"It's Easier to Bury a Tradition Than a Child"

[N80]

Getting out of jury duty doesn't show how smart you are but how little you really care for our society. You want the benefits but none of the responsibilities.

I gotta disagree with you on this one Patrick. First, there are legal provisions for getting out of jury duty. As long as there is a selection process and as long as there is provision for not being chosen then there is nothing wrong with getting out of it. If you lie, or misrepresent yourself then that is indeed wrong. But it would be just as wrong to misrepresent yourself to get on the jury.

I believe in civic duty as well. I spent six years in the USAF. But I still think that the government and the legal system have an obligation to make any required civic duty worthwhile as a civic duty. I feel like our current system, at least the local ones, fail at this duty of their own.

Why? Three reasons:

1) The selection process. This process has stigmatized the American jury as hand picked collections of the dimmest witted most easily mislead people they can find. The stereotype is probably unfair. And the process is obviously more complicated. But it is hardly without precedent and many high profile cases serve to confirm the stereotype. And many people who have endured the selection process in their state and local courts and testify that it isn't rare.

2) The idea of a jury being a collection of the defendant's peers. The idea is legitimate. Its current application is not. In this country a 'peer' is anyone who is warm and draws breath, which is a product of our culture's befuddled notions of egalitarianism. If you believe in radical egalitarianism and the 'peer' idea (which completely misconstrues the meaning of peer), then you do believe that anyone who is warm and of legal age is YOUR peer. And that's fine if that's what you believe. But if you believe that then the whole notion of jury selection no longer makes sense. If we are all totally and completely equal, if we are all peers, then jury selection is patently unnecessary and would be, in fact, discriminatory.

3) Pay. Where I live you get $10 a day to do your duty on a jury in the county courthouse. This is perfectly offensive. But make no mistake, its not offensive to me. Like many of you I could miss work (and pay) for a few weeks without enduring financial hardship. But that's not true of many, maybe even most Americans. And the prospect of financial hardship can get you out of jury duty in some circumstances but only if they are dire. Even a drafted soldier has his living expenses paid. I find it revolting that a county government can get away forcing someone against their will and at often great expense only to give them $10 at the end of the day.

A jurer should be paid his regular salary up to whatever the median salary in that district happens to be.

I personally think dodging a duty, a civic responsibility is not indicative of good citizenship.

Its a two way street. If the government mistreats its citizens (jurors, plaintiffs and defendants....but not council or judge of course) then the citizenry is not going to be compelled to be civic minded nor should it.

If you are smart enough to weasel out of a responsibility then you are smart enough to help tip the scales toward better juries.

Not if your intelligence is viewed as a disqualifier.

So many people shirk their duty and then complain how bad the system is. Well du-uh!!!!

It is my opinion that this has gotten to be a result of 'learned helplessness' more than laziness. Our current form of government all but ensures that individuals or even moderate sized groups can have little impact. (Don't misread me, I'm talking about governmental and legislative affairs. I'm not talking about charitable or volunteer work, etc etc.)

 

[unreconstructed]

I made light of it in previous posts--but N80 has this thing pegged.

The last criminal trial I sat on, much of the state's case reeked of incompetence. Our jury was to a person well informed, intelligent, and serious about our deliberations. I am sure the prosecutor was patting himself on the back over the conviction, but the truth of the matter is we convicted the dirtbag in spite of the state's evidence. Just took a lot of work to get there. I don't have a problem with the jury system, I have a problem with what it takes to get throught the b/s put out by not only the defendent's lawyers, but the propaganda spewed out by state employees.

 

[Soundguy]

Ditto that.

In my county, to add to this.. they only start paying you on the 2nd day.. IE.. if you are only called 1 day.. = no pay..

As you stated.. for some, this is no big deal.. however with gas prices hovering near 4$ a gallon, and the county I'm in cover 5 cities plus unincorporated areas.. it's easy to drive 30-45 minutes to get to the couthouse. ( My drive is 35 minutes as I'm at the south end of the county ).. for a person in a financial crunch.. the 10$ don't even make up gas money.

During the sleection process, people lined up to see if they could be excused from duty. lots of financial hardship / work excuses.. some of them sounded real legitimate too.. and I'm a stickler for working for your living.. etc. I must have heard 15 cases of 'If I don't work today, I / my familly won't eat tomorrow' / my car / mortgage payment won't go thru. I also heard people that were self employed that were literalyl loosing contracts to other contractors because they would not be onthe job to do 'x' work.

EVERY SINGLE work/financial excuse was denied. in fact at one point, the judge at the beginning of the line i was seated next to, stood up and said that if you were in line with a financial / work issue, to just go ahead and set down .

That's.. um... WRONG..

In fact.. out of our entire room, the only 3 people excused were very specific exclusions.. IE.. called/reported for jury duty within last year, over a certain age, had a felony conviction.

The system is broke.. still works.. but is damaged goods..


soundguy

3) Pay. Where I live you get $10 a day to do your duty on a jury in the county courthouse. This is perfectly offensive. But make no mistake, its not offensive to me. Like many of you I could miss work (and pay) for a few weeks without enduring financial hardship. But that's not true of many, maybe even most Americans. And the prospect of financial hardship can get you out of jury duty in some circumstances but only if they are dire. Even a drafted soldier has his living expenses paid. I find it revolting that a county government can get away forcing someone against their will and at often great expense only to give them $10 at the end of the day.

