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Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Rules of Game Keep Jurors In Dark

Rules Of Game Keep Jurors In Dark
Connecticut Law Tribune by Norm Pattis - November 30, 2009

One day, in some courtroom in the United States, a juror will stand up in the middle of a criminal case and shout: “Liar, liar, robe on fire!” I hope it happens in Connecticut. Here is why. When we refuse to let juries know the truth about the consequences of a conviction in a criminal case, we hamper a jury’s ability to check the abuse of power. Juries that are not fully informed can’t do their job. Withholding truth from juries is dishonest. We do it every day in Connecticut and call it justice. We refer to juries as the conscience of the community, but we don’t treat jurors with such regard. We treat them as moral idiots unsuited to reckon the consequences of their acts. We want juries to decide facts and facts alone, leaving to the judge the responsibility of imposing such conditions as the law requires. This rigid separation of fact and law results in moral paralysis, however. In what other context do we ask folks to make a decision regardless of the outcome? Recklessness and justice are not twin sisters. Moral philosophers distinguish so-called deontological theories of ethics from consequentialist theories. Deontological ethics are severe: we do right as an end itself. In this spare universe, virtue is not even permitted to be its own reward.

Consequentialism comes in many forms. The hard core consists of act utilitarians. In this view, each act ought to be regarded in terms of its impact. Thus, breaking the law makes sense if it promotes some good. Rule utilitarians take a broader view, claiming that general conduct requires adherence to laws that will yield bad outcomes in particular cases. The law may be but a useful tool, but its use is best serve by general obedience. But even here, a good law can serve bad ends. Justice requires bending a rule when the facts require it. What’s all this high-falutin’ stuff to do with criminal trials? The law should promote social utility and is all about consequences. Juries are supposed to stand between the state and an ordinary citizen accused of a crime. We expect some reasoned response from the community. But we refuse to tell jurors the consequence of their decision. We do not even permit jurors to make a recommendation about sentencing. Thus, we play Alice In Wonderland at criminal trial. “Don’t think about what happens if you find a verdict of guilty,” we say. Leap, but never look. I wonder how many jurors are shocked when they read about a sentence imposed in a case on which they sat in judgment. Hiding the truth from jurors undermines the very reason we have juries. The state and the state alone selects the charges. A judge cannot order that an overcharged case be recast in terms that better serve justice. And, let’s face a truth that cannot be repeated often enough: The state does not exist in any meaningful sense. It is a legal fiction. Depriving jurors of a role in gauging the consequences of a conviction empowers individual prosecutors. Did the founders intend prosecutorial tyranny?

The courts encourage blindness. Consider the case of sex offenders or immigrants convicted of a crime. All sorts of consequences flow from a conviction. Yet we are not permitted to tell juries about this. And when lawyers try to challenge these inevitable consequences, we’re told they are not part of the punishment, they are mere incidents to punishment. Tell it to a homeless sex offender registrant. I agree that blind juries promote fairness in trial, but that is only if trial is viewed as a game. If I know the rules in advance of the contest, I know how to play. But isn’t what goes on in a courtroom so much more than a game? Isn’t liberty on the line and the people’s right to have a say in weighty decisions that carry enormous consequences? Juries ought to know what they are doing and why. Requiring them to wear blinders yields something other than justice. I am not sure what to call the product. Norm Pattis is a criminal defense lawyer and civil rights attorney in Bethany. Most days he blogs at normpattis.blogspot.com.

9 comments:

court reporter said...

Corrupt judges have long figured out how to manipulate everything in any court proceeding. It's quite easy when you think about it....

Anonymous said...

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is the duty of the court to assess ....but because and only because POLITICS is %100 involved in the decisions of the justice systems, we have been deemed to play games all day long in every courthouse and thus compelled to deny the 14th Amendment to our citizen court users!

A citizen panel of judges is the only solution to our failing defective American Justice system that we have now, because the robes in office today will only subvert all steps to correct itself and its many many faults that have doomed us to despise its existence.

Anonymous said...

to theAnonymous court reporter,
please tell America how the judges manipulating everything,

the scary part about it is that: every one knows and everyone agree that the Court system is corrupted and broken,
but America is still quit, Tv is quit, newspaper is quit,
athough children getting destroy forever on veery day by the Court, by the corrupted legal system, but America is quit,
women and men losing years of their lives, some lose everything they own, nothing anymore belong to them, but most importantly they lose their believe in Justice
BUT america is quit about it.
this is scary, and this against what media make you to believe.

Anonymous said...

unless you have been subjected to the corrupt courts how would anyone know how evil our system can be?
why isn't it being covered, because the judges, lawyers and some Senators want to decide who is allowed any rights.........
so it will continue until the citizens groups take action......
the corrupt crud will continue to kill whomever they choose!

Anonymous said...

some of the Robes paid to be there, half of them probably do not even know how to run a proper courtroom, the game
has no real rules.........

Anonymous said...

Judges/lawyers want total control, they think that they our new rulers.

Anonymous said...

how a judge and lawyer manipulate
let us see, tell the target it will settle
do not let target pick a jury
do not advise target of court
cancel the stenographer
make sure no witnesses or experts are called
file fake paperwork with the court, jurors.......
tell the target they are crazy didn't happen..............

Anonymous said...

and make sure you trial them on something in their past that never happened, just to confuse the jury so they have no idea why they are actually there and what the heck they are trying to decide.........

Anonymous said...

that is the 8th Judicial Distrtict way, does anyone else have a better story.............

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