Talking to an acquaintance whose serving on a jury for some felony trial it is completely obvious ho inefficient our courts are. You are asking 12 men and women (plus two alternates) to give up weeks of their lives to sit in judgment of a potential criminal taking away time from their jobs, families and lives.
This guy was telling me that there are literally days when they come in, sit in a room and then get dismissed after lunch having heard no testimony, seen no evidence all the while been forbidden to discuss the trial amongst the other jurors.
Now I totally believe that a jury trial is fair and have no problem asking our citizens to serve but I just hate how inefficient thing are.

With all the court delays, defense stalling, judges prior commitments and sicknesses these jurors spend days sitting around twiddling their thumbs as their workplaces scramble to pick up their slack.

But even if that doesn't come to fruition asking people to waste days of their lives while trials are delayed seems idiotic, the way I see it, once you have the jurors there, use them.

If you are going to have a three day delay for the star witness to get flown in from Columbia then why not put those jurors to good use and have them decide a drunk-driving case or a domestic dispute. Maybe those are a little heavy so how about a personal injury or even something with no pressure like small claims - court

If I'm gonna be out of work, at least have me feel somewhat productive while I'm away especially if I can't use the time to sit on a beach sipping frozen margaritas..

Or better yet with a country suffering from 10% unemployment, how about bumping those guys to the front of the line?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry