I guess the author was, in fact, unable to go two sentences without saying exactly that. This is a good article, though, because it gets at the heart of the primary problem with justice in this country -- jury trials are ridiculous, the process by which jurors are selected is bizarre and anachronistic, and the results are troubling as hell.I should make clear what I’m not saying. I’m not suggesting that because Justice Thomas is the court’s only black member, he has some kind of heightened obligation to take up the cause of black defendants, or black anyone else. Approaching his 25th anniversary on the court, he has made his rejection of such a role corrosively clear.
Yea, the author could've tried a little harder to put his money where his mouth is. And why are jury trials ridiculous? What would be a better alternative?Approaching his 25th anniversary on the court, he has made his rejection of such a role corrosively clear.
If I were on trial, and innocent, I would want the 12 smartest people in the country on my jury. If I were guilty, the 12 dumbest, or perhaps laziest. Exaggeration but the point is clear. Justice should not be random. (See research on which states it's most advantageous to be put on trial in.) Paragraphs 5-8, but really the entire article, do an excellent job of illustrating this. The reasonable example (that is, the excuse by the prosecution) is throwing out a potential juror because they and the accused are both divorcees. And then there's the race question. I don't care what color the guy on the stand is; you'll never find an impartial jury. Humans aren't designed to be that. Many historical cases should be thrown out due to clear racial bias (white jury, black defendant etc), but the solution isn't simply to find six other black guys to comprise half the jury. Their bias swings the other direction. The better alternative is reincarnating Marcus Aurelius and sending him on foot around the country to dispense civic justice.And why are jury trials ridiculous?
I get what you're saying but I think you have it backward. From my one and only experience of serving on a jury in a murder case, smart people are the only ones who will weigh the evidence. Dumb people figure that the cops wouldn't have arrested you if you weren't guilty, so why are we even wasting our time? On my jury there were about 3/14 smart people, but one of them was obviously racist, so it was up to two of us to try to debate the evidence as presented. In the end the guy was obviously guilty, but I got the sense that the rest of the people in the jury were just kinda pissed off at me that I wanted to talk about possible scenarios in which the defendant may not have done it (that whole reasonable doubt thing). You need to be smart and imaginative to come up with alternate narratives to the prosecutions. Working this all out, I'm wrong too. You actually never want dumb jurors, guilty or innocent.
Oh man. I thought Alito was my least favorite sitting justice, but the race to the bottom just had to get interesting. I wonder what the hell constitutes a Batson violation in the esteemed Justice Thomas's opinion.
From this reading, it kind of sounded like, "Well who cares if it was a violation, because it happened a long time ago." Thomas needs to die; part of me wishes he would have ritually killed himself on Scalia's funeral pyre. There's no other way out when incompetence isn't a disqualifier and a term is for life. Thomas's whole existence is a mockery of Thurgood Marshall.