JD
Last week I had jury duty. It's like a mini-draft. I suppose I shouldn't complain, since the state isn't asking that much. Still, at the very least, it's a major annoyance.
I've often wondered if we couldn't try an all-volunteer system. I realize a lot of people (usually the kind who like social engineering and think stripping two years of our lives for national service would be a neat idea) want a mix of society, but 1) who says we wouldn't get it and 2) I don't care.
By the way, if they paid real money--say $100 a day for the first week of the trial with a $50 a day raise each week after that--people would be lining up. But paying what was a living wage in the 1890s doesn't cut it.
I almost got on a jury--a criminal trial . However, the defendant took the plea bargain at the last second and we were dismissed. So nothing happened. I could have stayed home.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:14 AM
4 Comments:
Yesterday I re-watched The Juror. One of the better examples of this genre of thrillers (never really believable, but this one wasn't as absurd as "The Pelican Brief").
It made me think (again) that the very fact that the jury gets to leave when they reach a verdict is bad. A lone holdout is under a lot of pressure -- he is effectively imprisoning eleven people!
Why not keep every jury for N days? If they finish early, they have to do community service or something. If they aren't done at N days, it's a mistrial. No more time pressure....
Interesting idea, but even if you could get the courts to change their hidebound ways, I don't think this would work.
For one thing, with each case and each jury being different, I'm not sure how easy it would be to set a time limit for deliberation.
But even if you could, what you would do is give more, not less power to the lone holdout. Now he knows if he just waits another day or so, there will be a mistrial--it'll be that much easier for him to dig in.
This will also greatly raise the number of mistrials, and we definitely don't need that.
Making the holdout feel uncomfortable is sort of the point of the system- that way only the most dedicated with the most strongly-held beliefs will (on average) attempt to hold out. (after all, in most cases you will 11 people who think the other way and -Hollywood drama aside-the averages would probably tend to favor an 11/12 majority at most times).
The value of the jury is I think the power of nullification. Although many scholars will tell you this power does not and/or ought not to exist. It presents another the way the people can resist tyranny. (And of course, bench trials, excluding non-capital punishment believers, peremptory challenges do violence to this notion)
What juries do has changed much throughout time. (Centuries ago, they were the ones questioned to find out what was going on.)
I thought about nullification while serving. It exists even if we don't want it to. I wonder what would have happened during voir dire when they asked me if I would faithfully follow the law. "I expect to, but don't count on it"?
Juror are supposed to be only finders of fact, but their decisions often bleed into the law, even if not consciously. However, is this fighting tyranny? It's a great way to let your prejudices run wild, but in a country where we get to vote for the leaders who make the laws, doesn't overturning them fight democracy?
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