Jury Importance Quotes

Our civilization has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, but who can feel the thing that I felt in that jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.

What do you know about this business?' the King said to Alice. 'Nothing,' said Alice. 'Nothing whatever?' persisted the King. 'Nothing whatever,' said Alice. 'That's very important,' the King said, turning to the jury. They were just beginning

The most important moments in a trial are often not seen by a jury. That is because it's one of the judge's main responsibilities to screen what they see and hear, lest they be prejudiced. It's the "you can't unring a bell" theory; once the jury hears something they shouldn't have heard, th trial is forever tainted. If the damage is great enough, a mistrial is the result. Judges basically prefer nuclear war to mistrials.

In my opinion it is not the writer's job to solve such problems as God, pessimism, etc; his job is merely to record who, under what conditions, said or thought what about God or pessimism. The artist is not meant to be a judge of his characters and what they say; his only job is to be an impartial witness. I heard two Russians in a muddled conversation about pessimism, a conversation that solved nothing; all I am bound to do is reproduce that conversation exactly as I heard it. Drawing conclusions is up to the jury, that is, the readers. My only job is to be talented, that is, to know how to distinguish important testimony from unimportant, to place my characters in the proper light and speak their language.

I saw headline in paper: CONGRESS VOWS FIGHT ON CRIME. and I almost sat down and wrote a mother essay, 8 or 9 pages on what crime IS and what it APPEARS to be, how our whole social structure houses and pardons and builds laws for everyday sanctioned robbery and crime against each other, whereas a direct and HONEST CRIME is punished by police, judges, juries. the difference says our society is this: you can take a lot and give a little, but you can’t take everything and give nothing. this is the essential difference between Capitalism and the Gun, and the reason why all judges, juries, cops are finks. the dope bit is all the same—it isn’t the dope that matters to them; it’s how you get it, who hands it to you. if it’s in the doctor’s handwriting it’s all right, he is supposed to know whether you need dope or not, that’s why he is so well-paid. but who knows better than I DO WHETHER I NEED DOPE OR NOT? who knows whether I need oranges or eggs or sex or sleep or dope? I do. Who knows whether I am sick or not? the doctor? who is more IMPORTANT? why is everything twisted backwards? but you know all this.

Our Revolution commenced on more favorable ground. It presented us an album on which we were free to write what we pleased. We had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt up royal parchments, or to investigate the laws and institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry. We appealed to those of nature, and found them engraved on our hearts. Yet we did not avail ourselves of all the advantages of our position. We had never been permitted to exercise self-government. When forced to assume it, we were novices in its science. Its principles and forms had entered little into our former education. We established however some, although not all its important principles. The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.

And that was when I came to realize that what is important is not what is true, but what people believe is true and what they’re willing to do for that belief.

The jury, having swallowed at one nauseating gulp the business of viewing the body, had settled into their places with that air of conscious importance and simulated modesty which belongs to those initiated into a mystery.

Drawing conclusions is up to the jury, that is, the readers. My only job is to be talented, that is, to know how to distinguish important testimony from unimportant, to place my characters in the proper light and speak their language.

Suddenly, [Cecilia Washburn] was getting a lot of attention from her friends,” Pabst explained to the jury. “Attention from the dean of the pharmacy school….Attention by Dean Charles Couture, the then dean of students; by the Crime Victim Advocate office; by the nurse, [Claire] Francoeur….Miss Washburn got attention by the investigator and by the prosecutor. Her regret was replaced by sympathy, attention, and support, and a little bit of drama, and a little bit of celebrity….Her regret, fueled by drama, became purpose. She received a new public—and important—identity: victim.

. . . we dedicate ourselves to finding evidence that we're acceptable and worthwhile. Whatever our particular outward style, from self-disparaging or fawning to arrogant or angry, we live as if we were defendants in a trial. The jury is composed of all of the people whose opinions we think are important; they're the ones we've got to convince. Unsettled by our insecurities, we await their judgement. But the jury members never come back with a final verdict. They forever hold us in suspense. Every hour or so, it seems, the foreman of the jury returns with a demand for more evidence. So we try again to win the jury's favor or at least to be found acceptable in their eyes, but nothing we can do will satisfy them once and for all. Why? Because from their individual points of view, THEY are the ones on trial. They are as concerned to have us validate their self-image as we are to have them validate ours. WE sit on THEIR jury. Therefore what they want from us is not evidence that will establish our acceptability but evidence that will establish theirs. They can't give us their final stamp of approval because they never fell completely approved of themselves.

