Thursday, November 20, 2014

The American Jury System Problems Faced By Citizens

By Ida Dorsey


Certain people are assisting the judges in deciding verdicts to certain criminals. A group usually comprises of twelve members. America is commonly using this setup.

Nowadays, this set up has typically become corrupted and unfair. Citizens face several American jury system problems that this mechanism could pose. These issues has motioned other activists for its reformation and even its abolition. The following are the most common issues that citizens face.

The commencement of these hearings typically take long times since individuals who could possibly become parts of the juries will still have to be looked for. Lots of potential jurors will still have to be screened. Those who are not on parole and with no criminal records, among other conditions are filtered out. If these occur in populous cities, the selection process for the jurors can certainly take long times.

The qualifications of the members of these juries pose another problem. These individuals typically have different professions. Some could have day jobs like teachers, plumbers, and small business owners. They typically did not complete college degrees in Law. As such, they will usually base their judgments on their own opinions and views.

They might not be aware of every legal term which will arise in various cases. The judge will be explaining the legal terms to the individuals before proceeding with the trial. The explanation could be lengthen the time which they should be spending on the hearing. There are also instances when the individuals have not fully comprehended all these legal terms even after being explained by the judge.

Ideally, those trials where the juries are involved must only last for a day. However, due to scenarios such as misunderstandings, these trials could even last a month. Since the presence of the individuals are required in these hearings, they might not become productive with their own time and if they have their own businesses, losses could even be incurred.

Cases could be filed by people following certain stages. Some charges should be heard by lower courts while the others are handled by the court of appeals. However, the necessity of juries might be reached by certain cases even though these are not necessary. The charges could be totally ridiculous or comical and sound judgments can even be made by children for them. These are further loads to the courts.

The frequency of jury summons may vary. This frequency will depend on how many proceedings certain courts will hear in certain durations of time. For instance, big cities may have bigger numbers of cases filed in their courts. For this matter, they will also summon a lot of jurors. Qualified jurors may only be few in numbers and as such, the courts can summon them several times.

The problems presented are only a few for the mechanism. Numerous organizations are supporting the cause of reforming the jury system. Numerous individuals even want to be totally abolishing this mechanism. The supreme court must be checking and studying the requests to see to it that they will be giving the defendants and the accusers the justice which is due them.




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