing the opportunity to communicate and connect with the jurors that are right in front of you.
Now, for what body language you can read and use, look at some of our past videos, where we talk about that. But, for today, I want to dispel the notion that you can tell, nonverbally, or otherwise, whether a juror, is lying. Instead, focus on communicating, and connecting with the jury that you have in front of you.
I deal in nonverbal communication, and I try to stay away from the term, "body language," because people tend to assume that I am a body language expert. This means that I can train people to read another person's body language, and tell what their secret thoughts or feelings are.
I don't do that. I focus on a person's nonverbal communication and help make sure that the message is getting across and being received in the way that it was intended. When I look at the question, "How you can tell if a juror is telling the truth?" the answer is, you can't. You cannot detect lying through body language alone. Unless the person is strapped to a polygraph, heart rate monitor, and their breathing is being monitored, and even those can be faulty, you can't accurately detect whether someone is lying.
What we want to do instead, is change the mindset that a lot of attorneys walk into court with, which is, the jurors are my enemy. They will kill my case, if given the opportunity. Here's why that mindset is so dangerous. You've heard me say before that body language starts in the brain. If we stand in front of our jury, and look at this group of people as our enemy, we will communicate, based on that mindset. If instead, we go in and view the jurors as people who want to do the right thing, we are more likely than not to get that type of juror on our panel.
I would caution you against looking at nonverbal behavior as a way to determine whether someone is lying or not, because when you do that, when you're looking at blinking eyes, or scratching of the nose, or the shifty looking around, what you're doing is missing the opportunity to communicate and connect with the jurors that are right in front of you.
Now, for what body language you can read and use, look at some of our past videos, where we talk about that. But, for today, I want to dispel the notion that you can tell, nonverbally, or otherwise, whether a juror, is lying. Instead, focus on communicating, and connecting with the jury that you have in front of you.