A mood of constructive criticism being upon me, I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United States be abandoned and that the method used in choosing juries be substituted. That is to say, I propose that the men who make our laws be chosen by chance and against their will, instead of by fraud and against the will of all the rest of us, as now... ...that the names of all the men eligible in each assembly district be put into a hat (or, if no hat can be found that is large enough, into a bathtub), and that a blind moron, preferably of tender years, be delegated to draw out one... The advantages that this system would offer are so vast and obvious that I hesitate to venture into the banality of rehearsing them. It would in the first place, save the commonwealth the present excessive cost of elections, and make political campaigns unnecessary. It would in the second place, get rid of all the heart-burnings that now flow out of every contest at the polls, and block the reprisals and charges of fraud that now issue from the heart-burnings. It would, in the third place, fill all the State Legislatures with men of a peculiar and unprecedented cast of mind – men actually convinced that public service is a public burden, and not merely a private snap. And it would, in the fourth and most important place, completely dispose of the present degrading knee-bending and trading in votes, for nine-tenths of the legislators, having got into office unwillingly, would be eager only to finish their duties and go home, and even those who acquired a taste for the life would be unable to increase the probability, even by one chance in a million, of their reelection. The disadvantages of the plan are very few, and most of them, I believe, yield readily to analysis. Do I hear argument that a miscellaneous gang of tin-roofers, delicatessen dealers and retired bookkeepers, chosen by hazard, would lack the vast knowledge of public affairs needed by makers of laws? Then I can only answer (a) that no such knowledge is actually necessary, and (b) that few, if any, of the existing legislators possess it... Would that be a disservice to the state? Certainly not. On the contrary, it would be a service of the first magnitude, for the worst curse of democracy, as we suffer under it today, is that it makes public office a monopoly of a palpably inferior and ignoble group of men. They have to abase themselves to get it, and they have to keep on abasing themselves in order to hold it. The fact reflects in their general character, which is obviously low. They are men congenitally capable of cringing and dishonorable acts, else they would not have got into public life at all. There are, of course, exceptions to that rule among them, but how many? What I contend is simply that the number of such exceptions is bound to be smaller in the class of professional job-seekers than it is in any other class, or in the population in general. What I contend, second, is that choosing legislators from that populations, by chance, would reduce immensely the proportion of such slimy men in the halls of legislation, and that the effects would be instantly visible in a great improvement in the justice and reasonableness of the laws.

For instance, while writing this, I was summoned to attend jury duty. Throughout the jury selection process, coordinators and judges reminded us how important our presence was, and how deeply they and the State of Oregon appreciated our service. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Oregon and several judges who may or may not have been actors thanked us via video. The big joke of it was that attending jury service is mandatory and my summons threatened me with the possibility of being held in contempt of court for non-compliance. That pretty much sums up how the state “appreciates” its citizens. “We

Many of our most important civic institutions, from elections to jury trials to the very idea of majority rule, depend on dissenting voices. But when the group is literally capable of changing our perceptions, and when to stand alone is to activate primitive, powerful, and unconscious feelings of rejection, then the health of these institutions seems far more vulnerable than we think.

In the thirty years leading up to the Civil War, the law was increasingly interpreted in the courts to suit the capitalist development of the country. Studying this, Morton Horwitz (The Transformation of American Law) points out that the English commonlaw was no longer holy when it stood in the way of business growth. Mill owners were given the legal right to destroy other people’s property by flood to carry on their business. The law of “eminent domain” was used to take farmers’ land and give it to canal companies or railroad companies as subsidies. Judgments for damages against businessmen were taken out of the hands of juries, which were unpredictable, and given to judges. Private settlement of disputes by arbitration was replaced by court settlements, creating more dependence on lawyers, and the legal profession gained in importance. The ancient idea of a fair price for goods gave way in the courts to the idea of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware), thus throwing generations of consumers from that time on to the mercy of businessmen.

It is the punisher’s mind-set where everything must be changed. The difficulty of this is explored in the superb book The Punisher’s Brain: The Evolution of Judge and Jury (2014) by Morris Hoffman, a practicing judge and legal scholar.31 He reviews the reasons for punishment: As we see from game theory studies, because punishment fosters cooperation. Because it is in the fabric of the evolution of sociality. And most important, because it can feel good to punish, to be part of a righteous and self-righteous crowd at a public hanging, knowing that justice is being served. This is a deep, atavistic pleasure. Put people in brain scanners, give them scenarios of norm violations. Decision making about culpability for the violation correlates with activity in the cognitive dlPFC. But decision making about appropriate punishment activates the emotional vmPFC, along with the amygdala and insula; the more activation, the more punishment.32 The decision to punish, the passionate motivation to do so, is a frothy limbic state. As are the consequences of punishing—when subjects punish someone for making a lousy offer in an economic game, there’s activation of dopaminergic reward systems. Punishment that feels just feels good.

