Pearls of Wisdom

Many years ago I watched a wonderful movie, “Twelve Angry Men” (1957), the impassioned tale of the trials and tribulations of a jury in a racially charged film.  This film, featuring a magnificent performance by an Oscar-winning actor, Henry Fonda, exposed all the major flaws in our jury system, while emphasizing that the system is all we have in the process of giving a defendant any chance of a fair trial. 

So, here’s the question: is the U.S. jury system now obsolete?

In 2012, the jury system may now be an anachronism, no longer relevant and no longer functional. When our founding fathers outlined citizen’s rights in criminal prosecutions  in  the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution in the Bill of Rights, and extended the right to due process in the Fourteenth Amendment, they could not possibly have foreseen the historic changes in our current millennium that basically render the “jury system” null and void. 

The Sixth Amendment has this ludicrous requirement that juries must be impartial. Impartiality has been interpreted as requiring individual jurors to be unbiased. Attorneys from both sides selecting potential jurors may question them to determine any bias, and challenge them if they believe prejudice exists; the court then determines the validity of these challenges for cause.  It is mandated that jurors must represent a fair cross-section of the community.

So the question now becomes: How in 2012, with “Twitter” and “Facebook,” with blogging and mass media, can you locate “twelve impartial jurors” for any trial? For that matter, how can one find an impartial judge? It appears that the only relevant court that exists currently is the “court of public opinion.”

Fifteen minutes after an individual is indicted for a crime, it is posted all over the internet with facts and innuendo. By the time the day is out, this individual has been castigated and crucified by the news media. He/she has been convicted on Twitter before the case has even begun. 

Definition: (dictionary.com): Indict: (1) to bring a formal accusation against, as a means of bringing to trial. (2) to charge with an offense or crime; accuse of wrongdoing, castigate; criticize. Please note the absence of the words “convict’ or “guilty” in the definitions.

This elongated introduction now brings us to the case of Trayvon Martin.   Between the media, the internet, twitter and bloggers, half the public has condemned George Zimmerman and is ready to sentence him for murder. Please understand that this dissertation is not to exonerate George Zimmerman. Rather, it is to demonstrate the speed and intensity with which a vast quantity of both truthful and falacious information was disseminated to the public, much of it before the facts had even been totally investigated by the police.

We know for a fact that George Zimmerman had a gun, and we know that Trayvon Martin was shot and killed. There are reports that Trayvon Martin was beating George Zimmerman and that it was self-defense. There are reports that George Zimmerman aggressively confronted Trayvon Martin, unnecessarily instigating the incident. Cruise the internet and you can find facts, falsehoods, opinions, condemnations, accusations of racism and pictures of Al Sharpton looking for his usual ambulance-chasing publicity. The one thing that we clearly cannot find on the internet is “the real truth of what actually happened.” We can’t find the truth because it gets lost in this black hole of misinformation. 

So let’s now assume there will be a trial for George Zimmerman. And we need a jury of  twelve (12) unbiased jurors, who have not formulated an opinion on George Zimmerman’s guilt. And we need them to be residents of Florida, preferably of the community where the incident occurred. So by default, we need individuals who do not have a phone, do not watch television, do not listen to radio, do not read the newspaper and do not leave their homes and incidentally run into any other individuals who may have access to the aforementioned resources. 

So, let me ask the question one more time: is the U.S. jury system now obsolete? 

Is it possible to get a fair trial in this country with a “jury of one’s peers?”

Ah, but the solution stares us right in the face. We live in 2012, the world of technological marvels. We have computers defeating world chess grandmasters and computers annihilating the brightest Jeopardy champions. So isn’t the next logical step a computerized judge and jury system?! No bias to be found!   

Alas, we are not there yet. Maybe a panel of quality judges would suffice, but unfortunately, that is not in the budget. Or we could let one judge make the decision and hope for the best! Or maybe getting a fair trial is just no longer in the cards! 

After this, we can discuss replacing all our Congressmen with computers. That could be the first step toward eliminating our national debt, by first eliminating the individuals that created it. But we’ll leave that topic for another day.