 |
 |
Editor:
Kaye Patchett's column ("Panel of judges preferable to current jury system," Sept. 4) has taken ivory tower elitism to a new level. The idea that the American people are either too stupid or unqualified to "follow a complicated argument or form a coherent opinion" is particularly shallow. When one considers that the overly complex morass of legal tripe that currently masquerades as justice in America was almost wholly constructed by "qualified professionals" - lawyers, judges and politicians - it makes the notion of a legal system devoid of a jury all the more odious.
If the current system has escaped the control of an impartial jury of one's peers, it is because a conceited and power-hungry legal profession has made it so. It is ironic that a person who has "marked liberal leanings and "dislikes big business" is so eager to turn over our legal system to a government that is so beholden to that very institution.
What is most disturbing here, beyond Patchett's contempt for the American public, is her apparent willingness to give away one of the most effective tools designed to protect the people from its government. The government cannot, and should not, deprive any person of their freedom or their property without the express consent of one's fellow countrymen, and that is as it should be. The abuses of an unchecked, elitist government, devoid of interaction or input from the people who commissioned it, has been the single greatest precursor to oppression and evil throughout human history.
A legal system made up entirely of a professional judiciary would not be any less prone to injustice than a jury system. The comparison of such a system to the Supreme Court is flawed since it deals only with cases as they relate to constitutionality and not in matters of guilt or innocence. But even this high body, made entirely of "qualified professionals," has been a slave to politics. Separate but equal, the Dred Scott decision and Row vs. Wade are all decisions not borne out necessarily by ideas of justice or equality, but are prevailing political ideas and are always subject to change. Would you consent to trial by a Republican judiciary? A Democratic judiciary? Never should you give a weapon to a friend that may one day fall into the hands of an enemy.
Of course, when one's entire legal experience stems from the pomp and circumstance of tabloid television, it is easy to see our juries in a less than favorable light. Lost in this circus, however, are the thousands of trials that go on each day, where the American men and women reach just and honorable conclusions more times than not.
The jury system could, by all accounts, stand change. But this change should free it from the manipulations of a professional class of lawyers and not deliver it wholly into their hands. It must trust in the value of the common opinion, the judgment of the Everyman whose destiny is bound to the laws that govern him - not, as Ms. Patchett would contend, with cynical pseudo-intellectuals such as she who would stand above it.
Dave Caldwell
political science senior
|
|
|