Lawyer: Juries are traditionally given their instructions in convoluted, legalistic language. The verbiage is intende...

shunhe on June 13, 2020

Hi @kenken,

Thanks for the question! Basically, what the lawyer is saying here is that jury instructions are too complicated, so juries should be given instructions in simpler language. This is because the instructions are supposed to be more precise, but that doesn’t matter if jurors have difficulty understanding them, and it’s more important for juries to have a basic but adequate understanding of their role than it is to precisely specify the details of their role.

Now we’re looking for the answer choice that does not strengthens the lawyer’s argument. Let’s take a look at (E), which tells us that jurors don’t need to know the precise details of their role in order to have an adequate understanding of that role. Well, if this is true, then that strengthens the author’s argument, since the language doesn’t have to be super precise, and the jurors will still understand their role, which is more important.

(D), on the other hand, doesn’t strengthen the lawyer’s argument. It tells us that simple language can’t specify the details of the role of the jurors. If this is true, and simple language can’t relay the role of the jury, then it might weaken the lawyer’s argument. But in any case, this certainly doesn’t strengthen the author’s argument, since it details a limitation of simple language. So (D) is the correct answer choice.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.