The Importance of Jury Duty

The Detroit Free Press reports this morning that many people are not showing up for jury duty in and around Detroit. Indeed, only around 68% of jury duty questionnaires are filled out and returned to local courts. Within the City of Detroit, almost 32% of questionnaires are not mailed back.

What does that all mean? The main problem which many in the judicial system have with it is the practical result which goes along with the ignoring of jury questionnaires and jury summons: a lack of a diverse jury pool. Minorities tend to be underrepresented on juries. Jury pools in southeast Michigan tend to be overwhelmingly white.

There are two things wrong with this. The underlying presumption is that whites are not necessarily capable of serving as impartial jurors on cases involving minorities. That is simply insulting; one can be quite sure that if the implication were turned upside down, there would be all sorts of objections raised, undoubtedly leading up to a visit to Michigan by Al Sharpton.

But more than that. This is an example of yet another issue being painted with the brush of diversity where diversity, particularly the shallow diversity of mere skin color or ethnicity, is being forced into a question where it ought not be applied. If we have the right to a jury of our peers, and we are all fellow citizens, then the diversity of the jury pool should not matter. If we really trust the system and our neighbors.

When we start to view juries in terms of their diversity, we begin to forget (if not outright ignore) the purpose of juries and the right to trial by jury. That right is perhaps the most important right we have which is little thought about and little promoted. Juries can decide a case however they want. They can let circumstance enter into their decision despite the law. To be sure, they are instructed to follow the law in their deliberations. But once inside that jury room, they are really free to decide as they wish. As such, jury duty should be encouraged as the supreme forum through which our rights are protected.

Enter the judges of Michigan, who assert that their attempts at diverse pools of juries are constitutional (so says federal Judge Gerald Rosen of the Eastern District of Michigan District Courts). But that isn't the real point of jury service, nor should it be. When the courts and court officials themselves are fretting over what are at best minor points involved in the process (and at worst, ugly visages of a shallow view of juries), it is easy to wonder how much respect they themselves have for the right to a jury trial.

If any given group or individual elects to not participate in the system, then same on them. If as a result the system doesn't work for them, if they don't receive a just verdict for whatever reason, then that's on them. If jury service is to become just another political and social football, if justice is to be nothing more than a game matching my wits against yours, for whatever reason but all the worse if jury selection simply means being able to select people who will side with me (for that is essentially what is being asked of juries these days and with worries over such as the diversity of the selection pool), then we will have no justice. And if you don't show up for jury duty, then your opinion on the question is irrelevant.