That's one side of the coin, yes. The other side of the coin is they want people who don't have preconceived notions. It's not the jury's role to decide the law. They just decide what, factually, happened. E.g. in a software patent trial, I would want a bunch of reddit neck beards on the jury who don't believe in software patents. I want them to decide the facts in light of the actual law, not the law as they wish it were.
Sadly, this is true. Here's Groklaw's report on the jury selection of this case[1]. Note how both sides manage to get rid of anyone that's got any experience with IP, Patents or Programming, including a woman who happens to work for Oracle and a Patent Attorney. They then get into more detailed questioning, including asking if anyone owns a cellphone with internet access.
It's completely sensical to eliminate a woman who works for Oracle from the jury in a case in which Oracle is a plaintiff. It also makes sense to eliminate the patent attorney. The judge in the case decides the law and explains it to the jury--we don't want a patent attorney incorporating his preconceptions of the law into his judgment. It also makes sense to eliminate people with Android phones (they might root for their side--you know how people get with their fanboyism).
That is not the grounds on which the patent attorney was excused -- there is no justification for excusing someone whose personal experience bears upon the subjects brought up at trial. (In other words, you cannot excuse such a juror "for cause" as you could the Oracle employee.) The key worry is that the patent attorney may bring up his knowledge in deliberations with other jurors.
As for the Android users...Android users are not as enamored with Google as iPhone users are with Apple, so that consideration would be laughed out of court.
> That is not the grounds on which the patent attorney was excused
> The key worry is that the patent attorney may bring up his knowledge in deliberations with other jurors.
That's exactly why the patent attorney was excused. A juror is not supposed to bring his view of the law into deliberations. The jury is supposed to get its view of the law from the judge.
> As for the Android users...Android users are not as enamored with Google as iPhone users are with Apple, so that consideration would be laughed out of court.
Who knows what the relative brand-loyalty of Android versus Apple users is. The point is that it is entirely legitimate to remove a juror that might have reason to root for one side over the other.
That's not how jury selection actually works in this country. Personal experience in a relevant field is generally not a justification for removing a juror for cause. A product preference is not a justification for removing a juror for cause.
You can of course use one of your peremptory challenges (i.e, no justification required) on such jurors, but you only get a handful of those (1-6, depending on the jurisdiction).
That's not true at all. Defense attorneys (especially criminal defense attorneys) want jurors who are more knowledgeable because they are more willing to actually think about what they're being told rather than just defer to whichever expert has the most acronyms after his name.