The state's case against Smith, however, did claim to speak to his actual guilt or innocence, and it has to be considered carefully. The reason this is important has nothing to do with Roy Smith or Bessie Goldberg or even Al DeSalvo; they're all dead. In some ways there is nothing less relevant than an old murder case. The reason it is important is this: Here is a group of people who have gathered to judge--and possibly execute--a fellow citizen. It's the highest calling there is, the very thing that separates us from social anarchy, and it has to be done well. A trial, however, is just a microcosm of the entire political system. When a democratic government decides to raise taxes or wage war or write child safety laws, it is essentially saying to an enormous jury, "This is our theory of how the world works, and this is our proposal for dealing with it. If our theory makes sense to you, vote for us in the next election. If it doesn't, throw us out." The ability of citizens to scrutinize the theories insisted on by their government is their only protection against abuse of power and, ultimately, against tyranny. If ordinary citizens can't coolly and rationally evaluate a prosecutor's summation in a criminal trial, they won't have a chance at calling to task a deceitful government. And all governments are deceitful--they're deceitful because it's easier than being honest. Most of the time, it's no more sinister than that.

..."facts" properly speaking are always and never more than interpretations of the data... the Gospel accounts are themselves such data or, if you like, hard facts. But the events to which the Gospels refer are not themselves "hard facts"; they are facts only in the sense that we interpret the text, together with such other data as we have, to reach a conclusion regarding the events as best we are able. They are facts in the same way that the verdict of a jury establishes the facts of the case, the interpretation of the evidence that results in the verdict delivered. Here it is as well to remember that historical methodology can only produce probabilities, the probability that some event took place in such circumstances being greater or smaller, depending on the quality of the data and the perspective of the historical enquirer. The jury which decides what is beyond reasonable doubt is determining that the probability is sufficiently high for a clear-cut verdict to be delivered. Those who like "certainty" in matters of faith will always find this uncomfortable. But faith is not knowledge of "hard facts"...; it is rather confidence, assurance, trust in the reliability of the data and in the integrity of the interpretations derived from that data... It does seem important to me that those who speak for evangelical Christians grasp this nettle firmly, even if it stings! – it is important for the intellectual integrity of evangelicals. Of course any Christian (and particularly evangelical Christians) will want to get as close as possible to the Jesus who ministered in Galilee in the late 20s of the first century. If, as they believe, God spoke in and through that man, more definitively and finally than at any other time and by any other medium, then of course Christians will want to hear as clearly as possible what he said, and to see as clearly as possible what he did, to come as close as possible to being an eyewitness and earwitness for themselves. If God revealed himself most definitively in the historical particularity of a Galilean Jew in the earliest decades of the Common Era, then naturally those who believe this will want to inquire as closely into the historical particularity and actuality of that life and of Jesus’ mission. The possibility that later faith has in some degree covered over that historical actuality cannot be dismissed as out of the question. So a genuinely critical historical inquiry is necessary if we are to get as close to the historical actuality as possible. Critical here, and this is the point, should not be taken to mean negatively critical, hermeneutical suspicion, dismissal of any material that has overtones of Easter faith. It means, more straightforwardly, a careful scrutiny of all the relevant data to gain as accurate or as historically responsible a picture as possible. In a day when evangelical, and even Christian, is often identified with a strongly right-wing, conservative and even fundamentalist attitude to the Bible, it is important that responsible evangelical scholars defend and advocate such critical historical inquiry and that their work display its positive outcome and benefits. These include believers growing in maturity • to recognize gray areas and questions to which no clear-cut answer can be given (‘we see in a mirror dimly/a poor reflection’), • to discern what really matters and distinguish them from issues that matter little, • and be able to engage in genuine dialogue with those who share or respect a faith inquiring after truth and seeking deeper understanding. In that way we may hope that evangelical (not to mention Christian) can again become a label that men and women of integrity and good will can respect and hope to learn from more than most seem to do today.

