The right to “trial by jury” is a longstanding tradition of the American people protected under the US Constitution. By its standards, a jury is composed of 12 citizens picked at random from the local community, and then screened by the attorneys handling the case. Each of these men then bears witness to the trial, and after hearing the case is sequestered to make private deliberations which must result in a unanimous verdict. The original intention of the Framer’s was to institute a system that protected the accused from unfair bias by distributing the power to decide the verdict among multiple assumedly unbiased citizens. Nonetheless, this system faces constant scrutiny due to the influence of public opinion on members of the jury, the prejudiced …show more content…
After the members have been selected, the defense might find that the majority of the jurors have a precedent bias against the plaintiff. To illustrate this notion, the comic Hemispheres satirically postulates what would happen if a dog were to be tried by a jury of cats (Document E). As the saying goes, cats and dogs are notoriously prejudiced towards each other. In the comic, the attorney is seen whispering “It doesn’t look good”, insinuating that the dog has very little chance of being acquitted because the jury, being all cats, is already prejudiced against him (Document E). Another dilemma faced by the accused is the distracted and negligent behavior of the elected jurors. “Guilty, guilty, guilty” , “15 dollars a day!” , and “I wonder if the defense attorney is single” (Document E). Consequently, these phrases demonstrate that jury’s natural tendency to give in to natural patterns of human behavior, overlooking the real reason for their presence. In the same way that cherry picking manipulates the outcome of an otherwise “fair” trial, biased and inattentive jurors deny the accused’s right to a just and fair trial, nullifying the framer’s original intent and rendering the jury system