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Politics : Piffer Thread on Political Rantings and Ravings -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jcky who wrote (6486)	1/28/2002 12:05:05 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 14610

Of the two, profiling of jurors poses a far greater threat to the integrity of our legal system than a TV crew in the courts, Regarding TV in the courts, I've watched just a few trials. The only reason I watched this one was that I tuned in for the opening statements and was startled by how misleading the sound bites had been. Court TV seems to do a pretty good job of not being sensational and of getting varied perspectives on the air. At least some of their anchors do. It seems to me that the problem is the news "personalities," those who loudly and with too little thought proclaim a position and ooze righteous indignation. They're no better, IMO, than the jerks who get into brawls in hockey rinks. The particular object of my exasperation in this case was Jack Caffery on the CNN morning show. As late as the day of the verdict, he was still saying that the victim was Junta's kids' hockey coach, which is quite different from the role he played, and was still saying that Junta was a large man without mentioning that the victim was a feisty guw with a long record for violent behavior. It came across like the Hulk had attacked Mr. Peepers. Caffery was too busy smirking and pontificating to get his facts right. I've reached the point where I can only watch Bill O'Reilly once in a while lest my TV screen be shattered by my shoe. Even when I agree with him, I resent the fact that he doesn't let his guests finish even a brief statement of their position before he jumps on them. When I agree with him, he's fun to watch, but I've seen too many instances where I knew he was playing fast and loose with the facts or, perhaps, simply not knowing them as well as he should to be so adamant. Now, if there were no cameras in the court room, those guys wouldn't be doing their thing, at least not to that extent, because they wouldn't have pictures. I don't see the problem as the cameras, themselves, so much as the sensationalism that they enable. As for profiling jurors, I agree with you. There's something wrong when a court takes the position that people can't be fair to those who are not just like them. That may be true of many people, but I'd like to think it's not true of the majority, who would take their responsibilities as jurors seriously. If the court accedes to people's biases so conspicuously, they are in fact legitimizing them. I think that's a terrible message to send. I've been a juror many times in one of those rocket-docket districts. They can do a murder trial in three or four days. Picking a jury takes an hour or two. For the most part they just take the first ones called from a random list. Karen