well
so uh what do you think about uh
uh how trials in America are right now with the jury of nine or twelve do you think that's fair
well um i believe a trial by twelve uh peers is fair i don't think the need for a unanimous vote is fair
um-hum
nothing in our world seems to be by unanimous vote
uh-huh
except that
hm we're too uh diverse a cultures i believe to make a
complete agreement
um-hum
so you think that um majority rule majority rule is good enough for um deciding on a verdict of guilty or not guilty
i do
um-hum
i really do
um something that's kind of interesting is uh i lived in Europe for a while and um in Germany they don't have trial by jury they have trial uh by
usually three judges
and uh i've discussed with people and it's it's kind of interesting uh kind of an interesting concept it sounds strange at first not to have a jury by your peers but then um the argument for it
is that
um you know
people off the street really don't know much about law
i agree with that
and yeah and and then uh
i guess the argument is that they're easily influenced you know by by tricks by lawyers you know who dos do more psychology than trying to teach them what's right and wrong and the law they they use uh
you know techniques to sway their feelings whereas
professional
judges
um
you know know the ins and outs of the system better
i agree i think that's very true i'm um concerned that when we uh sentence a uh a criminal to for a certain amount of years that we don't really know what that means
um-hum
you know ten years may mean one year in reality
right
and i don't think that most people are aware of that
um-hum
you know i i wouldn't couldn't tell you if we sentenced someone tomorrow how long he'd actually be in jail
uh-huh
could you
no
me either
no couldn't
and i think they kind of depend on that these criminals
right
yeah definitely i don't know i think the that the um alternative is something interesting to look into uh
but it
if you you know instead of
instead of juries just by by uh
uh peers juries by professional judges
um-hum
um but i guess uh
that would take a major constitutional change here
definitely would but i see where they would be experts
right um i mean i see also how they were you know when they made the constitution they were uh afraid of that kind of thing that you know that um if the
um
government has all the power to decide who's guilty and who's not they wanted to make checks and balances against that
right it could really throw the checks and balances out of whack
what if one of them is corrupt
right exactly
and he is the the decision the the main decision maker
right
you know the the they're split either way
yeah it's uh does carry an implicit danger with it that way
it does but
that's kind of goes like our Supreme Court in a way
right that's true too you know how does how does that work
and who gets to point those people the politicians
right
so they get to make the decision not the people
exactly i think it was i think it was more of a danger you know in the seventeen hundreds when um really you know like the King of England could decide who's guilty and who's not guilty i could see how they would
wanna protect against that so i think the danger is less today would be less of a risk of you know uh corrupt judges and the government forcing
um-hum
uh
you know someone to to be guilty for uh even though they're not or vice versa you know um but it's definitely something that would have to be watched very closely if they decided to do it that way
that's true i think a good start would be maybe some uh simple basic education into how the process really works for children
exactly
um-hum
on up i mean i know i know that we all learned but i really don't see it where the children are learning it nowadays
right
they think it's a big game and you know
right and and um you know what what does jury duty mean not not many people really
are are you willing to take off from work and lose a day's pay or a week's pay
uh-huh
is your boss willing to let you
right that's that's a really interesting issue too and um you know most people
yeah
another interesting thing is you know most most most people try and get out of jury duty right
oh definitely
so the people that actually become juries are it's not really just a random sampling of the