Sanatized juries
The right to trial by jury exists in the sixth and seventh amendment of the United States Constitution. It empowers the people in a way that did not exist in the countries from which our founders escaped. Thomas Jefferson said that he felt the right to trial by jury was even more important than the right to vote. The jury must be a jury of our peers for the system to work. If a citizen commits a felony or a misdemeanor theft, they lose their right to serve on a jury for life—no matter how good of a citizen they may later become.
Fairly often two of our courts have what has become known as “dollar and a day”. Possibly 50-100 people who wrote a hot check are lined up. They are offered a dollar find and pretty steep court costs if they will plead guilty. Some of the offenders need punishment because they are just thieves. Others are single mothers who didn’t have enough money to cover the check for diapers they bought. For the rest of their lives they must admit to their conviction and can not serve on a jury. A sixty year old woman, who was herded through “dollar and a day” at age eighteen for a $25 check, still is disqualified from serving on a jury.
This system is designed merely for the poor and sanitizes the jury panel of peers for a poor citizen seeking a fair trial.
