A jury of your peers

[Zeno]

Check it out Jury from Memphis (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/18/shallow.jury.pool.ap/index.html)

Enjoy /images/graemlins/grin.gif

-Zeno

[deacsoft]

God, bless our justice system.

[deacsoft]

Then again, if you don't want to be on a jury (for whatever reason: maybe there's something good on TV, even) there are plenty of things you could say to get out of it.

[Victor]

the best way to get out of jury duty is to be educated.

[deacsoft]

[ QUOTE ]
the best way to get out of jury duty is to be educated.

[/ QUOTE ]

You've managed to arrouse my curiosity. What do you mean by that?

[fnord_too]

lawyers don't like people who can think for themselves on a jury.

[whiskeytown]

in fact, the best way to get out of jury duty is to say you believe in Jury Nullification.

you're basically saying you believe that if a law is unjust, you have the right to nullify it by casting a vote of Not Guilty even if he has been technically proven to have committed the crime.

Jurors who have NOT admitted this pretrial and are found to believe in it have been cited for contempt of court....so it'll be in my best interest to state I believe in it if I ever get called.

This was an intent of our founding fathers vs. a legal system run amok, but it's technically contempt of court for a lawyer to suggest it...

On one hand, it's been used to get good ol' boys off for lynching blacks in the South in those days, but on the other hand, if the law is unjust, juries shouldn't simply be a rubber stamp for the judge - they should be able to essentially nullify that law and that decision - (like them trying to throw a kid in jail for 5 yrs. for possession of a joint...) -

and like the previous poster said....Lawyers want the easily swayed and weak minded - anyone with a serious brain could throw a wrench into their plans and make their life harder, so it's mostly presumed smart people aren't chosen that often.

here's a nice summary

http://www.greenmac.com/eagle/ISSUES/ISSUE23-9/07JuryNullification.html

and here's a good site - http://www.americanjuryinstitute.org/

RB

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]


lawyers don't like people who can think for themselves on a jury.



[/ QUOTE ]

this is probably the reason.

from personal experience, my mom is a college professor and has been called to jury duty 3 times. she was sent back each time.

[jakethebake]

We have an amazing system. We have one of the best educated populations in history. We have experts in everything. And yet we typically pick 12 complete idiots that know nothing about the legal system and have zero expertise an criminology to decide guilt or innocence.

[elwoodblues]

Juries are made up of 12 people who couldn't figure out how to get out of jury duty.

[CCass]

Another would-be juror said he had had alcohol problems and was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer. "I should have known something was up," he said. "She had all her teeth."

Now we know how MicroBob got out of jury duty. /images/graemlins/grin.gif