From: "Paul Hager" <hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: Fully Informed Jury Association (Pamphlet)
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 92 08:44:37 -0500

ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) writes:

>> Something is obviously wrong when jurors cry and 
>> the defendant after conviction, saying "We 
>> didn't WANT to find you guilty, but the judge said
>> we HAD to convict you if the evidence showed you
>> broke the law as it was explained to us."

>How about the flip side of this?  If jurors were fully
>informed, wouldn't there be an increase in people who
>should be convicted getting off (e.g., "we know he
>raped that girl, but hey, she was Black and we know
>how those nigger women are just asking for it, so
>we'll acquit this fine upstanding White youth.").

There is a good and a bad side to FIJA.  What you describe
happened routinely in the Southern states and was dealt
with in the Civil Rights Act -- I believe -- of the 60s.
Thus, after one of the infamous "all white juries" 
acquited some fellows of burning down a church, the
guys were then charged with violating the civil rights
of the people who died in the fire.  They were then
tried under federal law and found guilty.

However, one of the factors in the overturning of alcohol
prohibition was that juries often found bootleggers not
guilty for the simple reason that they didn't think their
neighbors should go to jail for supplying people with
a commodity they wanted.

So, pluses and minuses ...

>> If jurors were supposed to judge "only the facts",
>> their job could be done by a computer. It is precisely

>The author of this clearly lives in an alternate universe
>where AI has advanced considerably beyond what we have
>in this one...

I'm not sure I see why you say this.  FIJA is not a 
panacea as you pointed out and I verified by historical
example.

>> FIJA's overall goal is to rescue America's heritage
>> of personal freedom and responsibility by reviving 
>> both the jury instructions and the understanding of 
>> "trial by jury" in effect when our nation was born.

>That heritage was irretrievably lost when the average
>voter became an idiot.

In a sense, the average voter has always been an idiot --
the average voter has also been very wise.  It has
depended on circumstances.  Don't forget Lincoln's
famous quote on this subject -- you know, fooling some
of the people ...

>> (2) Legislators will have access to regular feedback
>> from ordinary people, sitting on juries, instead of
>> mainly from special-interest groups and other very
>> political sources. This information will allow them to 
>> better represent the will of the people; and
> 
>Legislators already have regular feedback from ordinary
>people.  It's called an election.

Of course, this is true.  But FIJA does have a place
in the democratic mix of options.  Let me put it this way:
if I ever get past voir dire on a drug possession case,
I will vote not guilty even if the prosecution has videos
of the accused buying and using the drug in question.
I will never vote to convict someone on the basis of an
unjust law.

FYI, this issue actually did arise for a fellow ICLU
board member.  He was called to jury duty and was
voir dired for a drug case.  He explained his problems
with the drugs laws and was rejected.  One additional
note: he volunteered the information -- I chided him
for not waiting for the prosecutor to bring the information
out.  After all, there was always a chance that the
prosecutor would not have asked the right questions.
And, even hung juries serve a useful function.

Right now, with the drug hysteria the way it is, the
simple fact is that drug defendants have a hard time
getting a fair trial even considering the law to be
just.  But that's another topic ...
-- 
paul hager		hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu

"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason."
			-- Thomas Paine, _The Age of Reason_
Xref: sparky alt.drugs:7713 talk.politics.drugs:2960