As part of my orientation program at work, I've been sitting in on a rape trial. (It's not actually called that here anymore; it's "criminal sexual conduct," but whatever.) We did jury selection a few days ago. It was a good reminder that if you want to be on a jury, try to show that you have no capacity for abstract thought. Because if you do, one of the sides will boot you.
The strikes serve a necessary purpose. One prospective juror basically said that he assumed our client was guilty simply because he was charged with a crime. His theory goes that he wouldn't be in court unless he had done osmething wrong. Obviously we gave that person their walking papers. Similarly, the prosecution cut someone right away when they said that they hated the idea of sitting in judgment of someone.
Jury selection took four days. We've ended up with a fairly boring collection of non-descript people with no apparent opinion about anything. Is it a jury of my client's peers? No way, but we'll take it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment