"Curse of the Correct Verdict"

Writing about the Scrushy trial, John L. Carroll writes:

What is most distressing to me and most emblematic of the "curse of the correct verdict" is that almost no one I have talked with is willing to accept the possibility that the [not guilty] verdict of the jury, selected from a fair cross section of the community, the jury that actually heard the evidence, actually watched the witnesses testify and actually heard the judge's instructions, might have rendered a correct verdict based on the evidence actually presented in court. Almost no one is willing to recognize the legitimacy of the verdict. Almost everyone is willing to criticize the jury simply because the jury verdict differs from the verdict that they had reached from watching television, reading the newspapers and talking with friends and neighbors. This "curse of the correct verdict" flows from a simple syllogism - my verdict is correct; the jury verdict differs; the jury verdict is wrong and illegitimate.

The full column is available here.

(Tx, WCCPB)