what do you think about um
the way the criminal justice system handles trials
well you know they tell you that you get tried by a jury of your peers
yeah
but you know it's pretty hard to try let's say
the man down the street that's living on Social Security or somebody that's on a limited income
to be tried by a jury of his peers if most of the people like the juries that i've served on are businessmen
uh-huh
okay now they don't understand that you know maybe he needed fifty dollars so he held up the seven eleven
yeah
okay they don't understand that because they have fifty dollars all the time so you know i think that it a a trial by your peers should be exactly that someone in your own age bracket someone that you know you can't really do it
ethnically you know but you could do it you could probably get it a little closer but then there's another thing that i disagree with in Texas is sometimes you have a jury of six and sometimes you have a jury of twelve
yeah
yeah
and i don't know why they do that do you have any reason do you know of any reason why they do that
well i think the six is called a Grand Jury and that's mostly to decide whether or not the person's actually going to stand trial or it's whether they're acquitted or whether they're actually going to be accused of
okay i see
you know and held over for trial
okay
i don't know much about the Grand Jury how do you feel about the in Texas i noticed since i've been here in twelve years that they they break up the the trial and then the sentencing part of the trial
yeah i don't know i i think that uh i know that judges aren't supposed to be crooked however
well we know there's a few out there
yeah it seems like if you break the sentencing away from the jury and give it you give it to one person you're letting there be a whole lot more of an opportunity for something to either go wrong
or for you know if if if the judge is not of high moral standards he could be bought off at much easier than twelve people could
um-hum
yeah it's
yeah would be pretty hard well i don't think you know i don't think that
if i was the criminal that i would like the judge passing sentence on me if the jury found me guilty then they should be able to decide at the same time what my punishment should be
and i think it's not only that it's a waste of our money we have to have a trial for this person then two weeks down the road we have to sentence sentence
excuse me set a sentencing date so now we're back in court again and that's more money spent
um-hum
it's not so much that i that
i haven't seen a lot of really bad sentences passed either by trials or by judges what bothers me is that uh they really don't mean anything
no
someone could be sentenced to thirty five years and yet you know the the parole system uh it's going to let them out in in three years for good behavior
and it's not working either
no it's not
it seems that we have more and more repeat offenders i know i don't know how you all are there where you're at but where we're at now our jails are overcrowded we just built a brand new one two years ago
um-hum
oh i think they're all overcrowded
and it's overcrowded
they've uh i think i heard Fort Worth that uh
so now they start turning them loose
they've been ordered to do something because their jail is so overcrowded they're not allowed to accept any new inmates now what are they supposed to do
they turn them loose
well no i mean they're not allowed to accept any new inmates
yeah
so what are they supposed to do with people that they need to put in jail you know
well the way it it seems the way it's been working here's
there
yeah
go ahead
it seems the way it's been working here is they let those out that have spent two or three years out of their five to twenty sentence or five to life
um-hum something that is working and i i i really like the system of house arrest
where uh a someone's wear someone wears a bracelet
yeah they
yeah and they
like a ankle bracelet that's a monitor and they are not allowed i mean the some of them are even allowed to work they can go to their regular job they come home they have to be home by such and such a time
they keep
they're instructed uh
so that this this electronic monitor is turned on at at a certain time and it connects them up to a system where they know their whereabouts
yeah
all right
and uh
they can put a they usually install a video monitor in the house
and when the parole officer calls to check on them they're instructed to turn it on and stand in front of it
all right
so that they can see that this person is actually at home in their house doing what they're supposed to be doing and that's working rather well that's a good system that allows people to actually continue to be productive members of society while
yeah it would allow the
they're
yeah instead of being completely penned up
you know paying back for whatever crime they've committed
and that way it would give you know the probation department and parole department they've got to be overloaded with as many criminals as we have here in in Lubbock
oh yeah
and that would give you know at least they don't have to drive all over town trying to find one guy or trying to see six or seven people
