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Should We Abolish the Jury System?
Townhall.com ^ | July 6, 2011 | Ben Shapiro

Posted on 07/06/2011 6:32:41 AM PDT by Kaslin

On Tuesday, a Florida jury found Casey Anthony not guilty of first-degree murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee Marie.

As so often happens in high profile cases, the jury was wrong.

Casey clearly murdered her daughter. Her mom, Cindy, reported that Caylee was missing on July 15, 2008. Casey's cover story was unbelievably ridiculous. When Casey's mom, Cindy, confronted Casey at Casey's boyfriend's apartment, Casey actually claimed that a random baby sitter nobody had ever met had taken Caylee away over a month beforehand.

Cindy called the cops, informing them, "I found my daughter's car today. And it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car." Sure enough, cadaver dogs identified the trunk of Casey's car as a dead body location, and scientists confirmed that a body had decomposed back there. A few months after a jury indicted Casey, police found Caylee's corpse in the woods near Casey's home, duct tape on her head.

The defense did a Johnny Cochrane routine -- they blamed everybody within a 10 mile radius of the murder for the murder. Defense attorney Jose Baez suggested that Casey's dad, George, had sexually abused her during her childhood, without any evidence whatsoever. Baez also claimed that Caylee had drowned in the pool while George was at home, and that George had been involved in dumping the body.

There was no evidence to any of this. It was pure conjecture, a sociopathic response to being caught red-handed. And Casey Anthony is a sociopath: outwardly charming, pathologically lying, indecently self-centered, lacking in shame or guilt, promiscuous, exploitative and irresponsible, and willing to hurt anyone and everyone in order to get her way.

So, why did the jury acquit her? Because the jury system, as currently run, is stupid.

Yes, jury trial is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution (although only with regard to federal cases). It was originally considered a hallmark of civilized criminal justice because citizens did not want to be subjected to government inquisitions, with the court stacked against them. Juries were supposed to be a bulwark against governmental encroachment.

Nowadays, juries have become a hallmark of our heavily bureaucratized system. Those who have day jobs are eager to avoid serving on juries, mainly because the convoluted rules of procedure and evidence have turned summary trials into week-long events. By and large, only the least offensive -- and not coincidentally, the dumbest -- tend to be selected for juries. As the aphorism goes, the problem with juries is that they are generally composed of the 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty.

The phrase "show trial" now means something different -- it means a trial that is a show. That's precisely what O.J. and Casey Anthony were about. Every juror expects to see Sam Waterston get up and deliver opening remarks, and damned if the court system won't do its best to provide that entertainment. The provision of the Constitution that requires a public trial is now used to ensure that trials become media circuses.

Should we embrace the European inquisitorial system, in which judges ask the questions and come up with the decisions? Should we hire professional jurors?

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

The rationale behind juries is still important, particularly with regard to politically-oriented trials: We don't want judges paid by government to have full authority to condemn those of different political persuasions. And the rationale behind a public trial is also still relevant -- we don't want Star Chambers or clandestine hearings. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

By the same token, however, our current jury system is broken beyond repair. If we are truly to restore justice to our system of justice, we must pursue the best and brightest for service, make it easier for them to serve, make the rules of evidence and procedure more efficient, and allow justice to run more smoothly. Most Americans would be willing to serve on a jury for a day. Few would be willing to do so for a week and even fewer for a month. We need more day-long trials and less month-long trials. We need more justice and less showmanship.

Caylee Anthony, sadly, wasn't just the victim of her mother here. She was the victim of a system that did not mete out justice to her murderer. There will be many more cases like Caylee Anthony until we do something to solve this mess.


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To: joe fonebone; screaminsunshine

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


61 posted on 07/06/2011 7:01:58 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!" ~ John Adams)
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To: Rum Tum Tugger

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.


62 posted on 07/06/2011 7:03:38 AM PDT by screaminsunshine (Socialism...Easier said than done.)
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To: Kaslin

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.”


63 posted on 07/06/2011 7:04:35 AM PDT by antidisestablishment (Our people perish through lack of wisdom, but they are content in their ignorance.)
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To: joe fonebone

Have you always had such trouble recognising sarcasm?


64 posted on 07/06/2011 7:04:52 AM PDT by FourPeas ("Maladjusted and wigging out is no way to go through life, son." -hg)
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Comment #65 Removed by Moderator

To: Baseballguy
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?

66 posted on 07/06/2011 7:05:47 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!" ~ John Adams)
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To: Westbrook
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.

67 posted on 07/06/2011 7:06:54 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!" ~ John Adams)
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To: Tax-chick
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.
68 posted on 07/06/2011 7:07:03 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Rum Tum Tugger
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.

69 posted on 07/06/2011 7:07:34 AM PDT by FourPeas ("Maladjusted and wigging out is no way to go through life, son." -hg)
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To: Kaslin
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.

70 posted on 07/06/2011 7:07:37 AM PDT by jboot
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To: Tax-chick
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.

71 posted on 07/06/2011 7:08:15 AM PDT by Sans-Culotte ( Pray for Obama- Psalm 109:8)
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To: screaminsunshine
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.

72 posted on 07/06/2011 7:08:46 AM PDT by CharacterCounts (November 4, 2008 - the day America drank the Kool-Aid)
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To: antidisestablishment

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”)


73 posted on 07/06/2011 7:09:01 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter knows whom he's working for)
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To: Kaslin

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


74 posted on 07/06/2011 7:09:22 AM PDT by chainsaw (I'd hate to be a democrat running against Sarah Palin.)
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To: Kaslin
Should We Abolish the Jury System?

No. We should return to it.

ML/NJ

75 posted on 07/06/2011 7:09:46 AM PDT by ml/nj
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To: GonzoGOP
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.
76 posted on 07/06/2011 7:09:47 AM PDT by JPG (Elect Sarah Palin in '12. America won't get another chance.)
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To: Tax-chick

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


77 posted on 07/06/2011 7:09:54 AM PDT by Baseballguy (If we knew what we know now in Oct would we do anything different?)
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To: wagglebee

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.


78 posted on 07/06/2011 7:10:49 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!" ~ John Adams)
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To: 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


79 posted on 07/06/2011 7:11:53 AM PDT by joe fonebone (Project Gunwalker, this will make watergate look like the warm up band......)
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To: Kaslin

We need to abolish the dumbing down of our society.


80 posted on 07/06/2011 7:12:21 AM PDT by PeanutbutterandJellybean
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