Mr. Curley of Bethune Catholic reports that in order to qualify for jury duty, he is required to answer some 45+ questions including:
17. What are your hobbies, special interests, recreational pastimes and other spare-time activities, including sports?Now that's parody. When they say "jury of your peers", they really mean it. Right down to the bumper sticker you sport, the brand of coffee you drink and whether you like fly-fishing too. After all, a robbery suspect has a right to tried by a fellow Field & Stream reader. Worse, this is South Carolina, for heaven's sake. I didn't think nonsense was fashionable there yet. Here are a few more questions future surveys will surely include (rimshot*!):
18. What magazines and newspapers do you regularly read?
20. What social, political, civic, religious, and other organizations do you belong to or are you assoicated with?
22. Have you displayed any bumper stickers on you automobile in the last twelve months? If yes, please list each bumper sticker.
1) Boxers or briefs?Who's on trial? It appears that Mr. Curley is guilty until proven innocent. The ability to reason is apparently less important than the ability to vote the way a prosecutor or defense attorney wants you to.
2) Blondes or brunettes?
3) If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be and why?
4) Do you squeeze the last bit out of your toothpaste tube?
5) Let's just say, hypothetically, there's this Hispanic male, 28 years old, wears a beret of some sort, who was accused of holding up a liquor store. Do you feel favorable towards him? Why or why not? Let's say there's damning surveilance tape from the liquor store. Would you be inclined to convict him?
"Of the professions it may be said that the soldiers are becoming too popular, parsons too lazy, physicians too mercenary, and lawyers too powerful."So said Charles Colton(1780-1832), which was said long before today's more powerful courts. Back then,
...the Supreme Court was just learning how to exercise its great power under Marberry v. Madison. In this 1803 decision the Court gave itself the right to determine if a law was Constitutional (or Unconstitutional). Later in 1954 the Supreme Court in Cooper v. Aaron simply stated that the "Constitution says what we say it says". Recently the Supreme Court in Missouri v. Jenkins allowed a local Federal judge to not only take over the Kansas City school system but also to double local property taxes against the expressed will of the taxpayers who had voted against this tax increase, a vote which was required by Missouri Law. Taxation without representation had thus returned to America. - (from Legal Ethics and Reform website)* -ht:TB
No comments:
Post a Comment