In 2009 i was nominated for the 'best dutch poetry debute' called 'the buddingh award'. It's supposed to be the most important debut price. However the event proved rather hallucinogenic. It started with my publisher expressing 'great surprise' that 'I still managed to get nominated'. The surprise was out of place, since my book simply got the best reviews of all books that year. I went to Poetry International and noticed only 2 of the 3 jury members where present, and the female one kept looking at me in sort of a guilty fashion. Then the award was granted to Misscha Andriessen, which was sort of weird since his book was not seen as universally the best by critics. 'Too lightweight' one review of an important critic read. Later on I read that jurymember Wim Brands one year prior to the price already made clear that 'he is a big fan of Mischa Andriessen'. I always assumed that they were friends somehow but this morning I solved the mystery: they are from the same little village, so it had nothing to do with poetry, just tribal culture at its best. Kind of a relief to know that.

Ostensibly, the most important governance reform was supposed to be the Right to Information (RTI) Act that aimed to impose greater accountability on the government. It was an NAC initiative. Several senior and retired civil servants cautioned Dr Singh against the RTI, worrying that rather than expose corruption and sloth in government, it would sap initiative and encourage officers to pass the buck. The jury is still out on whether or not RTI was a wise move and what its impact on governance has been. Has it made the government more transparent and accountable or has it made civil servants risk averse and unwilling to take difficult decisions? In UPA-1, when there was considerable euphoria over the RTI Act, few would have imagined that analysts would hold the RTI Act responsible for at least some of the so-called ‘policy paralysis’ that UPA-2 came to be charged with.

When she’s in a courtroom, Wendy Patrick, a deputy district attorney for San Diego, uses some of the roughest words in the English language. She has to, given that she prosecutes sex crimes. Yet just repeating the words is a challenge for a woman who not only holds a law degree but also degrees in theology and is an ordained Baptist minister. “I have to say (a particularly vulgar expletive) in court when I’m quoting other people, usually the defendants,” she admitted. There’s an important reason Patrick has to repeat vile language in court. “My job is to prove a case, to prove that a crime occurred,” she explained. “There’s often an element of coercion, of threat, (and) of fear. Colorful language and context is very relevant to proving the kind of emotional persuasion, the menacing, a flavor of how scary these guys are. The jury has to be made aware of how bad the situation was. Those words are disgusting.” It’s so bad, Patrick said, that on occasion a judge will ask her to tone things down, fearing a jury’s emotions will be improperly swayed. And yet Patrick continues to be surprised when she heads over to San Diego State University for her part-time work of teaching business ethics. “My students have no qualms about dropping the ‘F-bomb’ in class,” she said. “The culture in college campuses is that unless they’re disruptive or violating the rules, that’s (just) the way kids talk.” Experts say people swear for impact, but the widespread use of strong language may in fact lessen that impact, as well as lessen society’s ability to set apart certain ideas and words as sacred. . . . [C]onsider the now-conversational use of the texting abbreviation “OMG,” for “Oh, My God,” and how the full phrase often shows up in settings as benign as home-design shows without any recognition of its meaning by the speakers. . . . Diane Gottsman, an etiquette expert in San Antonio, in a blog about workers cleaning up their language, cited a 2012 Career Builder survey in which 57 percent of employers say they wouldn’t hire a candidate who used profanity. . . . She added, “It all comes down to respect: if you wouldn’t say it to your grandmother, you shouldn’t say it to your client, your boss, your girlfriend or your wife.” And what about Hollywood, which is often blamed for coarsening the language? According to Barbara Nicolosi, a Hollywood script consultant and film professor at Azusa Pacific University, an evangelical Christian school, lazy script writing is part of the explanation for the blue tide on television and in the movies. . . . By contrast, she said, “Bad writers go for the emotional punch of crass language,” hence the fire-hose spray of obscenities [in] some modern films, almost regardless of whether or not the subject demands it. . . . Nicolosi, who noted that “nobody misses the bad language” when it’s omitted from a script, said any change in the industry has to come from among its ranks: “Writers need to have a conversation among themselves and in the industry where we popularize much more responsible methods in storytelling,” she said. . . . That change can’t come quickly enough for Melissa Henson, director of grass-roots education and advocacy for the Parents Television Council, a pro-decency group. While conceding there is a market for “adult-themed” films and language, Henson said it may be smaller than some in the industry want to admit. “The volume of R-rated stuff that we’re seeing probably far outpaces what the market would support,” she said. By contrast, she added, “the rate of G-rated stuff is hardly sufficient to meet market demands.” . . . Henson believes arguments about an “artistic need” for profanity are disingenuous. “You often hear people try to make the argument that art reflects life,” Henson said. “I don’t hold to that. More often than not, ‘art’ shapes the way we live our lives, and it skews our perceptions of the kind of life we're supposed to live." [DN, Apr. 13, 2014]

What is true is that if the opening statements by defense and prosecution give an accurate image of the evidence that will be presented at trial, then it is only logical that the juror’s views of the case at the conclusion of the presentation of evidence would be the same as at the end of the opening statement. In light of that fact, it is important for the defense to be scrupulously accurate about what the evidence will show, and give the jurors an ethical framework in which to consider that evidence. The jurors must be empowered to view the evidence from an ethical, as well as a factual, perspective, if they are to deliver an ethically-based verdict.

