Lawyers seem to think the weakest link in the American system of justice is the jury. They invest massive amounts of money and time in trying to figure out how to select jurors who are “on their side” from the beginning and whom they can “persuade” to vote the “right way” instead of stupidly nullifying the law. If you doubt this, take a look at:

• The National Jury Project 
• The American Bar Association’s Commission on the American Jury Project

I would like to suggest that maybe the weakest link in the American system of justice is the judge, not the jury. I would also like to suggest that judiciary reform would be much easier to effect than jury reform. Why? Because judges are trained, but juries are not and should not be. Juries are supposed to be a cross-section of the citizenry. Judges are supposed to be professionals.

Lawyers, please consider this:

• The person who controls what the jury hears is the judge—juries don’t plug their ears when you speak.
• The person responsible for enforcing the oath that jurors swear is the judge—misbehaving jurors don’t voluntarily resign; the judge has to dismiss them.
• The person who instructs the jury before deliberations is the judge—juries don’t have independent knowledge of what they are expected to do in the jury room.
• The person who defines “reasonable doubt” and the “the burden of proof” is the judge.
• The person who states the law and lists the charges the jury must consider is the judge.

In fact, the person who ultimately selects the jury is the judge, especially now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that defendants do not have a right to peremptory challenges of jurors.

So, who is it you really would like to persuade—the jury or the judge?

My Modest Proposal

Most judges are political appointees who must retain their seats through the election process. However, if you live in a large county, as I do, literally more than a hundred judges’ names may appear on a ballot. There is absolutely no way that anyone without a photographic memory or detailed written notes can select the competent from the incompetent judges on a ballot like that.

A case in point, the incompetent judge in the trial in which I was a juror was not recommended for reelection by the Chicago Bar Association, yet she was retained in the subsequent election and is still on the bench.

One way to improve this situation would be to require lawyers who want to be judges to earn an additional post-graduate degree (in addition to a J.D.) in judgeship. If the politicians couldn’t appoint unqualified lawyers to the bench in the first place, then voters wouldn’t have to wrestle with this hideous “Retain? Yes or No?” ballot situation. And, most importantly, judges would have to know what it means to be “an independent judiciary” and “an unbiased, objective arbiter of the law.”

Want to Know What the Ideal Juror Is?

Please take a look at my “courtroom-drama-meets-mystery” novel, Verdict Déjà Vu. It’s now available at a very reasonable price from Amazon (for Kindle and iPhone) and www.Smashwords.com (for every other kind of ebook reader and cell phone—Type in Coupon Code = CC37H). Hint: My protagonist has a photographic memory.