choosing a jury

Bird · Oct 14, 2003

( How about creating Professional Jurors )

Well, we do sorta have "professional jurors"; we call'em "judges". /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

itsmecindi · Oct 14, 2003

( It's hard for me to take your arguments seriously, Cindi. Perhaps you are just baiting the forum for what you know will be a large number of posts that oppose your view. )

No disrespect intended, Dave, but I'm not so sure that everyone would oppose my views. I wonder why you would jump to the conclusion that I am trying to start trouble. I'm just stating my opinion. The jury selection process is a nightmare from what I hear. I'm just trying to come up with a simpler plan. So if I am on trial for something, the way things work now, I can be assured that my jury will be 12 people who are ....

rank....similarly educated....

class.....make roughly the same amount of money I do

age....somewhere near my age

So if I'm eighteen years old and dropped out of school in tenth grade at sixteen as I had been held back a year, and had never held a job, but had knocked over six liquor stores, where would they get a jury of my peers?

I'm not being facestious, I don't think anybody actually gets a jury of their peers, but I may be wrong. I think they get the best jury the two lawyers can agree on. I understand that the lawyers don't get to pick them all. BUT, if this topic is too hot or controversial, forgive me for starting it. I don't know everything, but I'm working on it. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

bgott · Oct 14, 2003

Breeding season wouldn't get you excused here in Houston. The way I get out of it is when the prosecutor starts that " Would you convict on the preponderance of the evidence or would you have to be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt" horsefeathers, I just tell them beyond a shadow of a doubt. When I was a kid we were the poor folks living up the hill by the dump so it was convenient to blame the Gott kid whenever something happened they couldn't put a name to. I never caught a beef over any of it but it did catch me quite a few undeserved whippin's. The deserved whippin's were mostly luck on their part. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif For that reason I'm not putting depriving somebody of their life or a good part of it on the " preponderance of the evidence". Defense attorneys don't like me much, either. I don't consider having a rough childhood as mitigation for rapin' and robbin' and killin'. When the prosecutor figures out that he can't B.S. you into railroading some poor SOB so he can further his career they blow you out as quick as possible. The system also goes out of it's way to make jury duty a complete PITA. The powers that be figure it's their right to shoot your day in the butt and to treat the citizens that show up like peons. The last time I had jury duty I showed up at noon and they proceeded to screw us around to 4:00 PM to run us into a courtroom. The judge then decided that they needed to pick the jury that day. We got out of there around 6:30 and hiked back to the parking lot. The lot was closed with a sign directing us back to a parking garage next to the courthouse annex we had just left to get our keys. When we hiked back over to the garage the wino in charge there couldn't find the keys. We sat there for an hour or two while he rattled around and supposedly called to find out where the keys were. I think this was a scam to keep our cars for an extra day or have a car or two in an unguarded lot for his buddies to burglarize or steal. The reason I figure that is because we got lucky and the same judge walked into the garage to get her car. We told her the story and she told the attendant to look for our keys again, lo and behold homey came up with them in about 45 seconds flat. The system's answer to that is that you can ride the city bus for free. My answer to that is that they can kiss my a$$, the next time I show up for jury duty it will be at gunpoint. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Chuck52 · Oct 14, 2003

As it happens, I'm up for jury duty the last week of this month. Here in middle Missery, you call every evening before the days you are on call for, and only go in if they will be having a case. I've been on call twice before and have not had to go in at all. I'd actually like to go in once to see how it works. I suspect I would be excused by many prosecutors or defense attorneys, either because I have a PhD in biochemistry, and would therefor not fit one or the other's desired profiles. or because they asked me the wrong questions. One of my older colleagues is never called for duty because at one point he remarked in answer to a question that he held the entire justice system in contempt. I'm not that far along, but I do have problems with the distinction between what I would define as absolute justice and the legal equivalent.

Chuck

bgott · Oct 14, 2003

The first time I had jury duty was in Stockton, CA. I was a repo man at the time and was worried about convicting somebody and then meeting up with them some night. I was wondering how to get out of it and some woman told me to just say the defendant looked guilty, no matter what. We went into the court room and when they were questioning her she told them she figured he was guilty. The attorneys weren't going to let her off that easy. They defense attorney asked her why she figured he was guilty and she told him that he had to be, his eyes were too close together. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif The guy copped a plea not long after that and they let us go so I don't know if it worked or not. That might be why he copped out.

jpr62902 · Oct 14, 2003

What if the guy whose "eyes were too close together" was innocent but copped a plea because he didn't feel like he could get a fair trial due to juror bias? Wouldn't want that on my conscience. On the other hand, that's what juror selection is supposed to correct. The guy probably guilty. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

itsmecindi · Oct 14, 2003

I know there has to be some scenarios where the system runs smooth and all the little cogs in the gears click together as planned, I just don't ever hear about it.

On the same subject, I had to write and fax a letter to be excused. Then call the Friday before to make sure it had been accepted although I was assured it would be. So I called, no answer, left a message. I was supposed to be there Monday morning at eight thirty. I never heard back from them, so Monday morning I took a chance and didn't go. I was mad. I did what I was supposed to do, sent the letter made the call, left the message, and nobody bothered to call me back.

Monday evening just before supper Jake gets this inspired look on his face and says...hey mom, some Judge called for you.

"What!!? When!!?"

I'm thinking he meant that day.....oh Lord they're coming to get me and put me in jail!

"Friday afternoon. She said you were excused and and would be called again at a later date."

Whew.

Kids. Gotta love 'em. That was our fault of course, or Jake's anyway.

itsmecindi · Oct 14, 2003

( I think as a freind of mine once said, if you are under sixty five you should not even be considered. )

I just wanted to clarify this.

I meant that I would rather have someone who's been on the earth awhile and seen darn near everything, and has no boss breathing down his neck and is not sitting there worrying about losing money from his job instead of paying attention to what is going on. If my husband worked by the hour and ended up in a two or three week long trial, we would be sunk! How can he sit there and be objective wondering how we are going to pay the bills on fifteen dollars a day. We've been married twenty + years and he' never made less than that an hour.

I don't know. I'm sorry, it just makes sense to me. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

RSKY · Oct 14, 2003

I will agree that using the retired citizens of the community as jurors would give a lot of hard learned wisdom to the jury. On the other hand there are a lot of changes in our society that they probably would not understand. At least the older ones.

I believe that the jury of peers came about due to the European system of having judges only from the upper class or nobility. The writers of our Constitution wanted a more just system were the jurors could understand the defendents point of view.

Some schools in our area tried using juries of students for disiplinary actions. They found that the students are much rougher on their peers that school administrators. While a principal will give a second chance or reduce the punishment the students would not. The reason given is 'why should they get off easy, they knew what would happen when they broke the rules'. I do not know of a school system in my area that still uses these juries. The students were just too merciless.

bgott · Oct 14, 2003

His eyes weren't too close together, that was a drag to get out of jury duty. If they had have been it would have been the least of his worries. His attorney had to have been a public defender because a real lawyer would have bought him a long sleeve shirt to cover his artwork.