A jurer should be paid his regular salary up to whatever the median salary in that district happens to be.

 

[Gator6x4]

Ditto that.


The system is broke.. still works.. but is damaged goods..


soundguy

I don't think the State or County has a voice in the process. The sixth amendment of the US Constitution, binding on States and Counties is what guarantees a trial by one's peers.

U.S. Constitution: Sixth Amendment


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RIGHT TO TRIAL BY IMPARTIAL JURY


Jury Trial
By the time the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights were drafted and ratified, the institution of trial by jury was almost universally revered, so revered that its history had been traced back to Magna Carta. 42 The jury began in the form of a grand or presentment jury with the role of inquest and was started by Frankish conquerors to discover the King's rights. Henry II regularized this type of proceeding to establish royal control over the machinery of justice, first in civil trials and then in criminal trials. Trial by petit jury was not employed at least until the reign of Henry III, in which the jury was first essentially a body of witnesses, called for their knowledge of the case; not until the reign of Henry VI did it become the trier of evidence. It was during the Seventeenth Century that the jury emerged as a safeguard for the criminally accused. 43 Thus, in the Eighteenth Century, Blackstone could commemorate the institution as part of a ''strong and two-fold barrier . . . between the liberties of the people and the prerogative of the crown'' because ''the truth of every accusation . . . . [must] be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbors indifferently chosen and superior to all suspicion.'' 44 The right was guaranteed in the constitutions of the original 13 States, was guaranteed in the body of the Constitu tion 45 and in the Sixth Amendment, and the constitution of every State entering the Union thereafter in one form or another protected the right to jury trial in criminal cases. 46 ''Those who emigrated to this country from England brought with them this great privilege 'as their birthright and inheritance, as a part of that admirable common law which had fenced around and interposed barriers on every side against the approaches of arbitrary power.''' 47


''The guarantees of jury trial in the Federal and State Constitutions reflect a profound judgment about the way in which law should be enforced and justice administered. A right to jury trial is granted to criminal defendants in order to prevent oppression by the Government. Those who wrote our constitutions knew from history and experience that it was necessary to protect against unfounded criminal charges brought to eliminate enemies and against judges too responsive to the voice of higher authority. The framers of the constitutions strove to create an independent judiciary but insisted upon further protection against arbitrary action. Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge. . . . [T]he jury trial provisions . . . reflect a fundamental decision about the exercise of official power--a reluctance to entrust plenary powers over the life and liberty of the citizen to one judge or to a group of judges. Fear of unchecked power . . . found expression in the criminal law in this insistence upon community participation in the determination of guilt or innocence.'' 48


Because ''a general grant of jury trial for serious offenses is a fundamental right, essential for preventing miscarriages of justice and for assuring that fair trials are provided for all defendants,'' the Sixth Amendment provision is binding on the States through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 49 But inasmuch as it cannot be said that every criminal trial or any particular trial which is held without a jury is unfair, 50 it is possible for a defendant to waive the right and go to trial before a judge alone. 51

 

[Soundguy]

That has -0- bearing on what my mesage said.

the judges setting at the front of the room have a broad authority to grant or not grant requests to be excused from jury duty.. the constitutional piece you posted doesn't change any of what i said...

soundguy

 

[N80]

Gator6x4, I think you misunderstood my point regarding a 'jury of your peers'. I totally agree with this concept and I understand that it is fundamental. What I disagree with is the currently employed concept of 'peer'. We are not all peers. I don't think I'm the same as or equal to everyone else. I know this sounds un-American (but its not, of course, since at least up until recently Americans acknowledged and valued the differences that exist among us). I know it sounds elitist, but I think 'peer' should at least be loosely contextual relative to the trial and the defendant. For instance, take this young Marine being charged with a war crime by a civilian court (since he is no longer in the military). He WILL NOT be granted a trial with a jury of his peers. He will have no true peers in that jury. There is no way any group of men and women office and/or factory workers who have no combat or military experience, or even the vaguest notion of what this Marine experienced can be his peers or even hope to give him a fair trial. That's not elitist, is reality. His jury should be composed of people who have at least been in the military or police and preferrably had at least some exposure to combat situations.

And if someone disagrees with that, that's perfectly fine. If you believe that 'we' are all the same, or at least similar enough to be called peers, then you have to admit that the current jury selection process is grossly unfair. If we are, in fact, all peers, then the only selection criteria should be the minimum requirements to serve and among that pool of potential candidates the selection should be totally random and no provision made for idealogy, religious back ground, politics, sexual orientation, education, gender or race. Right? If we're all the same, any random one of us should be as good as the next. Right? This is the standard we are held to in regard to everything else, why not jury selection?

