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

[Soundguy]

'shirker' or a racist, or a communist or a liberal,

a racist? NEVER..

soundguy

 

[Soundguy]

I have learned a lot over the years from posts written by N80 and patrick_g.

I get worried sometimes when they get confrontational because I fear that one will get upset and decide to quit the forum and we will lose all their valuable input.

I think they are here to stay.

I've been on both sides with each of them at different times.. and we are all usually to stuborn to back down

soundguy

 

[N80]

There are some of us who might be regarded as bulldogs. Grab hold and never let go....even when we have grabbed the wrong thing. Which reminds me of a story.....(I think I'm turning into an old man....).....

A friend of mine had a bulldog named Rip and a German Shepherd named Jet. They got along most of the time. But occasionally there was a fight. The shepherd was obviously the physical superior and almost always won...actually, there was never a win because neither of them would give in. But Rip always looked worse afterwards. Rip would attempt to grab Jet by the throat. But all he ever got was a big mouthful of Jet's mane. Once he had hold of it he would not let go....as bulldongs are wont to do....presumably because he thought he actually had Jet by the throat. Jet would then proceed to make mincemeat of the top of Rip's head....often requiring trips to the vet for stitches. It never happened, but if Rip had ever been quick enough and got Jet by the throat then that would have been all she wrote. In the end, they remained pals despite the viscious battles.....and for a bulldog all those scars on his head made Rip look very formidable.

So I think some of us are very much like Rip and Jet. Which one we are on any given day depends on the topic.

 

[tjkadar]

Didn't this thread start out with something else entirely?

During the last week of July, I had the honor of performing my civic duty in the State of South Carolina. During that week I was chosen to serve on three different jury panels and was even selected as the jury foreman for the last case on which I served. The first case was a murder trial. In a nutshell, a guy got pissed that some other guy messed with his clothes, so he shot him. Guilty. Second case; a 19 year old kid was busted with a stolen gun and 20-some odd rocks of crack. After hearing his case, crack-daddy decided to plea bargain. Guilty. The third case involved a bank teller that mysteriously discovered a large sum of money in her account. She said God put it there. IT records showed the money was entered into her account from her terminal at 7:48 AM. Guilty.

I heard a portion of another case while awaiting jury selection. Woman finds out man has fathered a child by another woman. Woman gets mad. Man beats woman to shut her up. Guilty.

I was amazed at the quality of jurors on our cases. Each person took his or her civic duty very seriously. During deliberations, people had worthwhile observations, points, and arguments concerning the cases. I was proud to serve with these people and felt confident in the verdicts we reached and yes, I was surprised.

About half the people on our panels were self-employed. The other half seemed to be teachers or related to someone in law enforcement. One guy was working through the night to build trailers in order to fulfill a contract on time. We helped him out as much possible. Sometimes it was nothing more than feeding him lots of coffee. Another individual was a doctor that had deferred 3 times already. She couldn't defer again, yet she did an outstanding job keeping us straight on facts and timelines. Another guy was on the nightshift. He got through it all by taking catnaps in his truck when possible. Not once did he complain or look like he was about to fall asleep during testimony.

Still I would not consider any one of those panels to be made up of my peers. Nor would I say they were made up of the defendants' peers. In South Carolina, if you hold a driver's license or are registered to vote, you are a potential juror. I guess that is how they legally define a peer.

Our trials were held under one of two judges. Both judges were retired but had been drafted back to duty. They did their best to keep things moving, keep the jurors happy, and to keep the trials on track. They did a good job.

I was not as impressed by either the prosecutors or the defenders. I don't even want to imagine what their case loads look like. The trials we sat on were from crimes committed back in 2006. I think it would suck to trade jobs with them.

We've put lots of money into law enforcement. At work, we received a grant from Homeland Security for a portable XRF. That alone was $45,000. I see several new trucks in the parking lot with sirens on them Homeland security money. A Sheriff痴 department in the low country got a grant for some machine guns. Another division bought some new big screen TVs for their briefing rooms. I致e even heard rumors about someone buying a Humvee with their WMD money.

Lots of money has been spent to catch the bad guys. Yet when it comes time to try them we have a couple retired judges, over worked public defenders and prosecutors, court rooms with leaking roofs, not enough seats to hold the jury pool, poor air conditioning, antiquated security measures, and the list goes on and on. I bet it even gets worse when it comes time to house the guilty.

We spend so much money 祖atching criminals we don稚 have any left once they are caught. Hmmm?. early release anyone? Our system is broken in a very fundamental way and not just ideologically either. The very basic implementation of the system is flawed.

For the honor of serving on three jury panels during the week, I was rewarded with the grand total of $75. Both judges were very apologetic about our meager earnings. One even mentioned how embarrassed he was at how meager our compensation was.

I took my $75 and promptly blew it on hookers and blow. Best 28 seconds of my life.

 

[Soundguy]

Didn't this thread start out with something else entirely? .

I like the new topic much better than the old one!

I took my $75 and promptly blew it on hookers and blow. Best 28 seconds of my life.

You shouldn't have spent so much time on the white stuff!

soundguy

 

[Egon]

Sounds like the voice of experience!

 

[N80]

TJ, I think your experience brings up some good points and confirms what some other folks have said which is that most of the time the system works well, especially on the more mundane level. It also confirms my contention that we probably have the best system in the world.

