Jury of Our Peers?

Most democratic governments base their legal system on being judged by one’s peers, but is that really the case? A peer is an equal, and although we are all supposedly equal under the law, we are unequal in almost every other respect. Some of us are smart, some dumb, some are rich, some poor, some black, some white, some educated, and some ignorant…. We acknowledge these differences every day by freely self-segregating ourselves into classes based on wealth, intelligence, race, education, morality….Yet for some reason we still allow ourselves to be judged by people who we don’t see as our equals. In terms of importance to the impartiality of a jury, those inequalities create bias, which is exactly what our jury system tries to eliminate. In an ideal world, there is no prejudice, no bias and equality under the law is all that matters.

Unfortunately, this beautiful democratic allusion has proven to be practically allusive in our society. Blacks often get longer sentences than whites for the same crimes, women get less time than men, and celebrities usually get off Scot free, and so on and so forth.
The jury of one’s peers concept is based on the supposed impartiality of a random sample of the population. The theory predicts that the normal person will share more similarities with a random sample of the population than differences, and therefore will be judged by people who are likely to give him a fair shake. The problem with this theory is two fold: first, those of us who are not average will have a much smaller likelihood of having our peers comprise the majority of the jury, and second, the mechanisms of the Voir Dire process, or jury selection, exacerbates the problem by creating juries consisting of a greater percentage of poor, uneducated, unintelligent people, with very little experience with the justice system, than their natural prevalence in society.

How does this happen? First many professionals who have experience in the legal field like judges, lawyers, police officers, and professors are automatically excluded. If we look at the general population, about 5% are wealthy, 30% well educated, and then the minorities, by definition, comprise a small percentage of the population. If we put 50 people in a room for jury selection that means only 2.5 on average will be wealthy, 15 well educated, 6 Black, 7 Hispanic, and those with experience have already been eliminated. If each side has 5 peremptory challenges they can eliminate the wealthy, decimate the minorities, and severally limit the well educated. And that’s just with the peremptory challenges.
Then they have an unlimited number of challenges for cause, which means they can eliminate someone based on their likely bias for or against the defendant. The first question they usually ask is “Does anyone here have a criminal history or a family member with a criminal history?” The judge then grants the dismissal of anyone who answers yes based on their likely bias, which eliminates anyone with criminal history, thereby eliminating many of the remaining minorities, and those with first hand knowledge of the injustice of the American legal system.
Many intelligent, educated people use this step of the process to get out of jury selection because they often have higher work loads, more demanding jobs, and generally better things to do. While the wealthy/educated/intelligent are weaseling their way out of jury duty, the poor or unemployed are lying to get on because they get a small check, and they value the excitement and the opportunity to matter. It is also a notorious fact that lawyers try to eliminate intelligent/educated people right off the bat because less intelligent people are easier to convince/manipulate. As my Vanderbilt criminal justice professor told my class upon graduation, “You are now far to educated to ever be on a jury.” Although that seems like a ridiculous concept, in depth research reveals its validity.

If we are eliminating most of the educated/intelligent, wealthy, minorities, and experienced, then it is not really a jury of our peers now is it? It is a jury of mindless simpletons that make decisions based on emotion rather than rational thought. I do acknowledge that most Americans are not the least bit slighted by this because a jury comprised of mindless simpletons would be a jury of their peers, but it is not a jury my peers. Nor is it a random sample of the population, which would at least have 1 or 2 of my peers on it, thereby preventing the jealousy and resentment that usually come with wealth and intelligence.

Let’s end the façade of random juries and institute a professional jury system. While a professional jury may not be random, at least it will bear greater similarity to the general population than a random jury that’s been put through the voir dire process. We could hire minorities, wealthy, educated, and experienced based on their prevalence in the population. Or if the object is truly a jury of one’s peers then we could have people be judged by those with similar income levels, education, race, etc….

Professional juries would not be susceptible to the “shock factor,” which is a term used to refer to the shock a jury can get from the brutality or outrageousness of a certain crime, which frequently biases their verdicts. Professional juries could realistically disregard comments that are stricken from the record, whereas we all know that the common man will not forget what was said, no matter how many times you tell him to.

Professional juries could understand cases that involve complicated financial webs and intricate technical details that average people with little experience and intelligence could ever hope to grasp. Lawyers would no longer have to dumb down their cases. Verdicts would no longer be decided based on the attractiveness of the lawyer, or the image of the defendant.

And most importantly, professional juries would be far less biased than the general population because they would be doing a job rather than acting on emotion, and at least their rulings could be reviewed. Their decision making process would be open so everyone could see the legal justification for their ruling. They would have to write legal opinions on their decision just like the Supreme Court. Then we could have a judicial oversight committee that analyzes the legal basis for their decisions and have a little accountability.

And the kicker: we would save an absolute fortune! Every day we spend vast amounts of time and resources explaining all of the rules to each jury, determining their bias, and answering their ridiculous questions. Just remember, cases can only go as fast as the slowest/dumbest juror. With a professional jury, cases would go faster, freeing up the judicial system. Citizens would no longer have to waste their time going down to the courthouse and waiting all day only to find out they weren’t acceptable. Lawyers and judges would no longer have to go through the monotony of explaining all of the rules every time, or picking jurors and rolling the dice.