Well, I think average HN'er has much better judgement over average Joe jury in Apple's hometown on technical design and patent issues. The role (or problem) of non-technical jury in highly technical patent litigation is also often debated in academia too.

> average Joe jury in Apple's hometown

Keep in mind that most of the people in Apple's hometown are have graduate degrees and work in the technology industry…though, it's likely that they wouldn't be selected for the jury at this trial.

I was surprised to find that only two of the first jury had any technical background at all. In that case however one such member helped to ignore the jury instruction and somewhat mislead the rest.