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Some of this varies from place to place — even with the last remark, some places have started to allow juror questions ( https://crime.about.com/od/Crime_101/a/jurors-questions.htm ), for better or for worse.
Yes, criminal law and the courts are local, and vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This series just tries to give an overall, general picture.
That said, I’m going to re-do the whole jury thing in the criminal procedure section I’m working on now, and hopefully go more into different ways of doing things. That’s where this topic belongs, anyway. (I stuck this in here before I ever contemplated going on to other subjects like crim pro, as I just wanted to get the basic idea out there before moving on.)
For an example of jury instructions, read the instructions given to the jury in the George Zimmerman case here:
https://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/07/12/201410108/read-instructions-for-the-jury-in-trial-of-george-zimmerman
Frankly, if I were on a jury and not permitted to take notes of some sort, I would simply decide that it was impossible to know what’s going on and vote Not Guilty every time.
I’ve never been on a jury, but my wife was — civil case. She said they had notepads and pencils.
I’m pretty methodical. I’d want to start with what the prosecution and defense said they were going to prove. List them. Then tick off the witnesses testimony and physical evidence, noting how much I believed each witness. From that, I think I’d be able to do a fairly good job of judging the evidence.
Without it, I might as well roll dice.
A more current answer might be… “You will never directly question the witness, but some judges will allow you to submit questions the judge might then ask, at his whim.”