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[Anonymous]

The trouble with the Jury system is that they are very susceptable to social mood.  Look at where our country was during OJs trial in comparison to Scott Ps.  Sure this does not explain everything, but it historically can be documented that in times of upswings in our growth as a country, the stock market goes up, people feel optimistic, and they tend to want to give powerful, celebrity icons the benefit of the doubt.  However, in a wartime, unstable economic environment, there is a tendency to hang the bastards.

This is not to excuse anyone; it is only an observation.

[Antigen]

Do you think that judges, prosecutors, civil servants, monarchs or any other embodiment of government is less inclined to swing with the times than a jury? Cause the whole point of grand and petit juries is to provide one final check against government authority. The whole idea is that, no matter what laws congress passes, what regulations are made by their appointed agents, what the judge thinks or the prosecutor and leos say or believe, it still has pass muster w/ 12 of your neighbors before they're allowed to sentence you for a crime. Like our Republican form of government, it's the worst possible way to do it, except for every other way ever studied or tried down through history.

To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect.
http://laissezfairebooks.com/product.cfm?op=view&pid=FF7485&aid=10247' target='_new'> Thomas Jefferson Letter to Elias Shipman and others of New Haven, July 12, 1801.