I remember from several business law classes that my prof. said that you couldn’t force someone into a chapter 13 BK (although you could force them into a Chapter Seven if you were a creditor under certain circumstances) because it was considered to be a violation of the prohibition against involuntary servitude in the Bill of Rights (13th Amendment maybe?). He said this is the same reason that courts will not order specific performance in personal service contracts even in the event of a breech ( although the court may grant an injunction prohibiting that person from engaging in similar contracts in the future for a period of time). Has anyone ever challenged jury duty on this basis? If so what was the court’s reason for refuting this argument? Some will point to the military draft as a noted exception, but that involves cases of national security. Even in the case of the draft we have had an all voluntary army for a long time now. If Michael Newdow can challenge the Pledge of Allegence to the flag on 1st Amendment grounds, why couldn’t I make this argument under 13th Amendment grounds before the courts?
Now I think jury duty is a priviledge that most should take advantage of (as is voting). However, it is the precedent and the principal that I oppose.
You can google “jury duty” and “involuntary servitude” and find numerous arguments against mandatory jurty duty using the involuntary servitude claim. Popular claim with libertarians.
Yes, but they don’t (at least none that I’ve seen) address how the courts have dealt with this argument. Such a basic argument has surely been brought dozens if not hundreds of times and in some cases it must have been done so by well financed, or represented parties.
I asked the question of an old highschool buddy who is the local prosecutor and he said that he didn’t know, but if I brought such a suit in his county that he would " kick my ass. "
First, the Bill of Rights is the first 10 amendments.
As to why the 13th doesn’t prevent this because it has never been held to a violation of the 13th amendment. When the amendment was passed nobody understood it to be make jury duty illegal and the amendment has never been expanded to cover this. The government has a compelling interest to have citizens serve on a jury.
Yes, but I don’t think that when the Amendment was passed that it was understood to make specific perfomance of personal service contracts, or forcing someone into a chapter 13 BK illegal either. Are you saying that the argument simply has been brought or that it has and has been rejected? I will agree that a compelling interest argument would possibly, but not necessarily overcome the 13th amendment argument (especially if it could be argued/shown that most people would still serve jury duty on a voluntary basis).
This may be simply an example of my poor search skills, but I cannot find a case in which the Supreme Court ruled that jury duty either was or was not “involuntary servitude.” Since there does not seem to be a factual answer from the Supreme Court (not that that would inhibit any debate), it seems that this question is better suited to Great Debates.
wolf_meister, this claim has been attempted (unsuccessfully) with the draft, but SCOTUS has rejected the claim during WWI and, again, during the Vietnam conflict. (In the latter decision, the court noted that the Constitutional authority of Congress to raise an army preceded and trumped the 13th Amendment.) As that is not the point of the OP, that discussion will not prevent this thread from being moved to GD
Yes, but under section 2, Congress has the authority to enforce the amendment by passing legislation. Under this power, Congress passed the Peonage Act (1867). It is this act that makes above things illegal.
In the case of Butler v. Perry 240 U.S. 238 Text here , the Supreme Court ruled in a Florida case which was about a law forcing people to work on roads near their homes was constitutional.
IANAL (and hence I have typos in my cites and don’t recognize dicta), but an involuntary servitude argument against jury service would have to overcome the following hurdles:
it’s always been this way, as in centuries
you get paid
the government can make you do other jobs, including serving in the military
the government has a strong interest in making sure as many people as possible can serve on juries
You have a 6th amendment right to a jury trial also. If the state can’t get enough volunteer jurors, then to be able to give a criminal defendent this right they’ll have to compell people to be jurors.
As to the 13th amendment banning it I don’t think so. One part of the Constitution can’t ban what another part explicitly mandates unless the amendment itself explictly overturns that other part.
Who in the world thinks that judges would decide a case against mandatory jury duty? And if they did is there anyone here that wants to give up their right to a jury trial? If anyone thinks that we could depend on voluntary jurors they obviously haven’t been called for jury duty. Almost everyone there is talking about how to get out of serving. There are also many people that don’t register to vote simply because the voting roll is where perspective juror’s names come from. So if you don’t want to be called for jury duty, don’t vote. Very dumb attitude, but also a very true fact.
The way I have always understood it, is that Jury Duty is assumed (NOT officially ruled) to NOT fall under “involuntary servitude” by analogy to military service, as a case of being pressed into performing a specific necessary public service for a finite time period, with some compensation and a set of protections for your rights and civil capacity.
With the military it was ruled along the lines of “it’s clear what they meant, and it wasn’t this”. The 13th was seen as referring to slavery, serfdom, indentured servitude, etc. that created a condition of bondage, not just of having to do what you’d rather not for a while.
If Congress was going to do something as radical as alter the right to a jury trial which was already enshrined in the Constitution, they would have said something about it in the amendment.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, looking at the intent of a law is not foolproof, but it’s quite clear in this case what was meant. The law is far more complex than a literal interpretation would suggest; even though the right to free speech is only protected from Congressional acts, it’s understood to involve the entire government. Why? Because that’s how it works. The law is much more complex and amorphous than Roland seems to think, and a quick look at any book will reveal that the principles he seems to be using are not a valid way of examining the law.
Why not make the government pay “market price” for jury duty labor or rely upon volunteers? Just because you have a right to a trial by jury doesn’t imply that the government has the right to force me to serve under penalty of fine or jail. As for not voting that will work in some places, but other locations use driver’s license rosters. Furthermore, those at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale are often the hardest hit by the income loss often associated with jury duty (since even a few hundred per month leaves them vulnerable to foreclosure or eviction) this might raise equal protection issues under the 14th Amendment. Failing, a favorable court ruling on this issue perhaps anyone called to jury duty could just explain that in protest they will “hang the jury” no matter what (or in my case I would almost always vote for the defense).