well um i don't have strong feelings about changes to be made in the uh jury system do you
uh not at all in fact i'm graduating from college in about a week and this past semester i've taken two criminal justice classes and have discussed a lot on trials
oh well then you must know a lot more about this than i do
um
i think i think uh
the system the system right now you know should you know is fine i think it should be by a jury i don't think the judge should have i mean he's just there
kind of like the referee
um-hum um-hum
uh
i don't i don't even think that it should be unanimous either um
well what about the idea that one is only guilty uh when proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt
i thought that was the point of uh a unanimous jury was the idea that if everyone agrees
um-hum
then there shouldn't be any reasonable doubt but if there are some people who don't agree
right
exactly
um then there must be it seems to be there must be at least a reasonable doubt for some people
uh-huh
um
i don't know i uh
you you rarely hear you hear of course there's cases where someone has been put in in in uh prison
uh falsely accused but uh
more than likely the people that are on the the jury know what they're doing um i mean you
really have you served on a jury
never
i never have either but my friends my few friends who have uh say just the opposite
they say they're uh remarkably incompetent
and uh don't know what they're doing and say one thing in the courtroom and then as soon as they get in the back room they just start letting all their prejudices hang out and to to air and all that
huh well you would think that they would get that in the uh when the prosecution and defense are choosing the jury
you would think that those would come out and i i i know they automatically when you go through uh
when you're chosen is you're automatically like a a a professor in criminal justice or something like that that you're automatically no they don't want you on the jury
right in other words they don't want anyone with experience anyone with particular experience or knowledge of the legal system
exactly
uh-huh exactly uh
and they tend and since anyone can get out of it who
basically says they don't want to do it i mean you know it's it's anyone can get out of jury just about
and uh so it it's um it's not really my peers that if i were arrested let's say i were arrested falsely or not
um-hum
and put up for a jury i wouldn't feel that uh i would be being tried by a jury of my peers i'd be i mean i'd be tried by a jury of
you know people who had nothing else to do and weren't very knowledgeable about certain sorts of things and uh i don't know i i get a little bit nervous about it and uh
um-hum
i've i've never
i've never even been called to jury duty
yeah i i was called once but i was out of the country and apparently i apparently they thought i served so i didn't i didn't make any noise about it
i came back and they said the record showed i served but i was out of the country at the time so i'm pretty sure i didn't
um
yeah i um
i don't know i think the i guess there's a lot of problems with the
legal system
yeah well i i i don't know i definitely feel like we need to keep it at least unanimous because um
you know there's the classic sort of To Kill A Mockingbird kind of story where you get you know jury which
um-hum
can have all kinds of prejudices and things that a judge at least officially isn't supposed to have though of course they can too
um-hum
and um it seems to me that if you could just have a simple majority or something you could pretty much browbeat you know
browbeat the jury a majority in the of the a majority of the jury that's hard to say um
um-hum
so it's it's uh you know saying well look we don't like the way he looks and let's uh let's throw the rascal in jail and stuff
right
and you also get a lot of um juries are extremely uh and from what i hear i i have i have some friends who do expert wist witness testimony
and they say that uh juries are extremely vulnerable to uh sort of emotional pitches you know the prosecutor will want to uh
oh i don't know show the show the mugging victim you know show what the nice person he was and what a family life and basically get the jury to be very sympathetic with the victim
and uh or or uh if it's a corporation that was uh you know harming harming some individual or something like that they get very much well you know it's just a big faceless company corporation let's let's make them pay as much as possible things like that
um-hum
so not i i mean i'm the problem is i can't guarantee that a judge judge would be necessarily be much better than a jury but i'd be real nervous having a jury not at least fully agree
on what the settlements would be on things like that
right i um
i uh i don't i i don't think the judge should just make the decision alone least with the jury you have twelve people you know
yeah
um-hum
that are gonna decide
you know you're the the person's fate
well how about having a jury jury and a judge work together on it somehow i wonder if that's possible
i guess the judge's time is worth too much though
uh exactly i was talking about judge
they pay that judge they pay those jury members very little money compared to that judge he makes more money in an hour than all twelve of them put together
right exactly
probably yeah
yeah but um no it's it's sad though that um
that the people though that
you you somebody's life is in twelve people's hands and sometimes those twelve people could care less
um-hum um-hum
and uh or they fool the the defense in thinking that they're you know because when they go through those processes they kind of pick out who they want
oh of course it's it's political maneuvering the the one side is looking for someone whose face they think will you know want to hang everyone and the other one is going to look for someone very sympathetic they're not looking for someone whose going to be the most reasoned
or sensible or rational juror neither side wants that they want to find a juror that's going to uh be most persuadable by their arguments you know
exactly
um i wish it were a little bit harder to not serve on juries actually i mean i know
it it it's tricky because i know you know an awful lot of intelligent people who just well i'm too busy to serve on a jury so i'll tell them that and they won't
uh-huh
or just you know just answer one of the questions the wrong way because you can do that you know they just say do you believe in such and such um
oh yeah well
i guess it's just that maybe people are you know upset at court
you know if it was if it was a a family member of theirs though that was innocent and then they'd want to be on that jury
right course they'd be they would be barred but
but uh if everyone would take it i think if everyone took it seriously
um-hum
and um
i mean
something you have to do
yeah well it sounds like we both need to get out there and serve on a jury i i hope we're called up before too long
yeah i would love to be called i'm ready to go they j ust haven't called me up yet
they will they will eventually
okay well it was nice talking with you
it was nice talking to you
bye-bye
bye-bye
