Can the practice of carefully selecting a jury be justified? The very fact that lawyers on both sides put so much effort is put into selecting the “right” jury to help win their case seems damning and troubling in and of itself.
But the fact that jury selection seems biased towards excluding the very members of society which are most civically engaged and informed seems contrary to the very idea of having a jury of ones peers, or indeed to making cases based on logic and evidence as opposed to psychological manipulation and trickery. This is not necessarily a new problem, but it seems especially
I’d also be interested in the opinions of people who are ethically against discrimination even in the private sector as to what they think of a practice that is pretty much legalized discrimination in the public sector. Race and sex are supposedly no longer acceptable criteria for jury challenges (though they are obviously still used widely when playing the odds), but why is ANY sort of discrimination acceptable? It may be reasonable to ask jurors who will serve in death penalty cases whether they can follow the law and impose a sentance of death… but to remove people from juries just because they have experience in a relevant area?
And if jury selection is only laughably thought of as a “random” process to construct juries that represent a community, then why have random selection of people to serve in the first place?
I feel that there are few acceptable criteria for nixing a potential jury member, including someone with pre-existing biases (a Klan member on a jury in a trial against a black man, or maybe an ex-employee of a company vs that company’s CEO, or something similar), or someone who is not competent to make a decision (someone who can’t figure out how to use a toaster in a case that deals with complex technology, maybe).
Trying to stack the jury with people sympathetic to the defendent’s social or ethnic class (getting an all-black jury vs a black man, getting all businessmen vs a businessman, etc) is detrimental to the execution of justice, and should be prohbited where possible.
Nevertheless, any good lawyer will try his damnedest to prepare a jury favorable to his side. This is an obvious side-effect of a system that rewards lawyers based on wins, not based on whether or not justice was served (which is almost impossible to determine, really).
I sure could go for a burger right now. With bacon and cheese. And maybe some sauteed mushrooms. Mmmmm.
The only way I can think of to minimize jury-stacking is to make it harder and harder to disqualify people. But lawyers are smart folks, and they’ll likely always be able to come up with something.
Jeff
Okay, having now read that article, I still stand by my earlier comments. I wonder, though, how our lawyer-friends here on the SDMB feel on the matter? Anyone care to defend the juror system as it currently exists?
Jeff
—Nevertheless, any good lawyer will try his damnedest to prepare a jury favorable to his side.—
The obvious solution is to get trial lawyers out of the jury selection process. I mean, they certainly don’t get to be part of the judge selecting process already.
as both sides get to strike a certain amount of jurors and get equal opportunity to pick jurors, the chances of having a fair and impartial jury (to both sides) is greatest. It’s not a perfect system but it is the best one.
Just a couple of quick thoughts on this. First, regarding the notion of excluding people with too much experience or knowledge in the area that is the subject of the lawsuit. One reason for eliminating such people is that the verdict is to be decided based on the evidence presented during the trial, not based on what one particular juror can teach the rest of the jury about a particular area.
I would concur that the system is not perfect, but because both sides have an equal opportunity to eliminate prospective jurors, the adversarial system works as well as any I have seen suggested. In my experience, here in the midwest, it is very difficult to eliminate any juror “for cause” unless they more or less state that they cannot be objective and fairly decide the case. I have seen numerous cases where prospective jurors have strongly suggested that they would be sympathetic to the plaintiff or that they dislike lawsuits, etc., and they could not be removed by an attorney “for cause” because when asked by the judge they indicated they could, in fact, put their feelings aside and be impartial.
Sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re saying here. Do you mean that you believe attorneys do or do not get to be part of selecting the judge that will hear their case? Just curious what you meant.