mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-12-27 00:09:39 -05:00
38 lines
1.9 KiB
Plaintext
38 lines
1.9 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
||
|
STACKING THE JURY IN GEORGIA
|
||
|
|
||
|
We have been informed by an alert correspondent of a likely
|
||
|
jury-rigging scheme in south Georgia. It may be that variants of
|
||
|
this kind of sleazy operation are common throughout the country.
|
||
|
If you are rarely or never called for jury duty despite being
|
||
|
registered to vote and licensed to drive, perhaps a little
|
||
|
digging around might yield some interesting information. If and
|
||
|
when jury-rigging can be identified in a local judicial district,
|
||
|
the press might be very interested in what you have uncovered.
|
||
|
Such information could be of great utility in promoting awareness
|
||
|
of FIJA, and could be used to rally excluded groups around the
|
||
|
issue of jury rights.
|
||
|
|
||
|
In Georgia, it appears that the local legal establishment
|
||
|
draws names for the jury pool from voters who have voted in the
|
||
|
Republican primary election. It is known that some people are
|
||
|
selected repeatedly in short periods of time, while others are
|
||
|
seldom selected--once in twenty years, for instance. In addition,
|
||
|
a secret list of jurors who have given guilty verdicts in the
|
||
|
past is maintained by the District Attorney. A local defense
|
||
|
attorney petitioned the court for a copy of that list because it
|
||
|
gave the D.A. an unfair advantage during jury selection, but the
|
||
|
judge refused to require the D.A. to release the list.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The question, of course, is are people being selected over
|
||
|
and over again for "hanging juries"? The D.A. could build an
|
||
|
impressive conviction record by doing this, but defendants'
|
||
|
rights to a fair trial are being shredded!
|
||
|
|
||
|
A local attorney points out that conviction-prone jurors are
|
||
|
the kind of people insurance companies love to have hear
|
||
|
personal-injury cases, and they tend to side with polluters
|
||
|
against environmentalists, and with the establishment against
|
||
|
civil rights plaintiffs. The Jury Commission is scrambling to
|
||
|
cover its tracks now that questions have been raised.
|