[lbo-talk] jury duty

jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net
Tue May 16 17:43:42 PDT 2006


Handing out leaflets on Jury Nullification in front of the courthouse on a Monday morning when all the prospective jurors are filing into the building is a good way to really piss off the judges inside. It also means a trip to the police station to be hassled for a few hours. I know of one instance where everyone who accepted our leaflet was immediately disqualified by one judge. Not exactly what we had in mind when we printed them up and honestly I question the legality of it. It would appear many judges don't want too much democracy instilled in the jurors.

I agree with Doug in his last sentence that the jury system idea is great but far too many citizens are fear filled racists for me to call it great in practice. Good would my assessment. It isn't only or even primarily the inequalities of representation that anger me. Conditions are vastly improved over how they used to be but putting your fate in the hands of a group of "ordinary people" is probably more comforting to a middle class white male than say an African American male or Latino woman.

Anyway, have fun and do what you can to help someone get justice.

John Thornton

On 16 May 2006 at 22:57, Steven L. Robinson wrote:


> BTW- The easiest way to get off of jury duty is wear a FIJA ["Fully Informed Jury
> Association"]button to the first day of jury duty.... SR

and Doug wrote:

I don't want to get bumped - it's one of the few things I feel a civic duty about. The jury system is great - beats putting one's fate in the hands of some elitist judge! And it's inspiring to watch ordinary people take the task so seriously - something in daily life that makes you believe that democracy could work out after all.

I gotta say, there's a lot that's fundamentally wrong with our system of government; I'm a devoted follower of Dan Lazare's critique of our constitutional system. But the justice system seems pretty solid conceptually. Sure there are tremendous inequalities of representation - rich man's vs. poor man's justice, etc. But those are problems of the larger society. Seems like arguing out disputes before a jury composed of ordinary citizens is a fundamentally great idea.

Doug



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