When Boston imported its first streetlights in 1774, Paul Revere was asked to serve on the committee that made the arrangement. When the Boston market required regulation, Paul Revere was appointed its clerk. After the Revolution, in a time of epidemics, he was chosen health officer of Boston, and coroner of Suffolk County. When a major fire ravaged the old wooden town, he helped to found the Massachusetts Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and his name was first to appear on its charter of incorporation. As poverty became a growing problem in the new republic, he called the meeting that organized the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, and was elected its first president. When the community of Boston was shattered by the most sensational murder trial of his generation, Paul Revere was chosen foreman of the jury.

Back in the early days of his career as a frontier lawyer, Lincoln was engaged in an important trial. It was a really hot day. His opponent was arguing his case, and as he paced around he was starting to sweat, so the man removed his jacket and vest. The lawyer’s shirt buttoned in the back, not in the front, as was customary. Lincoln was quick to notice the discrepancy, and said to the jury – “Gentlemen of the jury, having justice on my side, I don’t think you will at all be influenced by the gentleman’s pretended knowledge of law, when you see he does not even know which side of his shirt should be in front.” Lincoln’s story drew a laugh from the jury and the audience, and won him the case.

The trend of our epoch up to this time has been consistently towards specialism and professionalism. We tend to have trained soldiers because they fight better, trained singers because they sing better, trained dancers because they dance better, specially instructed laughers because they laugh better, and so on and so on. . . . [Yet] our civilization has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. When it wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.15

In 1985, in Batson v. Kentucky, the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits prosecutors from discriminating on the basis of race when selecting juries, a ruling hailed as an important safeguard against all-white juries locking up African Americans based on racial biases and stereotypes.

I did not, however, arrive at any such destination for the next few days, no matter how much I put my cerebral racehorse through its paces. If I could only get hold of the forensic evidence from the assorted killings I was charged with, I knew I could assemble a compelling case for my innocence. A significant part of my job had been testifying in court, and hard experience had taught me how to make dry facts come to life for a judge and jury. It was usually fun, since it was in truth no more than dramatizing things a bit. Over the years I had become quite good at taking an array of somewhat gooey facts and teaching them to sing and dance in a courtroom. Of course, it was probable that Anderson had been sticking his huge and grimy fingers into the forensic evidence, too. But it was just as likely that he had missed something important—or left such huge fingerprints on everything that I could hoist him with the petard of his own evidence tampering. Whatever the case, I was absolutely certain I could find something to work with—if I could just get back to my lab….

English common law provides for trial by jury. One important but long forgotten feature of trial by jury is the potential for Jury Nullification, sometimes called Jury Independence.

He might be presenting to a jury of one, but this could be the most important case of his life. He’d use every advantage at his disposal.

It is common and correct for people to talk about the important presumption of innocence—a legal term relating to trial—in court. The application of that sacred principle is the reason a criminal trial can be conducted fairly. It is why juries can weigh all the evidence and reserve judgment before making a determination. The investigative phase is different. The presumption of innocence would be a dangerous standard for an investigator. The investigator has to keep an open mind about the potential guilt of everyone—whether it’s someone who’s a good friend of the victim or a blood relative or even the privileged, well-to-do sons.

In Lidar, a group of men had a fight in the car park of a pub.  When two of them got in a car and started to drive off, a third leant in the window of the car and the fight continued.  They drove off with him half in the window and at some point he fell off and suffered injuries from which he died.  The jury were directed in terms of recklessness and the driver was convicted of manslaughter.  The CA upheld the conviction, possibly relying on Lord Mackay’s reference in Adomako to it being “perfectly appropriate” to use the word reckless.  A driver owes a duty to other road users, and his recklessness in driving with someone hanging on to the car would be covered by the term gross negligence.  A finding of gross negligence manslaughter would have therefore been possible, so it is the rules from Adomako that are important to know. The requirements for gross negligence manslaughter

The architectural competition is a future oriented production of knowledge through architectural projects. From that perspective the competition takes on an appearance of futuristic archaeology. The future is being investigated with the support of design—not how it is, but how it could be if the proposals were to be implemented. What is important here is that the proposals contain different modes of solution for the same competition design problem. There is no given answer, no “correct solution”, but instead the potential of alternative good solutions to the competition task at hand. For this reason doubt and lack of certainty is a constant companion in the jury’s examination of the design proposals.

