What are the defects of the jury system在跳？
Firstly, the personal privacy of jurors is greatly threatened. In the US, the jury is composed of ordinary citizens. However, in the face of a strong team of lawyers, the personal privacy of citizens seems vulnerable. As Fitch said in the movie: “Thirty years in the trenches have taught me this: there's always a loose end. Everybody has a secret they don't want you to find. Find it” In the movie, his team did show a strong investigation ability, almost all the jury's privacy is in his pocket.
Secondly, the safety of the jury's life and property cannot be guaranteed. Just as in the movie, Easter's residence was intruded twice by Fitch's men, computer data was copied, everything in the house was photographed, and even they set fire to his house.
Thirdly, the jury system may become a tool for lawyers to manipulate the case. From the very beginning of the film, the director is showing that the lawyer is very professional in the selection of jurors. Even the selection of jurors has a professional team. Even the “l(fā)ead counsel for the defense” cannot intervene in the selection of jurors. He scientifically pick jurors predisposed in his favor by using surveillance, wiretaps, psych profiles, graphology. Fitch has a word that impresses me, “Trials are too important to be left up to juries”. Under the influence of a team of lawyers, can the jury judge independently?
What’s more, the jury cannot avoid the influence from the inside. When a group of people gather together, there will be a group effect virtually. The French scholar Gustave Le Bon stated in his book The Crowd：A Study of the Popular Mind that under the influence of such a group effect, people’s thoughts can easily spread to each other to form a “collective subconscious”. In such a situation, as long as someone in the group leads and influences other people's judgments, it is easy to draw the results he wants. As we saw in the movie, Easter relied on its own strength to successfully guide the judgment of the jury, so as to obtain the desired result, from the internal influence and from the collective psychological effect. It is easier to influence people's judgment than to exert pressure on each individual from the outside. In the movie, Easter seems to represent a party to justice. He said to Fitch: “I didn't swing anybody. I just stopped you from stealing the thing. We let them vote their hearts. That means you lose.” However, movies are not realistic after all. What if someone really manipulated the jury in this way?
At last, there is a loophole in the jury's isolation system. In fact, in modern society, it is difficult to completely isolate the jury. As the film shows, if the lawyers are willing to do so, there is always a way to contact the jurors. This will affect the jury's independent judgment.
These are the defects of the jury system that I got from the film.
Next, I want to talk about other things that touch me.
First, the Americans’ civic awareness. At the beginning of the movie, Marlee asked Easter a question: “Where's your sense of civic duty?” Although this issue has a nature of ridicule, in China, it is more like a dialogue between people major in law. In the US, participating in a jury is regarded as a duty that citizens should fulfill. If someone in China tell you that something is a civic duty that you should do, you may think that he is crazy. This also reflects that our education in law still has a long way to go.
Second, the significance of the jury system’s existence. America is the country that has achieved the most thorough the separation of powers into three separate branches of government. The judicial system not only has to maintain the social order, but more importantly it restricts the government’s expanding power. In order to better protect civil rights, even the judicial power is divided into two. It is up to the jury to decide whether it is guilty, and then the judge decides how the law will be applied. Just as Judge Harkin said in the movie: “The jury system originated because for thousands of years before that a judge had the power to hang any young man he simply did not like.”
The debate between Wendall and Fitch in the bathroom is the most impressive part for me. As the Fitch said: “You think this jury cares anything about negligent distribution, product liability? They can't say the words, let alone understand the meaning. Think Your average juror is King Solomon? No. He's a roofer with a mortgage. He wants to go home, sit in his barcalounger and let the cable TV wash over him. And this man doesn't give a single, solitary droplet of shit about truth, justice or your American way. “It is true that jurors are not King Solomon. To a certain extent, they are just ordinary people. They have their own lives, and they have their own emotions, and who wins the lawsuit has nothing to do with them. However, under the cultural background of the United States, I do see the legal awareness of ordinary citizens. Most people do believe in the law and they “serve the law”. Most people still are willing to make decisions through their own thinking just like the movie shows.
