• the first time I received a summons for jury duty, I was living in far suburban Cook County in the Chicago area. I was impressed by the power of the state to force me to make the hour-long journey downtown, stay for the day, and make the hour-long journey back. I had never had such an intrusive and life-disrupting encounter with the state before (I had obviously led a sheltered life - I’m sure that there are others with far worse stories to tell regarding the arbitrary exercise of state power ).
• the next two summons for jury duty I have received were in South Florida. Again, two days of my life “wasted” in the service of American justice.
• the latest summons got me thinking: does the current American trial-by-jury system make sense? Consider: around 350 people responded to the latest summons. This means that 350 innocent, law-abiding local citizens were yanked out of their normal lives and “incarcerated” in the jury pool holding room for up to a day. Viewed in the aggregate, this is one year of jail time so that four American citizens could exercise their right to a jury trial. How much jail time were these four defendants facing if they all had been convicted? What if it’s zero? If so, then the math simply doesn’t work - innocent American citizens jailed for a year (in effect), while the defendants aren’t jailed at all.
• the latest time around, I was placed on a jury panel; i.e., one of 45 people grilled by the two attorneys so that 7 jurors could be selected (6 main and one alternate). Roughly half the people on my panel made hilarious and ridiculous claims that effectively prevented them from being selected as jurors. I have trouble believing that these folks were being honest, but who knows? It seems to me that these potential jurors who have no intention of ever serving on a jury are clogging the justice system to the benefit of no one - not themselves and not the “system”.
• this negative experience got me thinking: would the American trial-by-jury system be more efficient and less obtrusive for ordinary citizens if people interested in serving on a jury in return for decent pay registered with the county, took a training course, passed a written examination (roughly the same difficulty as a written driver’s license exam), and became part of a pool of independent contractors the county could call upon to serve on a jury when needed? Many of the features of the current system would remain intact: the judge would still be in charge of making sure that the trial is fair, there would still be a jury selection process, etc. The only difference is that the pool of potential jurors would consist of certified independent contractors rather than randomly selected citizens. Would a jury composed of independent contractors be less likely to deliver fair verdicts? I don’t know.
Thanks for listening to my rant. Carry on!
• the next two summons for jury duty I have received were in South Florida. Again, two days of my life “wasted” in the service of American justice.
• the latest summons got me thinking: does the current American trial-by-jury system make sense? Consider: around 350 people responded to the latest summons. This means that 350 innocent, law-abiding local citizens were yanked out of their normal lives and “incarcerated” in the jury pool holding room for up to a day. Viewed in the aggregate, this is one year of jail time so that four American citizens could exercise their right to a jury trial. How much jail time were these four defendants facing if they all had been convicted? What if it’s zero? If so, then the math simply doesn’t work - innocent American citizens jailed for a year (in effect), while the defendants aren’t jailed at all.
• the latest time around, I was placed on a jury panel; i.e., one of 45 people grilled by the two attorneys so that 7 jurors could be selected (6 main and one alternate). Roughly half the people on my panel made hilarious and ridiculous claims that effectively prevented them from being selected as jurors. I have trouble believing that these folks were being honest, but who knows? It seems to me that these potential jurors who have no intention of ever serving on a jury are clogging the justice system to the benefit of no one - not themselves and not the “system”.
• this negative experience got me thinking: would the American trial-by-jury system be more efficient and less obtrusive for ordinary citizens if people interested in serving on a jury in return for decent pay registered with the county, took a training course, passed a written examination (roughly the same difficulty as a written driver’s license exam), and became part of a pool of independent contractors the county could call upon to serve on a jury when needed? Many of the features of the current system would remain intact: the judge would still be in charge of making sure that the trial is fair, there would still be a jury selection process, etc. The only difference is that the pool of potential jurors would consist of certified independent contractors rather than randomly selected citizens. Would a jury composed of independent contractors be less likely to deliver fair verdicts? I don’t know.
Thanks for listening to my rant. Carry on!