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Editor:
I agree with Kaye Patchett's Sept. 4 column, "Panel of judges preferable to current jury system." She makes several salient points. As she pointed out, it is too much of a burden for any citizen's liberty to be curtailed by the responsibility of civic duty or the idea of any personal obligation to our society or our government. As a member of the public, I agree with Kaye that I, and all Americans, am far too stupid, lazy, and susceptible to the manipulations of scheming lawyers to be entrusted with jury duty.
Patchett makes a recommendation that the judicial system be turned over to professionals, whom, like other government professionals, can be counted on to always be fair and impartial. Kaye cites the French judicial system as worthy of imitation; certainly everyone knows that the Napoleonic Code as interpreted by the French courts has successfully guaranteed individual citizens' rights against encroaching governmental powers. Kaye also cites the O.J. Simpson case as typifying the horrible state of our system; no doubt this hard-hitting investigative reporter has looked closely at the thousands of court cases and has discovered that, indeed, the O.J. case is typical.
Kaye is right. Scrap our current system that gives a panel of ordinary citizens power over judicial verdicts. After all, such a panel has the power to decide that a law as written or applied to a particular case does not provide justice in regards to the individual on trial, and may make a decision that seems illogical or that does not follow from legal evidence presented. Whoever thought of this system could not have believed that people, if granted liberties from oppressive governments, would ever want, or were intelligent enough, to participate in maintaining those liberties.
Surely we can trust our congressmen and an exalted professional corps of judges to decide what is legal and just. We citizens, lazy and stupid, certainly have other things to do than to concern ourselves with our legal system. If she had not admitted to being so singularly unmotivated in her piece, I would even suggest that Kaye form some sort of activist group and work for such sensible change.
Morgan Parke
Spanish senior
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