tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post3334598995319143439..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: Jury DutyAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-19783094112948130762018-11-23T17:56:13.537-05:002018-11-23T17:56:13.537-05:00https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Roughing_It/Chapter...https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Roughing_It/Chapter_XLVIII<br /><br />When the peremptory challenges were all exhausted, a jury of twelve men was impaneled—a jury who swore they had neither heard, read, talked about nor expressed an opinion concerning a murder which the very cattle in the corrals, the Indians in the sage-brush and the stones in the streets were cognizant of! It was a jury composed of two desperadoes, two low beer-house politicians, three bar-keepers, two ranchmen who could not read, and three dull, stupid, human donkeys! It actually came out afterward, that one of these latter thought that incest and arson were the same thing.<br /><br />The verdict rendered by this jury was, Not Guilty. What else could one expect?<br /><br />The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty, and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury. It is a shame that we must continue to use a worthless system because it was good a thousand years ago. In this age, when a gentleman of high social standing, intelligence and probity, swears that testimony given under solemn oath will outweigh, with him, street talk and newspaper reports based upon mere hearsay, he is worth a hundred jurymen who will swear to their own ignorance and stupidity, and justice would be far safer in his hands than in theirs.<br /><br />Further at<br /><a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/Jury.html%22" rel="nofollow">http://www.twainquotes.com/Jury.html</a>jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-19886498006977983482018-11-22T23:16:33.203-05:002018-11-22T23:16:33.203-05:00Simple 1-day case of whether a man had been violat...Simple 1-day case of whether a man had been violating game laws. During voir dire, when the lawyer found that both Bob and I knew each other (we worked together), he was excused.<br /><br />I was not impressed with the man's lawyer, who seemed to be to be trying to insult our intelligence by harping on about a careless statement about tame geese ("_This_ is a picture of a tame goose!"). I was startled that the prosecutor was pursuing what seemed a fairly trivial case. I suspected that the defendant, who seemed a pretty arrogant piece of work, had been egged on into getting in tried in court rather than a plea bargain--I _really_ didn't like his lawyer.<br /><br />One witness (a colleague of the defendant) started out sounding interesting and then the lawyers went up to the bench for a while, and we left, and when we came back the witness was gone, never to return.<br /><br />When all was done and we went for deliberation, it took a while for everybody to internalize the notion that testimony was never going to be perfectly exact. Was it 4 geese or 2? Either way he was guilty, but it took till nearly 9 at night to get that squared away.<br /><br />On the way out of the courthouse I finally learned why the defendant had wanted a trial--with the guilty verdict in the first case, now he _really_ had to bargain for the second one that we weren't aware of.<br /><br />I got a call from the lawyer the next week, asking if I would answer some questions about how we'd come to that verdict. I declined.jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.com