Jury Service -- It’s A Privilege
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Many people dread being called to serve as a juror. In most counties in North Carolina jury service requires at least a good part of a week, because even if the citizen is not called to sit on a jury, he or she must sometimes go back and forth to Court for several days to take part in the jury selection process. Perhaps the worst part is the uncertainty of not knowing whether he or she will be called to actually sit on a case. Jury service can be disruptive to work schedules and disruptive to personal lives. Serving on a jury, however, is one of the very most important responsibilities a citizen can perform; certainly, it is one of our most important rights as citizens.
If we are all to be afforded a right to trial by jury when important issues arise, then we, as citizens, must take our turn to serve as jurors when others are involved in important issues which must be decided by a jury.
The United States of America is one of the few countries which affords its citizens the right to trial by jury. Jury trials are unheard of in totalitarian countries and in countries ruled by dictatorships. When Hitler came to power in Germany, one of the first things he did was do away with the right to trial by jury. The same thing happened in Spain. In China and Cuba, most citizens have never even heard of a right to trial by jury.
The desire to ensure the right to trial by jury for all citizens is one of the major reasons our great country was founded. Our forefathers established from the outset that as free people, we would all have the right to trial by jury on all important issues concerning our personal liberties and freedoms and in matters involving disputes between and among citizens.
There are some people today, even in the United States, who advocate doing away with our right to trial by jury. These people argue that jury trials are not efficient. While it is true that our jury system is not as efficient as whatever judicial system Hitler had in Germany, is that kind of system what we want as a free people? Certainly not. Some inefficiencies are a small price to pay in exchange for the guarantee of our rights and freedoms as citizens.
In the United States, we don’t leave it up to the lawyers and the judges to make decisions on these issues; instead, we select juries at random from members of the community at large to sit together and make these important decisions. As jurors, you have perhaps more power than you will ever have. You have the power to right a wrong and to ensure that our judicial system works properly. If we do not have wise and thoughtful jurors to decide issues fairly and accurately and in accordance with the law, it doesn’t matter how good our judicial system looks on paper or how well the laws are written.
The next time you are chosen to sit on a jury, consider the privilege you have as a citizen and perhaps your jury service will not seem so burdensome.