Using This American Jury System Review To Understand This Complex Concept

By Karyn Shields


Codified in the US Constitution, the judicial system in America has been called the best of a bad lot around the world. It brings normal people, people who may have never had any interactions with the law before, into the judicial system. An American Jury System Review would go into some of the good things and some of the bad things about it.

The face of the judicial system is straight forward. A prosecutor charges a person with a crime and summons them to court. That prosecutor attempts to prove their charges and that he is guilty of them. The defendant has a lawyer that attempts to dissuade the jury from believing those charges and that his client did not do this.

During the trail, the panel listens to both sides and is admonished to listen to the facts of the case. It is the jurist duty, when the lawyers finish their presentations, to decide whether they believe the state or the accused more. It is their job to try to dig through all of the talk and, sometimes, double talk of the lawyers, balanced by what the judge says and does to make sense out of everything.

A horrible trend, in many circles, is the belief that the jurors should be able to take the law and change it to reflect some political purpose. They may so identify with the defendant, or their predicament, that they declare, against better judgment, because of their race, their poverty or membership in some other victim class. This is not a good trend as the weights of justice are held by a lady who is blind to all of these conditions.

From time to time, people get a letter or postcard in the mail asking them to present themselves to the court house for jury duty. What that means is that they will be ushered into a fairly large room, along with a lot of other people. They may, at this time, be instructed to fill out a survey or questionnaire. This may be lengthy or not so much long as very inquisitive.

These forms are designed by the lawyers, both the prosecutor and defense attorney, to help them know how you might feel about what they are going to say and show to you. The court clerks, working in this room, every once in a while, will call several names and take these folks to a court room where a trial will be held. The questionnaires will have already been copied and given to all attorneys in the court.

The judge will talk with this group and ask them a few general questions and then turn the questioning over to the lawyers. These professionals will attempt to find out how the jurists, individually, feel about the accused. The prosecution wants to know if each person knows any of the people in the room. They might want to know how each person feels about the death penalty. They will try to illicit their feelings about race, especially if the defendant is a different race than the person being asked.

Each member of the jury is exhorted to remain objective until all of the evidence has been presented and all lawyers have had their say. This is difficult for some as more and more activists are stating that the laws do not apply to various groups of people and that, therefore, preconceived opinions are the only way to get justice. This only helps to destroy the system that has served American very well for more than 200 years.




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