PSU Magazine Winter 1994

programs on local cable and public broadcasting station . Attitude responses to the survey suggest that many of the peop le who were excused from duty or ignored the subpoena would be willing to serve if the logistics of duty were simplified. The vast majority of all survey respondents, including the no-shows, believe jury duty is a civic responsi– bility. For those who didn't appear, the biggest issue is money, followed by transportation problems. Among those who did serve, confidence in the justice system stayed about the same before and after the experience, and on ly ten percent thought it was a total waste of time. Even K.C. Reyburn, who disliked nearly everything about jury duty, says, "I really believe you should do it, deep down inside, just like you should vote. If you don't participate, you have no right to complain about it." Haggerty notes that the law is interpreted to mean only that the pool, not individual juries, must be represen– tative of the community. The MBA/PSU study focused only on how the pool is created, and showed that the court's current policies and future plans ensure compliance. But the actual juries are formed in the second phase, called voir dire, where the parties' attorneys approve or reject potential jurors. Here the representativeness issue changes significantly. "Lawyer adamantly want a cross-section of society to pick and choose from, but they don't want to take the cross-section cold," says Bray. "If you've got an upper middle clas physician on trial, his lawyer is going to want some upper middle class people on that jury panel." How important is it that the end product of the jury selection proce s be representative of the community in ways other than race and gender? What about economic class? As Geil points out, a "jury of one's peers" used to mean people known to the parties; now it is supposed to mean unbiased strangers. Yet the voir dire process is all about carefully weighing the jury's biases, not eliminating them. 8 PSU Magazine '' ...the jury is an oracle, a secret anonymous conclave swayed by unknown and unknowable prejudices and mental aberrations. '' Geil believes the national debate over all aspects of jury selection is "an issue whose time has come." He feels jurors' decision-making processes are imperfectly understood and would like Surveying the Portland community The PSU Center for Sociologi– cal Re earch specialize in survey research for non-profit organiza– tions in the Portland area. Students get practical experience while ass isting groups like the Multnomah Bar Association. Twenty students learned the methods of survey-conducted research through the juror project. The center has recently involved students in survey studies on the effectiveness of the Domestic Violence Reduction Unit for the Portland Police Bureau, attitudes of neighboring residents toward development of the abandoned Springwater Rail corridor for the Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation, and the effectiveness of service delivery for the Portland Bureau of Water and Environmental Services. Unfortunately, funding is drying up for the center, according to Lee Haggerty, faculty coordi– nator. Non-profit organizations interested in using the center, or individuals wanting to make a tax deductible gift, may call Haggerty at 725-3614. D to see Oregon allow attorneys to interview jurors after trial to "see why they decide the things they decide." As it is, he says, "It's like doing brain surgery without being able to see what you're doing." One school of thought proposes to do away with juries altogether on the grounds that lay people-regardless of race, gender, or class-are incompetent to decide factua l issues, especially in complex medical or technological cases. In a recent National Review essay, University of Reading sociology professor Christie Davies advocates replacing the jury with "a small team of experienced professional lega l assessors." "In some districts, no doubt, the jurors are above average," he writes, "but in others they are stupid, feckless, illiterate, and felonious in thought and undetected deed...the jury is an oracle, a secret anonymous conclave swayed by unknown and unknowable prejudices and mental aberrations." That's one way to look at it. But jurors represent the last vestige of a Rousseauian democratic ideal in a system that is increasingly dominated by elite specialists-not only lawyers and judges, but also the doctors, engineers, and other professionals who serve as expert witnesses. Eliminating juries would be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Procedural improvements in the process that encourage more participa– tion and deeper understanding of legal principles might be a better step. After all, jurors are citizens, as capable of evaluating facts and making reasoned decisions in the courtroom as in the voting booth. Accepting a definition of citizens as incompetent in one arena defines them as such in the other. The MBA/PSU study suggests that, given a selection system that acknowledges the complexity of their daily lives, good citizens are willing and able to be good juror . D (Valerie Brown, a Portland freelance writer, has contributed to PSU Magazine in the past.)