Sequestered in jury duty over shabbos

DrMom

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 9:23 am

Amarante wrote:

The right to a a trial by a jury of one's peers is one of the great liberties that dates back to the Magna Carta which was signed by King John in 1215.

Historically the Magna Carta is considered to be a milestone in the road to liberty/democratic rule since it was a document that provided a check on the British King's absolute power. While at first it was an agreement among the King and the nobles it evolved in the British constitutional monarchy. The American Revolution would have been unthinkable if the British people didn't have a history of Parliamentary rule.

At any rate, a jury of peers has evolved along with the expansion of democratic ideals since juries without women, without people of color are not constitutionally considered to be a jury of peers - whether one is white, Jewish, Latino or whatever, one is supposed to have the right to be tried by a group representing the community and not a narrow cross section.

It's somewhat like the admonition for a jury to consider the evidence and ONLY the evidence presented. There are some really classic movies and books - e.g. 12 Angry Men (should be people Very Happy

) in which a jury wanted to summarily convict without considering the evidence and one person (Henry Fonda) turned it around.

At any rate, as posted, France is not bound by Common Law and so there is a very limited right to jury trial. Having cases decided by a "professional" is the antithesis of what most Americans and Brits feel to be the bedrock of democratic ideals.

This is interesting. I am not sure I understand how his can be applied in a practical way.

I mean, of course all citizens should have the right to serve on a jury, but does the jury have to be a demographically representative sample of one's local community to be a constitutionally legal "jury of one's peers?"

What criteria are used to decide this besides gender and race? What about political leanings? Educational levels? Height? Weight? Hair length? Gender orientation? Income? Marital status?

Engineers (such as myself) are almost always thrown out of the jury pool by the attorneys representing each side. If I am ever chas v'shalom on trial, I am unlikely to have any engineers deciding my case. Why is that constitutional?

Amarante

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 9:31 am

DrMom - You have asked a very intricate legal question - one which has been the basis for many suits including those which have reached the US Supreme Court.

In a nutshell, it's a rule of reason that is used since you are not guaranteed that the jury will consist of people exactly like you - only that the system tries to guarantee that the jury pool will be consistent with the broader population.

The most overt cases are those in which groups of people were systematically barred from service - I.e. in the South all POC were excluded from serving or women weren't allowed to serve.

Now it is most relevant when it is found that voir dire is used to exclude people of certain ethnic backgrounds etc. since even a peremptory strike can't be used to discriminate and violate this right.