Are there any groups or organizations for reform of our Jury Selection Process system?

Question

I believe that the jury selection process system is in dire need of reforming by some other method than is used presently. For instance, if people are convicted of crimes by a jury, and then it transpires that the person is innocent, as proven by DNA tests, then that jury was wrong to convict, and it is so vital to know how they were influenced to judge anyone if they are so susceptible to other influences, such as over-zealous police and prosecutorial misconduct. Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, of the Innocent Project, have enabled 200 innocent prisoner to walk out free after being wrongly convicted by 200 times 12 jurors, who were terribly wrong to! That's 2400 people who "Thought" they were right! So, how can we, the people, work to change how jurors are chosen, to ensure fair and impartial verdicts, maybe some intelligence tests for jurors, and other safeguards, some method to balance out the way jurors become equal to such a heavy duty in seeking true justice for all of us.

Answer 1

You can't fix stupid.

Answer 2

The jurors who convicted may have done so wrongly. Or, they may have, given all the evidence presented at the time, made the best possible decision. Maybe the fault was actually with the defendant's original lawyer. An extremely smart person (whatever you mean by that) can just as easily convict someone falsely, especially without DNA evidence. The problem isn't with the juries, per se, it's with the whole adversarial system of justice. Now, I have no idea how to fix that, but there is a flaw in the idea of justice being a matter of a competition, when the stakes are so high.

Lastly, do you really mean to say something as prejudices as "if your IQ isn't high enough, you can't be a juror?" What if the defendant himself has a low IQ--isn't that no longer a jury of his peers? Is that any different than saying that only someone of race X can be a juror? I'm all in favor of putting the most suitable people possible in positions of power, but is it right to remove the duty and repsonsibility of a citizen to pwerform jury duty because they weren't given as good an education?

Answer 3

The institution that has responsibility for legislation to change the jury selection process in your state, within the parameters of the Constitution, is your state legislature. Contact your state representative and your state senator with your concerns.

As science goes forward and provides new ways to determine involvement in crimes, the courts take it into consideration. Jurors with no prejudice have been hindered by the lack of scientific evidence in past years. If they made the best decisions based on the available evidence, they did their jobs properly. Fortunately, the advance of science should prevent many mistakes from happening in the future.

Answer 4

One suggestion that I have is to more fully fund the public defender system.
Each public defender has far too many cases, and it's impossible for them to give each case and each client enough time and effort.
In addition, the public defenders' offices have inadequate funding for support staff such as investigators.
State legislatures are far more apt to spend money on the police and prosecutors because they feel that that's what tax-payers want.
There's a judge in Dakota County, Minnesota who says "Everyone wants us to get tough on crime until their own kid gets charged with something."

Answer 5

Let's start by asking .what do you suggest???