Re: Jury duty considered harmful, or at least rare

["James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>]

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At 12:09 AM 9/23/98 -0700, Tim May wrote:
> Yet some of the apolitical numbskulls I know about have
> served on several juries in the same time. The Poisson, as
> expected, or something more human?

I have often read allegations of manifest jury rigging, but
from highly unreliable sources.

If juries are routinely rigged, then we would expect a high
number of repeats, particularly in politically sensitive
cases such as taxes, drugs, or organized crime.  We would
expect a drug jury to be composed primarily of people who
have been repeatedly called for a drug jury previously.  If
juries are rigged, it should be easy to check statistically.
Simply compare the number of repeats at a jury call with the
expected number of repeats.

To rig a jury by excluding undesirables such as Tim May would
be far too laborious.  To rig a jury it would be necessary to
include only desirables, thus the pool from which the jury is
selected would be vastly smaller than the official pool, and
simple statistics would show this up.

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         James A. Donald
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We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because 
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this 
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.


http://www.jim.com/jamesd/����� James A. Donald