I told her to send the agent a letter, explaining that she would be happy to consider answering any questions he might have, but only if he would extend her the minimal courtesy of putting those questions in writing, so that she could also put her answers in writing. What on earth would be so unreasonable about a request like that? Nothing at all. It would enable this woman to think carefully about her answers, possibly obtain the assistance of a lawyer, and check her records to make sure that her answers were accurate. It would also eliminate the very terrible danger, discussed at great length in this book, that the agent might later unintentionally misquote her in ways that could make her statements sound more damaging than they really were. The request was perfectly reasonable—and, I might add, it was exactly what any federal agency will tell you to do if you want to get important information out of them. (“Put it in writing, and we will get back to you in a couple months. Maybe.”) But that was the end of the investigation, as I knew it would be. When the federal agent was advised that my client would not talk to him unless he was willing to put his questions in writing, he angrily replied that he refused to interview anybody that way, and she has not heard from him in months. Just think about that. That tells you just about everything you need to know about the motives of this government agent. He was more than happy to talk to my client as long as he could have the element of surprise and the ability to hold all the cards by asking her a bunch of questions in an informal interview that would not be recorded—and he knew from years of experience that he would have no difficulty getting any jury or judge to believe him if he later testified from his notes about his recollection of that conversation. But when he was asked if he would simply agree to allow the exchange to be put in writing, he refused. That is the kind of unreasonable behavior you can expect when a government agent has become spoiled through years of always having it his way, dealing only with people who are never able to effectively contradict his recollection of exactly what was said, and by whom.   Don’t

In the anti-gun Spokane newspaper, internet comments indicated that many people had the clueless idea that Gerlach had shot the man – in the back – to stop the thief from stealing his car. One idiot wrote in defense of doing such, “That ‘inert property’ as you call it represents a significant part of a man’s life. Stealing it is the same as stealing a part of his life. Part of my life is far more important than all of a thief’s life.” Analyze that statement. The world revolves around this speaker so much that a bit of his life spent earning an expensive object is worth “all of (another man’s) life.” Never forget that, in this country, human life is seen by the courts as having a higher value than what those courts call “mere property,” even if you’re shooting the most incorrigible lifelong thief to keep him from stealing the Hope Diamond. A principle of our law is also that the evil man has the same rights as a good man. Here we have yet another case of a person dangerously confusing “how he thinks things ought to be” with “how things actually are.” As a rule of thumb, American law does not justify the use of deadly force to protect what the courts have called “mere property.” In the rare jurisdiction that does appear to allow this, ask yourself how the following words would resonate with a jury when uttered by plaintiff’s counsel in closing argument: “Ladies and gentlemen, the defendant has admitted that he killed the deceased over property. How much difference is there in your hearts between the man who kills another to steal that man’s property, and one who kills another to maintain possession of his own? Either way, he ended a human life for mere property!

For most of the jury selection, Arturo Hernandez had stopped coming to court. Daniel had hired a paralegal named Richard Salinas, who had wavy black hair, a pointed hatchet face, and dark eyes. Daniel would often confer with Salinas on important issues. Arturo had apparently become disillusioned with defending Richard. There was no big movie or book deal, and the case was costing him money. A television movie about the Night Stalker was in the works, but the Hernandezes hadn’t gotten a dime. As long as Richard refused to talk about his alleged crimes, nobody was willing to put up money. Daniel did his best, but the arduous task of being in court every day, staying in hotels away from his family in San Jose, and working without the benefit of co-counsel was taking its toll. He was tired, yet couldn’t sleep at night; he’d toss and turn and worry about the case, his two little girls, and his wife. He began eating excessively, and by the time the jury was finally sworn in, he’d gained twenty-five pounds.

A preliminary hearing is held to determine if there is enough evidence to proceed to trial. Halpin was planning to put 140 witnesses on the stand. He would not put his whole case on display, just enough for Judge James M. Nelson to hold Ramirez over for trial. Halpin felt he had enough evidence to convince any jury that Richard Ramirez was the Night Stalker. The Hernandezes felt confident they could get thrown out all the evidence the police had gotten as a result of statements Richard had made during and after his arrest, which would severely hamper the prosecutor’s case. They believed the lineup was overly suggestive to the point of being illegal for three reasons: the bald spot on Ramirez’s head, after it had been widely reported he had sustained a head injury when captured; the witnesses had been allowed to sit next to one another and conversed; and a sheriffs deputy at the lineup had silently held up two fingers—Richard’s number—while he was in front of all the witnesses in the viewing room. In a video of the lineup, the detective holding up two fingers, as in a “V for victory” gesture, could clearly be seen. The Hernandezes complained bitterly to the judge that the prosecutor was very slow in handing over important discovery items—such as fingerprints and police and lab reports—hamstringing their ability to cross-examine.

