Why no one wants to get convicted of jury duty.
by Greg Beato, Reason
Recently I spent the morning in a large room at San Francisco’s Hall of Justice along with several hundred others watching Ideals Made Real, the world’s least convincing infomercial. A 14-minute anesthetic that the state of California administers to anxious citizens to ease the pain of imminent empaneling, Ideals Made Real is filled with photogenic flags, close-ups of the Constitution, and candid disclosures from sedately enthusiastic jury duty survivors. “It’s often a deep and moving experience to be on a jury,” a robotic female narrator eventually concludes, and yet few in the audience seem sold on this premise. Young, old, rich, poor, as demographically diverse a cross-section of the public as the court system’s computers can randomly generate, the great overwhelming bulk of them share the last common bond uniting America: They want to escape jury duty. Desperately. When a judge enters the room and asks those who aren’t planning to plead hardship of one sort or another to stand up, only a couple dozen of us rise to our feet.
At a time when sentiments against government overreach animate the land, this ennui is, if not exactly puzzling, at least ironic. Trial by jury isn’t merely a Hollywood plot device. It’s a mechanism designed to prevent government oppression and to disperse the state’s power into the hands of the common man. It’s the ultimate embodiment of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Just one problem: The people don’t seem all that interested in the job. (...)
If you’re one of those rare souls who has actually shown up for jury duty, however, then you know that the first real stage of the trial process—voir dire—has nothing to do with fair cross-sections, impartiality, or any other noble ideals regularly uttered to the beat of a banging gavel. Instead, it’s all about giving prosecutors and defense attorneys a chance to winnow the jury pool in ways that favor their side, as determined by jury consulting firms who’ve focus-grouped surrogate jurors in mock trials and know which way prospective panelists are likely to lean based on such factors as their education level, their personality traits, and the number of hours they spend each week watching Law and Order reruns.
Is an accused murderer’s life at stake? Is a lot of money on the line? The greater consequence a trial is presumed to have, the more effort goes into filtering juries in this manner. And if we’re okay with ending up without a random selection, why is it so important to start out with one?
Make jury service voluntary rather than compulsory and mostly what we’d lose is a costly, time-consuming ideal—the fair cross-section of the community—which we currently honor by immediately trying to undermine it with the costly, time-consuming process of voir dire.
Read more:
image: ifilmdb
by Greg Beato, Reason
Recently I spent the morning in a large room at San Francisco’s Hall of Justice along with several hundred others watching Ideals Made Real, the world’s least convincing infomercial. A 14-minute anesthetic that the state of California administers to anxious citizens to ease the pain of imminent empaneling, Ideals Made Real is filled with photogenic flags, close-ups of the Constitution, and candid disclosures from sedately enthusiastic jury duty survivors. “It’s often a deep and moving experience to be on a jury,” a robotic female narrator eventually concludes, and yet few in the audience seem sold on this premise. Young, old, rich, poor, as demographically diverse a cross-section of the public as the court system’s computers can randomly generate, the great overwhelming bulk of them share the last common bond uniting America: They want to escape jury duty. Desperately. When a judge enters the room and asks those who aren’t planning to plead hardship of one sort or another to stand up, only a couple dozen of us rise to our feet.At a time when sentiments against government overreach animate the land, this ennui is, if not exactly puzzling, at least ironic. Trial by jury isn’t merely a Hollywood plot device. It’s a mechanism designed to prevent government oppression and to disperse the state’s power into the hands of the common man. It’s the ultimate embodiment of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Just one problem: The people don’t seem all that interested in the job. (...)
If you’re one of those rare souls who has actually shown up for jury duty, however, then you know that the first real stage of the trial process—voir dire—has nothing to do with fair cross-sections, impartiality, or any other noble ideals regularly uttered to the beat of a banging gavel. Instead, it’s all about giving prosecutors and defense attorneys a chance to winnow the jury pool in ways that favor their side, as determined by jury consulting firms who’ve focus-grouped surrogate jurors in mock trials and know which way prospective panelists are likely to lean based on such factors as their education level, their personality traits, and the number of hours they spend each week watching Law and Order reruns.
Is an accused murderer’s life at stake? Is a lot of money on the line? The greater consequence a trial is presumed to have, the more effort goes into filtering juries in this manner. And if we’re okay with ending up without a random selection, why is it so important to start out with one?
Make jury service voluntary rather than compulsory and mostly what we’d lose is a costly, time-consuming ideal—the fair cross-section of the community—which we currently honor by immediately trying to undermine it with the costly, time-consuming process of voir dire.
Read more:
image: ifilmdb
