Viewpoint:
Civic Duty
Do your Jury Duty!

Sharp people know all the ways to get out of jury duty.  And therein lies the problem.

Our courtrooms today often provide a tragedy of injustice.  To blame for this are lawyers, judges, and people filing frivolous lawsuits.  But we mustn’t forget to also hold accountable the general public who serves on juries.  And ALSO culpable: the people who evade jury duty and allow the injustice to continue.

Recently, the jury in the Anna Nicole Smith trial awarded Smith a share of her late husband’s inheritance (the case is being appealed).  But some of the jury members admit it wasn’t because they felt she legally deserved it.  They conceded she was guilty of a scam, but they felt Smith was such a pathetic person that she needed the money! And since there was so much money in the inheritance to go around to family members, it wouldn’t hurt anyone if she took her 80 million.  The logic here - or lack thereof - is astounding.

It’s not much different than the O.J. Simpson trial.  Jury members conceded that they thought O.J. was guilty of murder, but they felt the defense presented a better case than the prosecution.  So, that’s how justice is defined?  It’s not about guilt or innocence, it’s about who can put on the best show?

A courtroom is a place to administer justice, NOT a place of contest over who has the slickest lawyer.

Samantha Runnion’s killer got off the hook for molesting young children just months before he was arrested for Runnion’s murder.  Samantha would be alive today if the jury in that case had done their duty. 

But let’s not let the defense lawyers off the hook for these cases.  It’s true that everyone deserves a fair trial, and everyone deserves a right to representation.  But the spirit behind those laws is to keep the innocent from being wrongfully punished, and to keep the guilty from being punished beyond what’s justified.  It is NOT to help the guilty walk free on a technicality. 

Lawyers need to understand: Their duty to represent a client involves stating their legal case, making sure the prosecution has their evidence in order, and possibly positioning for a plea bargain.  There is a huge ethical difference between that, and using legal loopholes, technicalities, the race card, or absurd insanity pleas, to let guilty parties walk free.  It’s even more reprehensible in cases where these lawyers do this for the reason of securing high financial rewards.

Another type of atrocity being committed in courtrooms today is the abundance of frivolous lawsuits being upheld.  This sort of thing began to gain widespread attention when Stella Liebeck, 81 years old, spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonalds.  The 2002 version of that is Mr. Ceasar Barbar, who is suing five fast-food chains - for making him fat.

Think those are absurd?

In January 2000, Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was awarded $780,000 after breaking her ankle tripping over her own toddler who was running inside a furniture store.

In June 1998, Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor unknowingly ran over his hand while he was trying to steal his hubcaps.

In October 1998, Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania was awarded half a million dollars for mental anguish, after trapping himself in a neighbor’s garage for eight days - he was robbing their home while they were on vacation.

In May 2000, A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped and broke her tailbone on a spilled soft drink, which she threw at her boyfriend a minute earlier during an argument.

What exactly inspires juries to side with the people filing these lawsuits?  The apparent answer is that jury members subscribe to a form of victim mentality.  They gain some warped sense of revenge for the “little guy” against big corporations.  This is exemplary of a society that likes to blame others for their own problems.  People who believe they are born into a myriad of entitlements decide in favor of these people to help ensure their fellow man’s, and ultimately their own, entitlement to compensation.  But we must remember: we ALL pay in these situations.  By forcing companies to pay these settlements, and protect themselves from future lawsuits, the financial impact has to be passed on to the consumer. 

It’s society’s approval of these lawsuits that results in the need for the ridiculous warning labels we see on all kinds of products today.  If common sense prevailed, would full-windshield sun-blockers really need “Do not use while driving” warning labels?  Would we need irons to be labeled “Do not iron clothes while wearing them?”  Or curling irons to warn “For external use only?”  (That must have been some interesting trial). 

And now we’re seeing the next phase of this.  Do you know why these warning labels, remedial as they may be, can still be considered not obvious enough?  Think about it for a minute.  Ready for the answer?  They don’t help protect non-English-speaking people.  Or the illiterate.

I often wonder sometimes what it would take to instill common sense into some people’s heads.  Perhaps a series of long lectures, or maybe a brick?!

And again, lawyers who take these cases, purely for their own financial gain, are ethically accountable.

But none of this nonsense is out of our control.  Because we are also responsible - those of us who serve in juries, as well as those of us who escape doing so.  As a people, we need to do our civic duty and serve wisely as jury members.