Introduce yourselves and talk about your families. What meal did you have this morning? We’ll go from there.” “I thought we’d talk about something more substantive,” Antwan started. Rivka held up her hand. “You need to know where you came from before you can decide where you want to go. This isn’t a trip you’re taking alone. It is the journey that’s important, not the destination. What you’ll find is that once you start, your destination will change, but the path behind you will not. Make yourselves proud to look back and see the ground you’ve covered. Together.

We might want to consider instead the new opportunities and affinities that are opened up through coming together to fight the environmental crisis. Ecological justice groups like Extinction Rebellion are calling for citizens’ assemblies—innovative institutions that can allow people, communities, even entire countries, to make important decisions in ways that may be more just and fairer than party politics. Similar to jury service, members are randomly selected from across the country. The process is designed to ensure that assemblies reflect the population in regard to characteristics like gender, age, ethnicity, education level, and geography. Assembly members hear from experts and those most affected by an issue. Members then come together in small groups with professional facilitators and together work through their differences and draft and vote on recommendations.69

At his trial, recounted in Plato’s Apology, Socrates calls attention to his poverty as evidence of his honesty; and although this argument failed to impress the jury, Plato evidently viewed the simplicity of his teacher’s life as underscoring his emphasis on the importance of virtue above all other things.

there were several SQUIREENS, or little squires; a race of men who have succeeded to the BUCKEENS, described by Young and Crumpe. SQUIREENS are persons who, with good long leases, or valuable farms , possess incomes from three to eight hundred a year; who keep a pack of hounds; TAKE OUT a commission of the peace, sometimes before they can spell (as her ladyship said), and almost always before they know anything of law or justice! Busy and loud about small matters; JOBBERS AT ASSIZES , combining with one another, and trying upon every occasion, public or private, to push themselves forward, to the annoyance of their superiors, and the terror of those below them. In the usual course of things, these men are not often to be found in the society of gentry; except , perhaps, among those gentlemen or noblemen who like to see hangers-on at their tables; or who find it for their convenience to have underling magistrates, to protect their favourites , or to propose and CARRY jobs for them on grand juries. At election times, however, these persons rise into sudden importance with all who have views upon the county.

Having seized the most fertile lands and prime riverine locations, planters made the region safe for slavery by securing political power. Without exception, territorial governors were appointed from the ranks of the planter class or those who would soon enter the planter class, and slaveholders populated the territorial and state legislatures as well as county courthouses and sheriffs' offices. Those legislatures imported slave codes from the established slave states, sometime borrowing provisions that had first been enacted by Barbadian planters in the mid-seventeenth century at the start of the sugar revolution. Kentucky's slave code derived from that of Virginia, Tennessee's could be traced back to North Carolina, and Mississippi's to Georgia. Upon entering the new territories, planters could be assured that their claim to property-in-perons would be protected, that their rights to discipline their slaves would be unchallenged, and that slaveholders and nonslaveholders alike would cooperate in the return of fugitives and the suppression of slave rebels. Behind the master class stood the power of the state in the form of militia, police juries, and patrols.

Trade disputes were regularly argued before juries of hundreds of citizens, and this must have created an intensely financially literate society. The monetization of the Athenian economy was an equally important step. Recently, scholars have argued that it played a central role in the transition to the political phenomenon for which Athens is most famous: democracy. Money became both a tool for sharing the Athenian economic success and an instrument for aligning personal loyalties to the state.

The most famous ruler of this period was Hammurabi, who lived circa 1810–1750 BCE. He is best known for the Code of Hammurabi—a set of laws inscribed on a black basalt pillar that now stands in the Louvre Museum. Hammurabi’s code specifies the rate of interest on silver at 20% and on barley at 33⅓%. What is most important about the code is not what is says but what it represents. The code is a uniform legal framework for the entire Babylonian empire. It covered everything from criminal law to family law, commercial practice to property rights. It details a range of punishments for transgressions, methods of dispute resolution, and attributions of fault for various offenses. It specifies the roles of judge, jury, witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants. It recognizes and elaborates the rights of ownership of property, including rights to lease and rights of eminent domain. It specifies the role of the written document in a contractual obligation, the necessity of receipts, and what should be done if they do not exist. It specifies legal tender. It describes the obligations of merchants, brokers, and agents and their fiduciary duties and limits to their liabilities in case of attack or theft. It places limits on the term of debt indenture (three years). In short, it creates a comprehensive, uniform framework for commerce.

