Police State

TSA at NFL games.

Death penalty cases are down in Ohio.

"It’s a trend experts attribute to increased public skepticism about the penalty in an era of high-profile DNA exonerations, the staggering costs associated with pursuing death sentences and the option now in all 33 death-penalty states of sentencing killers to life in prison without the possibility of parole."

I hope the public is becoming skeptical, but I haven't noticed that with juries.

I was thinking about Hoppe's observation that nobody would voluntarily enter into a contract in which the other party was also the arbiter of any dispute, and how that argument could be used in voir dire. Tell perspective jurors to imagine they got in a dispute with Walmart. They would already have a tough road to hoe because Walmart has such fantastic resources compared to any individual. But further imagine that the arbiter for the dispute was a Walmart employee. Nobody would accept such a system because the arbiter would naturally be biased toward Walmart. It's laughable. Does anybody doubt such a system would be rigged in favor of Walmart? Yet in a trial the judge and prosecutor work for the same organization, the state, which has even more fantastic resources than Walmart, plus the power of coercion. In addition the police, crime labs, and expert witnesses all work for the state too. I think this would help jurors realize the bias in the system.

Going further... Imagine a cop doesn't like his daughter's boyfriend. He tries to get her to break up with him, but she won't, so he has some of his buddies arrest him on a trumped up charge. The prosecutor brings him to trial. What's to keep this poor guy from going to jail? The jury. This isn't an academic thought experiment. Before the jury was invented, police, prosecutors and judges railroaded anybody they didn't like into jail. The jury was forced on the state by the people to protect the people from prosecutors. You're not here to rubber stamp the prosecution. The state doesn't need you to convict. You're here to protect the defendant from the state. I think this help jurors realize their role.

Going further still... The question becomes how do you protect the defendant in a trial. You do that by being skeptical of the prosecutor's case, and making him prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. One of the important ways jurors must evaluate the prosecutor's case is by examining the thoroughness of the investigation. For example, imagine ten witnesses witness a crime. Imagine nine of them identify person A as the perpetrator and one of them identifies person B. If the police and prosecutor only interview the one witness, they would prosecute the wrong person. This illustrates that if the prosecutor didn't do a thorough investigation, it is impossible for him to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, if the prosecutor did not perform a thorough investigation in this case, you must acquit.