yeah
um-hum i've i've really i could go on for hours about the criminal justice system and what i think we ought to do about it but
sometimes it's pretty messed up isn't it
well something that i really don't understand is when someone goes to jail
um-hum
and they have a job in jail and they work
that they should i and this may sound cruel but i do not think that they should be allowed cigarettes
i mean they're in jail for crying out loud what do they need cigarettes for
yeah
well see and there's another thing about the justice system that i don't like and there's a lot of people that tell me that that maybe my thoughts are wrong i came from California
um-hum
and when you're in jail they take you out just like they do in Alabama or anywhere else in what they call a chain gang and they clean the city parks
um-hum
oh i think that's a wonderful idea
and they clean the city streets but you know we have criminals in jail that do nothing but sit on their duff all day
and here it costs us seventeen to eighteen thousand dollars a year to support a prisoner and i know yeah but i know families myself that have three and four children in Lubbock that don't make that much
more than that more than that
i know
and they're not you know they're not doing anything to support themselves while they're there
the thing that the thing that gets me is that while we're supporting them they're working when they get out of jail they get handed all that money
yeah
yeah
that really ti cks me off i think that while they are in jail and they are working their wages
should go like i don't know they could uh some percentage like eighty five percent of their wages should go toward their room and board
yeah
yeah well
figured on um a whatever basis how much it costs to actually support them for a year
um-hum see now i also believe in
and when they get out they should have uh i don't know you know some reasonable amount of money
yeah
to start like a couple of thousand dollars but there should be a limit over which they that it all goes back to the State anything that they've earned while they're in prison
should go back to the State except for that you know there needs to be some allowance for when someone gets out that they have some money to start with
yeah to help
yeah but at least they would at least that way they would be helping pay for their own
exactly absolutely that's the part that i really think we need to change
and something else that i would
and something else that i would like to see is is uh victim reimbursement
you know because they you know like you say these guys are in jail and they're working they're getting paid but the guy that they messed over to get there or they stole something from or beat to death or has nothing you know our our victims are victimized period and the law has no
has nothing right
no uh
regulations to deal with that they they know how to deal with the penal system and they know how to deal with the criminal but they don't know how to deal with the victim because we as citizens i guess haven't laid anything up there for them to deal with on that aspect
absolutely
yeah
but it's
but i sure don't i i strongly disagree with any judge passing sentence on a person himself there that
um-hum i think it works much better if it's if it's the actual jury
yeah because well the see the jury is dealing with the seriousness of the crime the jury gets to see the whole trial as does the judge but you know if if they figure there's
um-hum
maybe litigating circumstances or something like that whereas maybe the judge does just doesn't care you committed this crime so i'm just going to throw the book at you whereas the jury may have a little
uh-huh
shall we say sympathy you know he did this but you know why did he do this is there is there a basis for it
yeah in some cases that it it would work that way in some cases it would work the other way
yeah in some cases where the judge says okay i'll give you you know two to three years and then
the jury would would slam them and and i think that that the jury probably has more of a right to sentence than the judge all the time
yeah
well they have a stronger debate too because there's twelve people there they have to decide whether or not he's guilty and then they can sit in the at the same time and decide what his punishment would be and you'd have more than one person's input on it
uh-huh
yeah i think that's probably a much fairer way
and you know we're supposed to be and i quote in a democratic society so you know if you can find me guilty then you ought to be able to pass sentence
yeah
and a lot of jurors not that i know of but you know a lot of jurors may just sit there and say yeah he's guilty but i don't have to deal with it from here
you know so the judge takes care of all of that
yeah
it might be more it may would be more work for the jury but it would be a more responsible way to deal with it
yeah it would uh serving yeah serving on the jury would be definitely more responsible you'd have to be a definitely more responsible person
the thing that i i don't really like i i don't know if uh a lot of jury selection processes that i've seen have been a
