Jury System Is Ineffective Because

Jury system is ineffective because it is subject to personal biases and beliefs of jurors. The voir dire process of interviewing prospective jurors is not capable of eliminating the influence of personal biases and beliefs.

The jury system is flawed because it often relies on the ability of lay people to understand complex legal issues that are beyond their comprehension level.

Numerous studies have established that many jurors do not understand the fundamental issues and legal standards upon which their verdicts must depend.

The jury system is plagued by "jury nullification" in which jurors ignore the evidence and judicial instructions and simply render a verdict that they believe is the right outcome of trials. The infamous criminal trial of O.J. Simpson is the quintessential example in American law; in that case, a predominantly African

American jury acquitted the defendant despite the tremendous amount of irrefutable evidence of his guilt, primarily because the counsel for the defense exploited the racism issue. The fact that the vast majority of African-Americans

in the U.S. still believe that O.J. Simpson was innocent provides further proof that a jury selected from the lay public is tremendously susceptible to prejudicial views and beliefs that interfere with the administration of justice.

The jury system allows for excessive influence of dominant personalities within the jury deliberation process and many cases are decided because a minority of jurors is intimidated and coerced by social pressure to support the majority opinion.

The jury system in inefficient because it relies on compulsory civil service that most people wish to avoid. Since long deliberations add to the length of jury service, jurors serving compulsory terms have a natural incentive to reach a verdict as soon as possible, which often influences the decision of minority opinion holders to join the majority irrespective of their beliefs and wholly apart from the separate issue of social pressure and coercion by dominant group members during deliberations.

The often-repeated phrase that "juries are composed of the only people who are too stupid to get out of jury duty" may be an exaggeration, but there is some truth to it, simply because people with greater knowledge and awareness of laws and government administration do tend to justify excusals from jury service more often than those with less sophisticated understanding and awareness of governmental procedures and laws.