Most of the time when celebrities are on trial they try and connect with the jury by conveying the sense that they, the celebrity, are a lot like regular ordinary folks. In criminal cases, well-known defendants want their star power to shine but not so brightly that it looks as if they are purposefully using their star status to curry favor with jurors and receive preferential treatment. Sometimes the right balance is struck, such as in O.J. Simpson, and other times an attempt at basking in the glow of celebrity status backfires, as in Martha Stewart.
O.J. Simpson and his team downplayed/de-emphasized his star status to the jury. Instead, they connected with jurors by putting the LAPD’s tactics and motivations on trial. As a result jurors felt they too could have been framed by a racist cop in a corrupt and largely white police force. It worked. On the other hand, Martha Stewart sought to capitalize on being Martha Stewart by inviting people like Bill Cosby (way before all his troubles came to light) and Rosie O’Donnell into the courtroom gallery, purportedly to show solidarity with her. Jurors in the case saw through it all, and felt planting these celebrities was an unfair encroachment into the realm of the jury. Post-trial interviews revealed jurors thought doing so was tacky, manipulative and sneaky.
In civil cases involving an individual plaintiff, jurors put themselves in the shoes of the plaintiff, and assess how they personally would have felt had they been the ones allegedly wronged. ESPN reporter Erin Andrews recently obtained a $55 Million verdict against Marriott and Michael Barrett, who was put into the hotel room next to her and filmed her naked with a cell phone through her hotel peephole and later posted the video on the Internet. Hulk Hogan, the retired wrestler was awarded $115 Million in an invasion of privacy case against Gawker.com over its publication of a sex tape. He was also awarded $25 Million in punitive damages.
In both cases, though very different fact patterns, privacy rights were pitted against first amendment claims, and jurors clearly came down on the side of respecting the sanctity of privacy. These jurors put themselves in the shoes of each respective public figure, were appalled at what they had endured, and awarded a collective $200 Million.
Read what the actual jurors said about their verdicts. A juror in the Erin Andrews case said, “I’ve got two sons and a wife, and I think about what if it was my wife inside that room, or my kids.”
A juror in the Hulk Hogan case said, “As human beings, we collectively said, you know, if we were all in the same circumstances, how would we feel about it, and, emotionally, we would have all been really devastated.”
Both of these statements could apply to each of the cases. The point is that in these cases, the defendants better realize the daunting uphill climb they face: they are not only facing plaintiffs claiming their dignity was harshly taken away but also facing jurors who will vicariously understand the plaintiff’s misfortunes as if they or someone close to them also suffered something similar.