“Very good article and I suspect that you will be getting attacked by those who became emotionally invested in this young womans’ guilt. Knowing that someone is guilty and proving it are two vastly different things.”
You are partially missing the point. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right of a jury trial. However, the manner of determining jurors is not specified. I would prefer professional jurors or substantial changes to the manner of selecting jurors. The current manner of selecting jurors is an exercise in sampling bias. The entire point of the selection procedure is to select jurors who seem predisposed to a certain view point or at least exclude jurors who seem predisposed to the other side’s view point.
I object to non professional jury system because it is tantamount to forced labor, a violation of property rights. We have a military draft that is non voluntary but the military draft is only for national emergencies (unless the rats manage to change the law). I strongly object to being forced to serve on a jury especially a civil jury. The litigants in civil cases should bear the true cost of a jury trial.
Contrary to popular misconception, juror selection in a trial is not a random process. The jury pool is close to a random process but many individuals opt out and find ways to avoid serving. The voir dire process is an exercise in sampling bias.
Beyond the bias in jury selection, juries can be ignorant about weighing evidence. I would not have voted for acquital in the Anthony case. The evidence was powerful about her guilt. Juries get confused about collective weight of the evidence by design as defense attorneys try to inject confusion and clouded judgment. Juries now expect powerful physical evidence of guilt. Criminals try to destroy physical evidence so it is often difficult to obtain physical evidence.
In the Anthony case, the jury was mistaken that the prosecuter needed to determine the cause of death. There was no evidence of accidental death and plenty of evidence that Anthony caused the death. The jury was also confused about the alternative theories of the crime. There was no evidence of involvement of other family members. Even if other family members were involved, Casey was still responsible.
Speaking of jury selection, a female lawyer in Houston was interviewed on the nightly news. She said she was one of a group of people who were hired to select the jury. She said she was proud of the work that she had done. Don’t remember if she actually said she liked the juries decision but I got the impression that she did.