MovieChat Forums > Runaway Jury (2003) Discussion > Hackman didn't spend his money wisley

Hackman didn't spend his money wisley

posted 15 years ago by andrewdish
4 replies | jump to latest

First off, why would the gun company basically just give away 15 mil on the basis that some nobody say's they can get the jury to swing thier decision. How could they trust them just on words alone to give up that kinda money, with no gaurentee. Nobody could get the whole jury to change thier minds anyway, some may have already made up thier minds and as Cusak said at the end, the jury made the dicision on thier own, and basically implied How could I change people's minds?, kinda making Hackman look stupid for asking the question about how did he get them to all swing one way. Why wouldn't the gun company just try and pay off some the jury for way less money to side with them, I'm sure most of them would accept even 40,000 considering some of them were already on the fence and undecided, wouldn't this be much simplier. Or they could have just killed cusaks character, considering thier were already commiting several felonies and giving away millions. That would have ended the movie very quickly.

[–] anne0 14 years ago

The gun company hired a jury consultant to select members and adjust the trial activities to achieve a desired verdict. Bribing jurors, paying for jury tampering, and killing jurors is illegal, and most corporations would not involve themselves with those actvities. Companies also demand that their jury consultants commit no illegal acts, so the consultants must be very careful that clients are never exposed to any such information on their bad activities.

Fitch did not know he could pay for a verdict - it was a risk. He made the choice based on the prior demonstration that Nick did have influence, the knowledge that his competitor was also being hustled and folded, and the direction he saw in the jurors' reactions and opinions.

Bribing jurors with straight payouts is extremely risky and fails often (confirmed by such experts as Joellyn Dimitrius). If Fitch were to have tried to pay off the eight jurors he needed, chances are someone would catch one of the eight illegal payoff events. Also many jurors are investigated when there is evidence of windfall after high profile trials. Eight jurors all of a sudden in spending mode would be noticed. It is also much more likely that some of the eight would report the tampering, often anonymously. But if they were manipulated during deliberations, they might never realize what happened, or possibly think about it much later.

This trial was a watershed event for both Fitch and the gun industry. As sleazeballs go, Hackman may have spent his money quite wisely . He rarely was up against competition like this.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] rzeznik1085 12 years ago

The gun manufacturers aren't the ones who paid the 15 million, Fitch did that on his own. Anne0 has provided everything else in her response.

[–] lucysbluesky 10 years ago

How could it make financial sense for him to pay $15M out of his own pocket and make a huge loss? You might say that in the future he would earn it back but this was a big case and he was not squeezing $15M out of them. Given how many employees he had he had significant expenses too.