People are perceived as more credible when they make eye contact and speak with confidence, no matter what they have to say. In a mock jury study, researcher Bonnie Erickson and her colleagues had people listen to a witness answer questions about a supposed accident-for example, "Approximately how long did you stay there before the ambulance arrived?" Some jurors heard the witness respond straightforwardly: "Twenty minutes. Long enough to help get Mrs. David straightened out." Others listened to the witness hem and haw: "Oh, it seems like it was about, uh, twenty minutes. Just long enough to help my friend Mrs. David, you know, get straightened out." What the witnesses said turned out to be less important than how they said it: the straightforward, confident witnesses were rated significantly more credible and competent.3

Commissioners from seven Confederate states traveled to undecided Slave states to urge secession. Henry Benning of Georgia spoke to the secession convention of Virginia, a state that the Confederacy deemed all- important, which had to be on its side in the coming war. The Georgia Supreme Court justice used the time- honored method of racial fearmongering to sway the men of the Virginia House of Delegates. He thundered: “If things are allowed to go on as they are, it is certain that slavery is be abolished except in Georgia and the other cotton States, and . . . ultimately in these States also. . . . By the time the North shall have attained the power, the black race will be a large majority, and we will have black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything.”41 Charles Dew portrayed Benning’s apocalyptic vision of the outcome of a Northern invasion of the South; he told his audience, “We will be overpowered and our men compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth, and for our women, the horrors of their state cannot contemplate in imagination.” This then, was “the fate that Abolition will bring upon the white race. . . . We will be exterminated.

The important question to ask is why these bodies are allowed to exist. If a country such as Spain allowed a repressive body like the Inquisition to exist for four hundred years, it is not because the Inquisition forced itself on the Spanish nation. It is because the Spaniards allowed it to exist.

Most of the time, we are concerned with the truth. A cashier has to make sure he knows the exact change he's giving. A nurse has to apply just the right amount of medication to a patient. A mathematician checks and rechecks his proofs. A jury listens closely to all the facts to sort out the truth in a trial. A history teacher has to get the names and dates right. A scientists publishes work for peer review to make sure everyone gets the same results. In all of these cases and more, what's important is not opinion. What's important is the truth. Yet it seems that when it comes to questions of religion and spirituality and the accompanying moral questions, we suddenly become relativists. The truth doesn't matter. Instead of asking who God really is, we say, 'Who is God to you?' Instead of asking what it means that God became a man, we say that it's okay for some people to believe if they want. Instead of asking whether God expects something from us or has any divine commands for us, we judge religious expectations by what we want, by whether a religion fits into our lifestyle. The pursuit of objectivity goes out the window, and subjectivity reigns.

Jonathan’s eyes grew wide. He knew his hours were numbered. “I did not know. If I had known they were important to you, I never would have done anything.” “Too late,” he responded without compassion, “you know now.” Andre was judge. Jury. Executioner. All in one. The sentence was already being carried out. Far too late to do anything but acquiesce to the inevitable.

cluster as being stocked with only marginally creative people, the second with highly creative ones. Chapters 5 and 9 return to this topic. As presented here the perceptgenetic approach may seem one sidedly applied. There is, however, a theoretical base, put forward in Chapter 1. The theoretical outlines presented in that chapter rely to a high degree on earlier formulations, particularly those written up in Kragh and Smith (1970). An important, later influence has, of course, been colleagues in micro- and perceptgenetic research all over the world: Werner Frohlich of Bonn University, later Mainz; Juris Draguns of Penn State University; Uwe Hentschel of Mainz and Leiden Universities; John Cegalis of Yale University; and, from the biological side, Jason Brown of New York University Medical School. A number of important contributions by perceptgenetic researchers

handled the arraignment, satisfied with his choice of counsel even though he hadn’t picked Smith for his skill. Mason knew the importance of managing a client’s expectations, especially a criminal defense client whose life was on the line. Smith took it to another level, wringing any sentiment out of the equation. “It’s Ortiz’s call,” Mason said. “He can take the case to the grand jury or have a preliminary hearing. He picked the grand jury because it’s secret and you made him look bad today. It killed him to tell the judge that

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