Win, WIN? I thought the right to a trial and a jury of peers was a constitutional right.
Actually we are NOT guaranteed a “jury of peers”.
“People often say “I have a right to have my case heard by a jury of my peers!” when there is no such right in the Constitution. The Constitution does take up the issue of juries, however. It is the nature of the jury which is not in the Constitution. In Article 3, Section 2, the Constitution requires that all criminal trials be heard by a jury. It also specifies that the trial will be heard in the state the crime was committed.
The 6th Amendment narrows the definition of the jury by requiring it to be “impartial.” Finally, the 7th Amendment requires that certain federal civil trials guarantee a jury trial if the amount exceeds twenty dollars.
Note that no where is a jury “of peers” guaranteed. This is important for some historical and contemporary reasons. Historically, the notion of a peer is one of social standing — in particular, in a monarchy such as the one the United States grew up from, commoners would never stand in judgement of lords and barons. Along these same lines, since suffrage and jury service have always been closely tied (and in the beginnings of the United States it was typical for only white, male, property-owners to be allowed the vote), any combination of gender, race, and economic status would be judged by only one kind of jury, hardly by “peers.”
Today, the American ideal dictates that we are all peers of one another, that regardless of gender, race, religion, social status, or any other division (except age), we are all equal. In this ideal, since we are all peers, a guarantee of a jury of ones peers would be redundant. While some argue with this ideal, it is the most democratic way to approach the subject. Juries need only be impartial, and not made up of one’s peers, else the jury system would be unworkable.”
from http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html#jury
By winning the right to individual trial, the charges might be dropped.
But one thing this article brought to my attention was that homosexuals and anti-military types were allowed to protest on campus.
But people who stood for Catholic values got arrested...