The Sixth Amendment

Voidwar · 10-16-07, 05:23 PM

I was thinking the other day about our Bill of Rights, and how often how much of it is ignored or no longer in effect.

In my view, almost all of the first ten amendments are being violated by our government.

So this got me thinking about it, and reviewing the Bill of Rights for current compliance.

Quote:

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Quote:

Voir Dire : In the United States, it now generally refers to the process by which prospective jurors are questioned about their backgrounds and potential biases before being invited to sit on a jury. For more detail, see Jury selection.
"Voir Dire is the process by which attorneys select, or perhaps more appropriately reject, certain jurors to hear a case." -Gordon P. Cleary, Trial Evidence Foundations, section 201. James Publishing, 2007.

So, thanks if you read this far, and here comes my point . . .

Voir dire, is a direct violation of the 6th amendment, because it allows partiality where impartiality was decreed.
If a potential juror has a bias, I have a right to that bias sitting in my jury box.
If a potential juror worked a job that had to do with the case, I have a right to his knowledge of the industry being present on the jury.

To put it bluntly, I have a right to the first twelve citizen's off the voter rolls, and neither side's lawyers have any right to eliminate them.

The jury system is there to protect the citizen from the government.
Why then would we dilute this protection and give such power to lawyers ??
When they hand pick juries, the citizen ends up needing protection from them and their undue influence.

My contention is that the 6th amendment prohibits the process of Voir dire, because of the word "impartial".

Iriemon · 10-16-07, 05:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voidwar

I was thinking the other day about our Bill of Rights, and how often how much of it is ignored or no longer in effect.

In my view, almost all of the first ten amendments are being violated by our government.

So this got me thinking about it, and reviewing the Bill of Rights for current compliance.

...

So, thanks if you read this far, and here comes my point . . .

Voir dire, is a direct violation of the 6th amendment, because it allows partiality where impartiality was decreed.
If a potential juror has a bias, I have a right to that bias sitting in my jury box.
If a potential juror worked a job that had to do with the case, I have a right to his knowledge of the industry being present on the jury.

To put it bluntly, I have a right to the first twelve citizen's off the voter rolls, and neither side's lawyers have any right to eliminate them.

The jury system is there to protect the citizen from the government.
Why then would we dilute this protection and give such power to lawyers ??
When they hand pick juries, the citizen ends up needing protection from them and their undue influence.

My contention is that the 6th amendment prohibits the process of Voir dire, because of the word "impartial".

Voire dire is done to determine whether a jury is impartial.

If a person has bias (for or against you), he or she is by definition not impartial and can be removed from the panel by you or your opponent. This is called removal "for cause" and such removals should be approved by the judge.

The fact that a person worked a job that had to do with the case does not necessarily mean he is impartial.

In addition to "for cause" removals, each side has an equivalent amount of peremptory challenges (usually 3 each), that (with certain limited restrictions) can be used for any reason. Why do we allow these? It's a compromise. In certain situations, a party may just have a feeling a juror is biased, without any specific articulable reason, and in other cases the lawyer may not want to disclose why a juror is unacceptable for issues having to do with case strategy.

The purpose of all this is to try to ensure a jury that is in fact an impartial panel. The first 12 at random may sound good, but if the first 12 included 7 that were related to your opponent, you might not think that was so great a system.

Voidwar · 10-16-07, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iriemon

Voire dire is done to determine whether a jury is impartial.

I am skeptical that one can make something "impartial" by having two partial adversaries pick them ???

I think we disagree on where the impartiality comes in.

The jurors are expected to deliver a verdict, which is, by definition, partial, in that it comes down on the side of one party in the dispute. So, "partiality" is a necessary component of a juror. The "impartial" in the Sixth amendment, in my view, is directed at how the jury is selected, and not the jurors themselves.

RightinNYC · 10-16-07, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voidwar

So, thanks if you read this far, and here comes my point . . .

Voir dire, is a direct violation of the 6th amendment, because it allows partiality where impartiality was decreed.
If a potential juror has a bias, I have a right to that bias sitting in my jury box.
If a potential juror worked a job that had to do with the case, I have a right to his knowledge of the industry being present on the jury.

Like Iremon pointed out, the purpose of voir dire is to make sure that all 12 people on the jury are impartial at least to a degree that would allow them to fairly examine the evidence. If an open KKK member is on a jury trying a white man of lynching a black man, the person on trial will never be convicted because just one person can always hang a jury. That's not in the best interests of justice.

Quote:

The jury system is there to protect the citizen from the government.
Why then would we dilute this protection and give such power to lawyers ??
When they hand pick juries, the citizen ends up needing protection from them and their undue influence.

In situations where there is voir dire, one of the people there is by definition, protecting you.

Quote:

My contention is that the 6th amendment prohibits the process of Voir dire, because of the word "impartial".

I can see how you could read it that way, but that's never been the way it was interpreted, nor is there any evidence that that's what the founders had in mind when they drafted it.

RightinNYC · 10-16-07, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voidwar

The jurors are expected to deliver a verdict, which is, by definition, partial, in that it comes down on the side of one party in the dispute. So, "partiality" is a necessary component of a juror. The "impartial" in the Sixth amendment, in my view, is directed at how the jury is selected, and not the jurors themselves.

The jurors are required to be partial at the end, but they're also required to be impartial at the beginning. That's the purpose of voir dire.

Voidwar · 10-16-07, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RightinNYC

In situations where there is voir dire, one of the people there is by definition, protecting you.

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.

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.

Iriemon · 10-16-07, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voidwar

I am skeptical that one can make something "impartial" by having two partial adversaries pick them ???

The lawyers don't pick them. They are picked by random from a pool. The lawyers can exclude them if they show bias (and with limited peremptory challenges).

Quote:

I think we disagree on where the impartiality comes in.

The jurors are expected to deliver a verdict, which is, by definition, partial, in that it comes down on the side of one party in the dispute. So, "partiality" is a necessary component of a juror. The "impartial" in the Sixth amendment, in my view, is directed at how the jury is selected, and not the jurors themselves.

RNYC is right. The jurors are partial at the end. But they are supposed to be partial only based upon the evidence presented, and not because of pre-existing bias or other influences.

Iriemon · 10-16-07, 06:10 PM

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

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.

Voidwar · 10-16-07, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iriemon

The lawyers don't pick them. They are picked by random from a pool. The lawyers can exclude them if they show bias (and with limited peremptory challenges).

You say tomato I say tomahto. They have no more business eliminating my potential jurors than they do hand-picking my eventual ones.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iriemon

RNYC is right. The jurors are partial at the end. But they are supposed to be partial only based upon the evidence presented, and not because of pre-existing bias or other influences.

I disagree. The biases of the average citizen are part of what protects me.
This is why we use a jury system in the first place. The average joe has biases, and I dare anyone to claim the founders were unaware of that fact.

Voidwar · 10-16-07, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iriemon

But no one has found a better way to do it.

A better way was described in Philadelphia in 1789.