 

[rox]

Gator6x4, I think you misunderstood my point regarding a 'jury of your peers'. I totally agree with this concept and I understand that it is fundamental. What I disagree with is the currently employed concept of 'peer'. We are not all peers. I don't think I'm the same as or equal to everyone else. I know this sounds un-American (but its not, of course, since at least up until recently Americans acknowledged and valued the differences that exist among us). I know it sounds elitist, but I think 'peer' should at least be loosely contextual relative to the trial and the defendant. For instance, take this young Marine being charged with a war crime by a civilian court (since he is no longer in the military). He WILL NOT be granted a trial with a jury of his peers. He will have no true peers in that jury. There is no way any group of men and women office and/or factory workers who have no combat or military experience, or even the vaguest notion of what this Marine experienced can be his peers or even hope to give him a fair trial. That's not elitist, is reality. His jury should be composed of people who have at least been in the military or police and preferrably had at least some exposure to combat situations.

And if someone disagrees with that, that's perfectly fine. If you believe that 'we' are all the same, or at least similar enough to be called peers, then you have to admit that the current jury selection process is grossly unfair. If we are, in fact, all peers, then the only selection criteria should be the minimum requirements to serve and among that pool of potential candidates the selection should be totally random and no provision made for idealogy, religious back ground, politics, sexual orientation, education, gender or race. Right? If we're all the same, any random one of us should be as good as the next. Right? This is the standard we are held to in regard to everything else, why not jury selection?

N80
It is the job of the attorneys both prosecution and defendent to educate the jury of those how have not served in the military. So if the trial is about a faulty part on an airliner that crashed the only qualifed jury members would be those who ahd some experience in airline mechanics or mechanical engineering. Aint' going to happen. As it turns out trial by your peeers ends up to be warm bodies who show up for court. That's the way it is. I guess peers would mean people ho live in your jurisdiction. Can't see any other way around this. Otherwise it is not a jury but a panel of experts. I guess peers means that Hawaiians will not sit on a jury in Alaska.

 

[Egon]

You know, this Jury Duty could sure cut into INTERNET time paid for by an employer!

 

[Defective]

N80
It is the job of the attorneys both prosecution and defendent to educate the jury of those how have not served in the military.

Not possible.

I know a great many lifelong civilians who are very interested and educated in military matters. None of them has any idea whatsoever what it's like to enter a combat zone or even live under military rule.

If I were to come before a court in any matter related to my past military activities, (Georges example was war crimes...) none of these people would be competent to voice an opinion and further education would not help. I would expect better results (Not necessarily for myself, but for justice being served...) from a jury of wet-behind-the-ears PFCs than from a jury of civilians. There is no comparison.

To add to the fun: The concept of total equality and truly random jury selection would allow the jury to potentially include the crackhead down the street and the dealer that supplies her. Doesn't sound good to me...

 

[N80]

N80
It is the job of the attorneys both prosecution and defendent to educate the jury of those how have not served in the military.

I agree that this is not possible. I personally could not be educated sufficiently to understand the nuances of stock markets and finance to decide whether some CEO was guilty of some sort of fraud involving the complex and convoluted tax and finance laws that govern free markets. And in such a situation I might be asked to decide is this man spends the rest of his life in prison and I am NOT his peer. The examples are endless. Combat is just the most obvious.

So if the trial is about a faulty part on an airliner that crashed the only qualifed jury members would be those who ahd some experience in airline mechanics or mechanical engineering. Aint' going to happen.

Why not? Regardless, I think you are constraining 'peer' too much, which is preferable to not at all, but still unnecessary. Virtually any engineer, mathematician or mechanic would suffice.

As it turns out trial by your peeers ends up to be warm bodies who show up for court. That's the way it is.

Well, yes, that's what I've been saying. I know how it works now.

I guess peers would mean people ho live in your jurisdiction.

No, that is not correct. High profile trials often change venues due to regional bias. So location isn't it.

Can't see any other way around this.

Maybe narrow imaginations are at fault?

Otherwise it is not a jury but a panel of experts.

If I'm a defendant, a 'panel of experts' sounds much more just and far more accurate than a 'jury of my peers' that turns out to be a bunch of slack jawed mouth breathers who couldn't be educated by the public schools but who are supposed to become experts in medicine, combat, and aeronautical engineering at the hands of an attorney?!?!?

But there is a simpler solution. If we acknowledge that: 1) a panel of experts is unfair or impractical 2) that defining and assembling actual 'peers' is impossible and that 3) any warm body is not a peer, there is one final thing. We simple quit calling it a trial by a jury of our peers and acknowledge that as complex and technical a society as we are we are incapable of defining what a peer is and just throw the whole stupid notion out the window. And that's pretty much what you are saying and that all of us understand anyway, right? Bottom line is that in this country we ARE NOT, in many many circumstances granted a trial by a jury of our peers even thought the law guarantees it. I can live with that, but we have to be open and honest about it and live with the practical conclusion of it which is that there are and will be lots of people unfairly killed, emprisoned, fined, and punished because they did not get a jury of their peers and likewise and equal number will go unpunished and free for crimes they committed.

By the way Rox, I need to ask you some questions about olive oil! I'll be away this weekend but keep a heads up in the "Other Topics" forum Sunday or Monday. I could PM you but I suspect others would benefit from your expertise.