The Jury Pool Is Getting Very Shallow

Jeers for "peers"

by Sean Carter
02/16/05

Being a columnist is a lot like being in a parent - the pay is terrible and your advice goes largely ignored. Yet, I continue in both roles for a very simple reason: I have yet to hit the lottery. Therefore, until my numbers finally come in, I'll continue on fighting the good fight.

In particular, I'll continue fighting against our volunteer jury system. The simple truth of the matter is that our juries are regularly packed with people who we shouldn't let judge beauty pageants, nevertheless the guilt or innocence of a fellow human being.

This was laughably illustrated last month when the jury from Hell was convened in Tennessee. During jury selection, one of the prospective jurors inexplicable stood up and declared, "I'm on morphine and I'm higher than a kite." Needless to say, he was made foreman of the jury.

Actually, he was dismissed. However, I suspect that the lawyers and the judge probably regretted their hasty decision when they were introduced to the other "pillars of the community." During questioning, one such pillar admitted to be arresting and taken to a mental hospital in the recent past. Why? Because he almost shot his nephew for refusing to come out from the under bed. Given the circumstances, could you blame the nephew?

However, it appears that Mr. Come Out From Under the Bed Or I'll Shoot wasn't the craziest member of the jury panel. That distinction belongs to the man who admitted to being arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer. In perhaps, the line of the century, he explained to the court, "I should have known something was up. She had all her teeth."

And please believe me; I'm not making any of this up. If I were that creative, I'd be writing sitcoms, movies or U.S. intelligence reports. These are actually some of the people who showed up to decide the fate of another person.

Are you scared yet? Well, if your driving record is anything like mine, you should be. Given the cast of characters likely to be seated on a jury, I'd rather try to make it through airport security wearing an "I Love Osama Bin Laden" t-shirt than have these Nobel "Laureates" decide my fate.

This is why I continue to push for a professional jury system. Think about it for a moment. Every other player in a courtroom is a paid professional. Yet, we leave the most important job - deciding innocent or guilt - to unpaid volunteers. In no other context would we even consider letting untrained amateurs make life or death decisions.

For example, we wouldn't let someone "volunteer" to perform open heart surgery just because they voted in the 1872 Democratic Primary. Yet, we choose jurors on this very basis and then wonder why we continually find ourselves saying "Oops, my bad" when we release some innocent man from prison after serving 20 years for a crime he didn't commit.

Of course, a professional jury won't be immune from mistakes. However, at least, we'll give ourselves a fighting chance by removing the drug addicts, mental patients and sexual deviants from the jury panel and putting them back where they belong - behind the bench.

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Sean is a practicing attorney who writes a weekly humor column on current legal events called "Lawpsided." Lawpsided pieces appear in a growing number of general circulation papers across the country, including The Los Angeles Times. Moreover, his musings on the law appear on nationally recognized websites, such as jewishworldreview.com, findlaw.com, newsmax.com and etherzone.com, and legal publications, such as The National Law Journal and The Los Angeles Daily Journal. Lastly, he is a regular contributor to national magazines like Razor and Tirade. If you would be interested in publishing this piece or seeing other samples of his work, please feel free to contact him by e-mail, by phone at (626) 786-2095, or through his website at:

www.lawpsided.com