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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

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To: one_less who wrote (433052)7/24/2003 8:03:02 PM
From: Sidney Reilly  Read Replies (1) of 769667
 
I think the biggest argument against capital punishment has to be the jury system. In all cases that are not "open & shut" there is a weighing of the evidence by the jury. Unfortunately there are few truly objective people in the world. Many say they are but that in itself ends up being a subjective opinion. I have watched a few of these jury interviews where they ask them how they arrived at a guilty of murder verdict. To my utter horror these people talked about how they felt about this and that and seldom mentioned the evidence!! One woman said he seemed guilty!! Another that she felt like he was guilty!! A man said the same thing. I was thinking "What about the evidence?". They didn't talk about it. Must not have been important. My opinion would be that if the evidence was not strong enough on it's own to bring a guilty verdict then one would have to vote not guilty. Not go on your feelings.

I have the right to be tried by a jury of my "peers". Who are my peers? Certainly not who they call randomly from the voting rolls. The majority would not approach my intelligence or education. Also their experience would be limited compared to mine. They would have to be the same race. I can think of dozens of parameters. How can the jury be purged of prejudice? Or we could interpret peers to mean the jury should be personally acquainted with and like the defendant, but at the same time honest. That would be the fairest trial yet. All in all I would not want to be judged by a panel of humans at all, humans being so fallible. In that sense then no trial is fair. So how can we condemn a man to death when the process is as flawed as a human being? At least there is the appeals process. And if you're lucky you'll be in a state where the appeals process has not had the tracks greased.
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