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Originally Posted by Voidwar  So my fate was supposed to rest in the hands of twelve citizens, but this makes it rest on which lawyer was slicker. Unnacceptable shift of power. |
It is true that a good lawyer can matter in close cases if the other lawyer is not good.
But no one has found a better way to do it.
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The idea, was that anything the government wanted to do to a citizen, they would need 12 citizen's to sign off on it. That is the core idea of a jury system. The slick lawyer's machinations weaken that protection. One lawyer is always better than another, so two adversarial lawyers will very rarely actually "tie" in these machinations. This means that most juries will then be partial, and partial to the side whose lawyer is better at Voir Dire.
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It's not quite that easy. Lawyers aren't mind readers, and it is tough to find jurors partial against you, much less ones that are partial for you. Competent lawyers tend to balance each other out. And in most cases, jurors take their roles seriously (it is a serious role) and try to do a good job.
But I agree that if there is a major difference in the quality of the lawyers it can be a factor in close cases. Which is one reason I have issues with the death penalties, because in some states, the public defenders are the lowest paid lawyers in the system, and many are barely competent to be representing people whose lives are at stake.