Jury Duty

I had a one day jury duty this week along with about 200 others for three cases (one criminal and two civil) that were on the docket. In Oregon one can be called to serve for jury duty once every two years. Because the jury pool is big,  the vast majority of candidates are not picked to actually serve on a jury, and since they are no longer needed once the juries are selected,  are released from jury duty after the jury panels are selected.

I was in a group interviewed by the defense and prosecution for one of the three cases, a criminal case. In this case a man was accused of stealing books from libraries in the Portland area. Since I was in the last tier of those randomly chosen to be interviewed, most of  the jurors had already been picked before my interview. This was good because I was able to leave jury duty and return home, though I would not  have disliked being a part of a jury panel. Seeing the nervous defendant seated at the defense table makes one realize the importance of the jury system. Only 80 of 189 independent nations of the world use a trial by peer jury system, but many of those do not have a free jury by peer system as here in the U.S.   Almost all of those 80 are among the more democratic of nations.  So trial by jury of one's peers often correlates with the amount of freedom in a nation.

Trial by jury has had a central role in U.S. courtrooms since the beginning of America, and it is probably the best way to keep the government from becoming too powerful. Having a person's innocence or guilt judged by other than the government is fundamental to fairness. It is a constitutional right that I take serious, given that one day I might be accused of a crime and judged as well. I would want serious jurors to judge me if I were in a criminal or civil trial. Having ordinary men and women judging on the basis of an impartial hearing of the evidence is a far better situation than a "professional jury".

Hmmmm I better hope I never am charged with ranting too much. Any jury would convict me of that in less than five minutes..