Should We Abolish the Jury System?

Townhall.com ^ | July 6, 2011 | Ben Shapiro

[Tax-chick]

I understood “screaminsunshine’s” post to be quite a nice bit of hyperbolic sarcasm, especially for this early in the day on a Wednesday.

[screaminsunshine]

Damned constitutioalsts. It was those rich white slaveowners 300 years ago. That 9th amendment has got to go along with that pesky 5th. How were the founders sposed to know about the internet and tv.

[antidisestablishment]

It’s not the jury system that is broken; it is the abuse of Voir dire. Why does it take days or weeks to seat a jury, and why are people striken without cause?

This process has become a method to remove all sensible people from any jury pool. It make a mockery of the entire concept of “jury of peers.”

[FourPeas]

Have you always had such trouble recognising sarcasm?

[Tax-chick]

Would you like to know if the people that are about to judge are all Freepers?

No, I think I'd rather remain blissfully ignorant of that fact.

I even made the defendant laugh when I had to explain my "Picard for President" bumper sticker to the defense attorney. He'd never heard of Captain Picard. Why should it matter whether I supported Picard or Bill'n'Opus?

[Tax-chick]

A better solution is to have a better educated, better informed public, but that won’t happen as long as the Left has anything to say about it.

And that's the truth.

[wagglebee]

Ben Shapiro should stick with what he knows (though I must admit I'm not altogether sure what that might be), he gets in way over his head on a regular basis and this is one of those times.

[FourPeas]

an obviously guilty mother

Here is the problem FRiend. No where near everyone agrees that Casey Anthony is obviously guilty. Not the jury who heard all the evidence. Not many of us who followed the trial to varying degrees.

[jboot]

The entire justice system, not just the jury system, is grotesquely twisted in favor of the criminal element and needs replacement. If an aquitted individual is later discovered to have actually committed the crime, or commits a second offense on the same order of the first, that there should be some criminal responsibility shared by the original aquitting court, including the prosecution, the defense counsel and the jury. Ditto any judge or board who releases a criminal before his sentence is completed. If the released criminal commits a crime, the judge or board members might be tried as an accessory.

That would slam the revolving door in a big hurry.

And no, I have no respect for our current justince system, or any of its principles or its agents, constitutionally ordained though they may be. I would be quite willing to accept an alternative justice system at this point, provided the current lawlessness is effectively quashed. My opinion has formed over time and has little to do with the Anthony outrage.

[Sans-Culotte]

Oh, absolutely. Because one jury believed a prosecutor hadn’t proved a case beyond a reasonable doubt, we should replace trial by jury with trial by Ben Shapiro, the Philosopher-King. That’ll assure justice for all.

From the article: "The answer doesn't lie in abolishing the jury system utterly, but in revamping it completely."

Guess you didn't get that far.

[CharacterCounts]

The constitution is what is causing this miscarriage of justice. Pal

Yeah, lets just toss the crummy old document down the toilet - that's the ticket /sarc.

[MrB]

I was on a jury a few years ago. I thought I’d be excluded because of my educational background and the general area of my profession (engineering),

because I’d heard that lawyers don’t want sensible, logical thinkers on the panel.

Now, some possibilities would be that that perception of how lawyers select people is incorrect... or that my profession isn’t as sensible and logical as I believe it to be... (or the defense ran out of “strikes”)

[chainsaw]

Better a guilty man go free than an innocent man wrongly convicted.

[ml/nj]

Should We Abolish the Jury System?

No. We should return to it.

ML/NJ

[JPG]

The jury selection process has gotten out of hand with firms that specialize is getting just the ‘right’ jurors for any particular trial. They psychoanalyze and pick and probe and make a mockery of ‘jury of your peers’. Better to take the first 12 people who are breathing, impanel them and proceed to trial.

[Baseballguy]

or better yet Downtown Chicago jury selection.

You want a fair trial you find people that will judge with NO prejudice.

There are lots of people that can never be on juries thank God

[Tax-chick]

He knows about California. He really is very intelligent, but he does get over his head when he opines in haste. As a pundit, he’s gotten lots of points for being young and cute. (Very cute!) Blargh, he was born the year I started college ... at which point in life I knew everything better than anybody, just as he does.

[joe fonebone]

I have reported myself to the mods, and asked to have my comment removed. I humbly apoligize to screamingsunshine, and anyone else who I may have offended. It is just too early for me to put my thinking and reasoning cap on...once again, I apoligize

[PeanutbutterandJellybean]

We need to abolish the dumbing down of our society.