Bill of Rights For Real Life: Citizen Juries

0:00 you [Music]

0:21 the earliest Americans were motivated to fight for freedom because many of their basic rights had been violated when the British King tried to remove jury trials in the colonies early Americans saw yet another good reason to assert their independence as a result the right to trial by jury has long been regarded a cornerstone of the American system of

0:43 justice I was shocked and stunned

1:07 disappointed and hurt and angry the founders thought jury trials were so essential to the newly formed government that they mention them in the Declaration of Independence in the body of the Constitution and again in the Bill of Rights to ensure that jury trials would not be denied the founders

1:29 wrote the sixth amendment which guarantees this fundamental right to all people accused of crime the jury serves exactly the same function today that it served 250 years ago the criminal law is subject to abuse by those who are in power the jury is the simplest and most democratic way to put a break and to

1:53 look over the shoulders of those who have power juries are important historically because they were the one buffer that existed between the power of the state and this that ordinary citizen ordinary citizens like liberty of property would be decided in the criminal case the judge works for the state the only buffer you have is ordinary citizens a jury of your peers deciding whether the charges against you

2:15 should result in conviction what difference does it make to us with the materials out one hour or one week or one month if the verdict is a bad one and we feel like this verdict positive I

2:38 think that it’s very difficult to stack the deck when you’re dealing with a jury [Music] while most people will never become a judge or hold elected office there is one position vital to the self-government of the United States that most citizens are likely to hold at

2:59 least once all citizens can expect to be called to serve as a juror sitting in judgment of another today a lot of citizens view jury duty as a burden even though many people including women and blacks fought through the courts and in the streets to win the right to serve the jury system only works if lots of different citizens serve on a jury

3:20 that’s the only one we can have a defendant can ever have a jury of his or her peers and so everybody who’s able to serve on juries ought to serve for many many years unfortunately in this country and elsewhere that right to jury service was not open to everybody it was for the privileged classes and so I really hate to see people take it for granted and certainly juries ought to reflect the

3:41 ethnic makeup the intellectual make of the socio-economic makeup all of the ideological makeup of the of the community unless they do then somebody is going to feel that they’ve been treated unfair and that the processes on the fair I have to conclude the reason as they

4:06 bid unanimously the judgement that two men were guilty and two or not the jury has spoken and we as well as our clients statutes waivers and enormous lead difficult decision we the jury in the above-entitled action find the defendant Orenthal James Simpson not guilty of the crime of murder in all federal trials

4:29 and in 48 out of the 50 states in order to convict someone of a crime all members of a jury must agree producing a unanimous verdict we don’t want to lock up people that we’re guessing about in the unanimity requirement helps us be sure about what we’re doing it even with the unanimity requirement we have seen time and time again the juries can be

4:50 wrong the consequences of a criminal prosecution for the defendant are so important his life is at stake his Liberty is at stake his properties at stake is breathing that it really makes sense to require all the jurors to come together and agree and that’s a very high burden for the prosecution but it should be taught

5:10 [Music] [Music] Thomas area where we are as diligent compass this jury of 12 people to look

5:34 at the evidence and they decided that he was responsible in spite of the judges instructions jurors have the power to bring in any verdict they wish jurors also have the power to decide that the law is wrong when juries refused to issue a guilty verdict even when the evidence clearly points to guilt they’re

5:54 often said to have engaged in jury nullification but often juries are not told of their power to decide the cases before them based upon both the facts and the law and so many people wonder if jury nullification is a good idea and whether jury should be informed of their multiple powers the jurors are told they get to do whatever they think is right

6:15 that can make it hard to convict people who maybe should be convicted you also have to consider the possibility of racial discrimination for example someone who sees a juror of a particular race and is hostile to that particular juror not because of what he or she did or because of that person’s character people because of the color of their skin and they might vote to convict based on that obviously we don’t want

6:36 that to happen either so there are pluses and minuses with carry nullification the notion of jury nullification is the exercise of the jury’s power to say I don’t like this law and therefore I’m not going to apply and this drives judges nuts but those of us who believe in a free society in it in the freedom of a jury

6:58 to act believe that that is the appropriate message that should be sent the founders of this country put their lives and fortunes on the line in order to preserve the jury trial and so the sixth amendment remains crucial to the American experience when you serve on a jury you embody what government of By and For the People is all about

7:20 I’m Tim O’Brien