Jury Duty

The matter of juries is as mysterious as any mystery. Knowing nothing specific about the whole matter of jury selection, admittedly, freedom of speech dictates that I can say something about it, fully knowledgeable or not on the subject.  First of all, I find that selection of a jury by lawyers in a case, seems a kind of contradiction. When an impartial lot of citizens and peers evidently, whatever "peers" means in this situation, are searched out to participate in a trial and then find themselves sitting upon a bench to be judged by the lawyers for each side as being appropriate to determine  innocence or guilt, right or wrong,  seems an odd activity to me. Clearly, it gives lawyers a great deal of power obviously in setting up justice to serve their clients, thus themselves. The law is sacred,  and what "it" decides is what is right, apparently. Just the same this feature of the court, doesn't seem fair. Naturally, the representative on either side is going to choose folks who will be impartial but empathetic toward their clients while being completely neutral in their personal and cooperative company with other jurors. They are to be forthcoming with a yes or no answer to the burning question at the end of the trial. But, it's okay for the lawyer, not to be neutral. How can the lawyers be impartial and then hope to choose those who are? The juror, and I know some people who have been asked over and over again to serve, must not be too informed of the issues at hand; they have to be solid citizens of the average kind, folks without prejudice and ones who have had no major brushes with the law. While each of the former requirements seem a shoe-in, it must be extremely difficult to actually find such  individuals. Being without prejudice or prior judgement of any kind, is not simple. The Media, like water, seeps in everywhere: what we hear and see and stumble over. Who can avoid even such things as side bar ads showing magazine cover shots or overhear conversations publicly or passing kiosk headlines on the street? It's almost impossible not to know even a tiny bit of high profile news pre-trial and not pay a modicum of attention. Certainly, we don't spend our lives digging into every tiny detail of eye-grabbing headlines. In most cases today, all we ever get in early news stories is a large, telling photograph and a paragraph or two with a lot of "allegeds"and "needs authentications". But we do, as human nature dictates, inadvertently make judgments on what we come across. It's our nature. Our curiosities lead us to look further. However lightly informed we are, as part of our conversations and thoughts we become biased in certain directions, even if we dare not reveal them. When a prospective juror is interviewed by legal folk on whether or not he or she has an opinion that will be in any way prejudicial, therefore, becomes somehow questionable, to my thinking. Certainly, a juror knows he/she is there to listen to the evidence, no matter what inner thoughts roil and to judge, based solely on what he or she learns from what is offered by lawyers, to make, with his fellows, a crucial decision. The decision always has an effect on other persons with all of their own complexities. Being a perfect juror must be perfectly hard work.