But a couple of other things stand out. First, the cases you described sounded pretty straight forward and pretty mundane. Not high profile cases. And high profile were the context of this discussion and I think there is a big difference. First, in the cases you describe, it doesn't sound like jury selection would have much of a role in the outcome. In all likelihood, the legal efforts on either side probably were concentrated on the sentencing process, not the verdict. Second, in cases like this the concept of 'peer' can be much broader. I think that in a perfect world 'peer' would be contextual. Let's say a local doctor finds his wife in bed with the mailman and kills the mailman. In this context there is no need for this doctor to have a jury of doctors or country club golfers. He has committed a common crime against the community and a cross section of the community could serve fine as his peers. But if he is in a civil suit for allegedly making a mistake while delivering a baby or treating an MI, then that's different. Neither a nuclear engineer nor a carpenter nor a nursery school teacher are his peers in that circumstance (in my opinion).

And once again I'll repeat my position on this. I'm not necessarily advocating some type of complex 'peer' system. We can solve the problem much more easily by just dropping the concept altogether.

On a local level, many of our doctors have been called for jury duty. They rarely get or ask for deferments. But they also rarely get chosen for duty. And when they do, they usually describe the experience as positive. I've never even been called.

The problem come with high profile cases, especially when high profile defense attorneys get in the game. That's when the circus starts. And even though these circuses are the exception rather than the rule, they are also perceived as representative. These are the cases that people see and hear about. And that's wrong. High profile attorneys (nor high profile clients) should be allowed to turn an otherwise functional system into a circus. This confirms that justice is served only for those who CANNOT afford OJ's legal team. And vice versa.

 

[gemini5362]

I am going to voice an opinion about peers. There are a lot of people that think peers seem to be educational equals depending on the case. The popular example seems tobe a medical malpractice case should have doctors as the defendents peers. Personally I think that is the worst possible juror for this kind of case. One problem would be if only doctors were the jurors in medical malpractice there could be the rational that if I vote against a doctor then other doctors wont help me out if I am a defendant. The second rational is one of being to close to the forest to see the trees. Where a lay person might see a small point because they are trying to understand the procedure a person trained in that procedure might miss something because they have already in their mind went to the next step. I have seen an example of this in my own life. I got loaned to an engineering group that was making a piece of equipment for the USN. I got tasked with writing the acceptance test for the equipment. I spent a few days writing the test then went to the equipment and ran the test. I was very pleased with the results. I felt it had more than adequately performed an operational test of the equipment. I decided to make one last check of the test itself and had my secretary go to the equipment with me and run the test. She had no electronic training at all. The test went miserably she had a lot of problem with the test because it flowed poorly. My familiarity with the equipment caused me to skip several steps in the process that a layman did not know you needed. I think professional jurors could have the same problem. They are so familiar with the case that they overlook important information that a layman would see because they are trying to understand the case. The most important job for an attorney to do is to make sure the jury understands their clients side of the case.

 

[tjkadar]

N80,

You're wrong... N'ah, not really. My post was merely a recounting of my own experience and should not be taken as part of the debate. As you mentioned, high profile cases become nothing more than a political football. Once that happens, in my opinion, the law takes a back seat.... actually, that might be too kind. I think the law is kicked out of the car while speeding down the freeway at a 80+ mph.

"If the glove don't fit, you must acquit." <- Fine bit of testimony there.

Dropping the word peer would be a good idea. I have a feeling that lawyers have already brought cases to court based on the definition of 'peer' (if Clinton can say, it depends on what 'it' means... c'mon, that was part of a defense?) and 'peer' has some kind of legally accepted definition that has nothing to do with Webster.

Once we enter the realm of civil cases, I think things get very squirrely indeed.

Hmmm... healthcare, doctors, insurance... that is another rant. When a doctor's administrative staff is larger than his medical staff because of insurance generated paperwork, there is a problem. When a doctor can expect to be a defendant in a civil suit at least once during his career, there is a problem.

Please, do not take this as an insult, because I mean this with the absolute most respect, but you could not pay me enough to be a doctor in today's day and age. About halfway through college I decided to pass on the MCAT and change my career aspirations.

I firmly believe practicing medicine is a fine and honorable profession. But I don't think Doctor's are allowed to do that anymore.

 

[gemini5362]

Actually, if you will go back to that particular post, you will find that I very candidly admitted that I was probably ignorant of some of these processes.

No, its not really an ad hominem attack if I am challenging your understanding of the point. If I call your point into question because you have made an inaccurate assertion, that is not ad hominem. If I call you stupid for making an inaccurate assertion than that is ad hominem. If you felt like I called you stupid, my apologies. I felt like I had adequately diffused that notion by, as I mentioned above, admitting that there were deficiencies in my understanding as well. I still think that your points demonstrated a misunderstanding of the process. You may disagree, and that's fine, but just because I disagree with you or think your points are not factual doesn't make my response ad hominem.


On the other hand, labeling someone a shirker who doesn't uphold their civic obligations IS the very definition of ad hominem. You may not have made that attack, I think it was Patrick. Not only was the attack ad hominem, it was baseless and unsubstantiable. An ad hominem attack can have a shred of credibility if it is true. Patrick cannot even claim that tiny shred![/QUOTE ]

Actually I believe you said something about maybe having to go back to civic class. I felt you were trying to inject a modicum of false modesty into your arguement. I never really felt from your post that you thought there was any possibility of you being wrong.

I believe that the comment "You need to go to civic class" is not a challenge of the understanding of the point. That is a direct challenge to me personally as having the actual education needed to discuss the subject. At this point you have taken the discussion from the actual subject of the discussion and instead inserted a new subject which is whether I have the educational background to defend my points. Even in your defense of your statement you never actually admitted to being wrong in your statement about the original subject matter, your defense of your statement centered around whether or not you had insinuated I was stupid. This whole line of arguement was not about the judicial system it is about my educational background or lack there of. A simple statement by you along the lines of . I thought this was how it worked but I was wrong. This type of statement would have been a nice touch at that point in the discussion. From that declaration you could have worked back into your arguement about the system. Instead you apparently chose not to.