Jury Duty

[Ice House]

I got selected to be in a jury pool in the county I live in. I am getting a wonderful look at how messed up the US legal sytem is.

Lawyers influence the outcome of a trial by how they select a jury. I have never seen so much discrimination in my life. Lawyers discriminate against jurors because of sex, color, attire, hair style, employer. They do this, often, in an attempt to get fair trial.

I must admit I am having a bad week. I dont like the way I feel because of this. Its depressing.

 

[semios]

The whole idea of you in a jury kind of cracks me up, because your outward appearance and your attitude/politics are pretty opposite. I can totally picture a lawyer putting you on a jury because they are making assumptions about you based on your rural lifestyle, career, and outward appearance. They might be in for a surprise.

But seriously, you are a level headed, fair, a natural leader. You are just the kind of person I would want on my jury, whether I was guilty or innocent. Stay the course... the system needs you.

 

[Doodazzle]

Jurers should all know that, even if a person is caught red-handed, you have a right to declare them inncocent if you disagree with the law.

 

[emptymind]

In an ideal world people wouldnt discriminate against each other based on things like race, sex age etc, but we dont live in an ideal world, so lawyers need to discriminate too. Honestly, if I was on trial for something, I would want them to too! Im sure lawyers know more about it than I do, and a lot of it comes down to reading the person, but you can generalize that certain groups of people tend view things a certain way. Just for example, I would say that older folks are generally more often racist than younger folks.

Of course this is not always the case, but if I was on trial, and I had a choice between lots of older people of a different race than myself or younger people that are a different race, I would want the younger ones. Ideally all jurors would judge the person on the case presented and not their preconceived notions, but thats not the world we live in, and when people are wrongly convicted of crimes all the time, wouldnt you want every advantage on your side?
Isnt that the whole idea of 'a jury of your peers?' Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?

 

[CuriousSeeker]

"Jury nullification" is what you are talking about, and it is one of the few opportunities you have to vote entirely on your conscious. For example: Yeah, the kid may have been caught dealing a little weed, and yeah that is against the law, but if you the juror feel the law is wrong, or the punishment too extreme, then you can just refuse to convict. This was used to fight slavery laws when juries would refuse to convict an escaped slave for the "crime" of running away. You can read more about this at the fully Informed Jury Association web site here: Fully Informed Jury Association

 

[smokerx]

I got selected to be in a jury pool in the county I live in. I am getting a wonderful look at how messed up the US legal sytem is.

Lawyers influence the outcome of a trial by how they select a jury. I have never seen so much discrimination in my life. Lawyers discriminate against jurors because of sex, color, attire, hair style, employer. They do this, often, in an attempt to get fair trial.

I must admit I am having a bad week. I dont like the way I feel because of this. Its depressing.

I would not do it. Can you actually say no once you have been selected ?

 

[Doodazzle]

"Jury nullification" is what you are talking about, and it is one of the few opportunities you have to vote entirely on your conscious. For example: Yeah, the kid may have been caught dealing a little weed, and yeah that is against the law, but if you the juror feel the law is wrong, or the punishment too extreme, then you can just refuse to convict. This was used to fight slavery laws when juries would refuse to convict an escaped slave for the "crime" of running away. You can read more about this at the fully Informed Jury Association web site here: Fully Informed Jury Association

"Not Guilty".

My moral compass points that direction for the extreme majority of case brought to criminal court. There are obvious exceptions...someone caught on camera killing another human being for a pety reason, for example. Many homocides are indeed justified, however, and who am I to say, were I not there? Theft--was it from a person, or a coorporation? In that latter case, "not guilty". In the former.....well, theft is not cool. Personally, I pay attention to my gear, and I am quite ready to defend the things I need or love, willing to let go of the trifles--not very eager to call the cops. So yeah, not guilty. Let's all go home, close this court thing down for good.

 

[emptymind]

I would not do it. Can you actually say no once you have been selected ?

May I ask why? I disagree with the vast majority of things this country spends money on, so if I had the option of not paying my taxes I absolutely wouldnt. I view jury duty differently though, and think this is one of the ways we should all have no problem serving our community.
If everyone refused to be jurors, who would judge cases? Just judges? People that are elected, want to be re-elected, and thus want to have high conviction rates? If I was accused of a crime, I would want some intelligent, open minded, non discriminatory folks on the jury-like the folks here on the nexus!

 

[polytrip]

You would probably make a good jury member.

What i like about the jury system is that it theoretically makes everybody a part of the judicial system, so it has the potential to make people more involved in what´s happening around them.

I think that it´s a mistake though, to believe like some people do, that it makes justice more democratic. For the sake of it´s democratic value, it would not make any difference whether you would have one single jury that´s responsible for all verdicts or whether you change the composition of a jury with each trial: the likelyhood of a verdict being in line with the public-opinion is the same when in each trial the amount of jury-members is equal: statistically, the AMOUNT of members in a jury, is all that matters for determining a correlation between public opinion and jury-verdicts....so from a democratic perspective, a referendum would make more sense. That would be totally impractical though.

Nevertheless, if i where a suspect, i would want you in my jury and if i where a D.A. i would also want you in my jury...because i think you´re a fair and honest person.