Jury duty: Professional or of peers?

[GreenScoutII]

Hey guys,

I got called up for jury duty today, and while I was not selected for service, I did give up 10 hours of my day and had a lot of time to think.

The gentleman who was going to be on trial stood accused of four different charges of child molestation. I forget the exact legal description of the charges, but it sounded ugly.

It took a very long time for the court to select 12 satisfactory jurors as this is such a nasty type of case. It proved very difficult to find 12 people who could be genuinely impartial. As a father of four little girls, I'm not entirely sure I could have been impartial if I had been chosen to sit on the jury.

What bothered me is the number of people who openly stated that if the police arrested and the DA elected to prosecute this individual, he must be guilty. Furthermore, a large percentage of people seemed to not understand that in the USA, a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. A lot of prospective jurors thought the defense had to establish innocence as much as the prosecution had to prove guilt. It bothered me a great deal.

I'm not judging anyone for being ignorant. I myself am ignorant of a lot of things, but hell, even I know the basics of our trial system.

As I had a bunch of time to think, I came up with the following question for all of you:

Would justice be better served if we went to a system of paid, professional jurors, or, should we keep our system of trial by a jury of one's peers? Why? Discuss.....

This is purely an intellectual exercise.

[Troublco]

I don't think so. I think if you had professional jurors those people would become so jaded that they'd make decisions based on appearances. They might understand the system and how it works, however I don't think you'd gain anything and could easily go opposite of the intention.

[jake]

I don't think so. I think if you had professional jurors those people would become so jaded that they'd make decisions based on appearances.
Jurors already do. Studies have shown that attractive defendants are more likely to be found not guilty, except in cases of fraud.

[Irving]

It'd be too easy to bribe a consistent set of known, paid, jurors. I'd say it's better to keep it the way that it is, but to let people openly volunteer. I haven't actually done jury duty before except for a teen court in high school. I had a blast at that and couldn't even stand how stupid the other jurors were (teenage girls).

[SAnd]

Who would get to pick the professionals? How big would the juror pool be? Some of the judges we have now shouldn't be judges because of their biases. I would fear that a professional jury would develop the same problem.

The jury serves two equally important functions. They decide if the person actually did the crime and they also judge if the law is just or being applied justly. I wouldn't trust professional juries to properly fill the second job.

I'll take what we have, warts and all, before I would trust any professionals.

[theGinsue]

I have never served on a jury. I don't want to server on a jury. If, however, I were called, I wouldn't work to find a way out of it. Either they pick me or they don't.

Basically what I'm saying is that I know we have a lot of idiots sitting on juries these days, but I prefer the system we have now to a professional jury system.

Of course, we could always have this:
http://movienews.ro/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/dredd.jpg
I AM THE LAW!

[SA Friday]

A jury of your peers is to ensure the spirit of the law is taken into account as much as the letter of the law. There are already a plethora of professional law actors in a court room; prosecution, defense, judge, court reporter, bailiff... With a trained jury, you are simply adding to the amount of professionals of the court, and losing the checks and balance of the voice of public opinion. A jury of unbiased, untrained, local citizens ensures the professionals are not going too far in their pursuit of enforcing the letter of the law and overlooking the spirit of that same law.

The draw back is you have to sift through the meatheads to get 12 for every jury, and one or two of the meatheads slip through. No system will be perfect. The fault doesn't lie in the court system IMO, but in the lack of instruction on our legal system (and constitutional rights, and critical thinking, and philosophy) in the current school systems. They just don't get enforced in the state public school testing system, so the schools focus on the four basics which do get tested.

[sniper7]

I have served on a jury case before and was elected to be the speaker. I was 21 or 22. all the others were all female and all over 40.
was for a domestic abuse case of a guy on a green card from mexico, he had to have an interpreter as did his wife.
pretty cut and clear case, took the whole day but at least it didn't drag on forever.


Most of the women were very knowledgeable and we only considered charging him for the crime he was charged with. I was relatively impressed by the whole system.

but when it comes to kids, especially child molestation, they don't have the option of being able to get out, get away, make the choice to leave or stay so I don't feel I could be as fair from the beginning.

[sniper7]

and as to the question at hand, I think the system we have now does a pretty good job. the cops have their job to do, as does the DA, the defendant can get a lawyer to represent, they all go through the process of picking jurors, the judge is supposed to just follow the law although I feel at times that isn't exactly the case, but the end result is usually relatively fair and just.

professional paid jurors would just be another tax hike when the people could judge their fellow citizens instead.

the system isn't perfect by any means but I feel it does a pretty good job.

[Hoosier]

Semi-related, have any of you heard of Jury Nullification? One of the reasons for having a Jury of your Peers is that when a trial comes up, not only is the accused on trial, but so is the law. If a Jury believes that a person is guilty of breaking that law, but that in this instance what they did was correct and the law was not, they should vote not guilty. So say in theory someone was driving their sick child to the hospital and got pulled over for speeding, or any other situation in which you feel there was no victim and the law is unjust -- you are within your rights to say not guilty.

Also, if you just want to get out of jury duty, during the voire dire process where they select jurors, ask about jury nullification. Nothing will get a DA to kick you off a panel faster than asking about Jury Nullification -- it means you might rule against their case, and they care about win/loss ratio.

[Troublco]

Semi-related, have any of you heard of Jury Nullification? One of the reasons for having a Jury of your Peers is that when a trial comes up, not only is the accused on trial, but so is the law. If a Jury believes that a person is guilty of breaking that law, but that in this instance what they did was correct and the law was not, they should vote not guilty. So say in theory someone was driving their sick child to the hospital and got pulled over for speeding, or any other situation in which you feel there was no victim and the law is unjust -- you are within your rights to say not guilty.

Also, if you just want to get out of jury duty, during the voire dire process where they select jurors, ask about jury nullification. Nothing will get a DA to kick you off a panel faster than asking about Jury Nullification -- it means you might rule against their case, and they care about win/loss ratio.

I've heard of it, and I've heard the same thing. They don't like the fact that ordinary folks can do that, so they squelch it.

[TFOGGER]

The system as it stands is not perfect, as most if not all of us have prejudices and preconceptions, as well as situational biases. That's what voir dire is about, both sides have equal opportunity to try to seat a jury that's favorable to their case. Most attorneys actually prefer jurors with a minimal knowledge of the law, as they can be more easily influenced. Professional juries would remove one of the powerful controls from the justice system because, if they are employed by the court system, they would have a vested interest in making sure that the conviction rate stayed high to ensure revenue to the court. Sure, jury duty is not the most convenient thing in the world, but I will serve if called(again), as I feel it is a better system than many if not most other trial processes, and I would like that system to be available to me if the need ever arose.

[10x]

The judge is there to hear the case, if you don't want a jury. You would get a decision based on law and not mitigating factors.

I have been through several trials dealing with contract issues, damage calculations, business valuations. The juries I dealt with were generally good and look at things in a common sense way. i.e yes the contract says this and is in favor of party b, but party b was out to screw party a. That is just wrong. Verdict in favor of party a.

I have also seen the judge overrule the juries. That is a bitter pill after spending $50,000 on a trial and getting a favorable verdict.

There are a lot of reasons not the trust the court systems. Fairness and logic are lost sometimes.

[rondog]

Can I vote for reinstating public executions? I'll bring potato salad.....

[Irving]

Make it hotdogs, burritos, and gyros and I'll come. I won't even open my mouth for potato salad.