How do libertarians feel about jurty duty?
"If no force may be used against a noncriminal, then the current system of compulsory jury duty must also be abolished. Just as conscription is a form of slavery, so too is compulsory jury duty. Precisely because being a juror is so important a service, the service must not be filled by resentful serfs. And how can any society call itself "libertarian" that rests on a foundation of jury slavery? In the current system, the courts enslave jurors because they pay a daily wage so far below the market price that the inevitable shortage of jury labor has to be supplied by coercion.
The problem is very much the same as the military draft, where the army pays far below the market wage for privates, cannot obtain the number of men they want at that wage, and then turns to conscription to supply the gap. Let the courts pay the market wage for jurors, and sufficient supply will be forthcoming.
If there can be no compulsion against jurors or witnesses, then a libertarian legal order will have to eliminate the entire concept of the subpoena power. Witnesses, of course, may be requested to appear. But this voluntarism must also apply to the defendants, since they have not yet been convicted of crime.
In a libertarian society, the plaintiff would notify the defendant that the latter is being charged with a crime, and that a trial of the defendant will be underway. The defendant would be simply invited to appear. There would be no compulsion on him to appear. If he chose not to defend himself, then the trial would proceed in absentia, which of course would mean that the defendant's chances would be by that much diminished. Compulsion could only be used against the defendant after his final conviction. In the same way, a defendant could not be kept in jail before his conviction, unless, as in the case of police coercion, the jailer is prepared to face a kidnapping conviction if the defendant turns out to be innocent.[7]" - The Right to Self Defense, MNR
[7] This prohibition against coercing an unconvicted person would eliminate the blatant evils of the bail system, where the judge arbitrarily sets the amount of bail, and where, regardless of the amount, poorer defendants are clearly discriminated against.
It is the price you pay for civilization?
scineram: It is the price you pay for civilization?
He asked about libertarianism and not about your conventional idea of what constitutes civilization.
Besides, here in Germany there is no jury, let alone a jury duty.
If you're trying to choose a DRO to sign up with, you'll ask yourself: Is the time commitment of jury duty worth having a jury in the event that I'm on trial?
In any case, it seems to me that an all-volunteer jury would be a better decision-maker than 12 people who couldn't figure out how to get out of jury duty.
I served on a jury about 2 years ago. It was fascinating. I was essentially simply a observer. The guy ended up getting convicted of a non-crime. I feel bad that I didn't try to get him off, but there was absolutely no way those 11 people would vote not guilty. Had he been tried by another jury he would have been convicted too as the case was so incredibly open and shut from a legal perspective.
Couldn't you hang the jury? They don't always retry, do they?
Well, the same way I feel about kidnapping and slavery. "But the accused wants to be judged by his peers." Yes, and farmers want farmhands to pick tobacco and cotton. Now, give me a choice between two courts I can subscribe to, one has trial by jury and one not, I'll probably pick the first. But that's a choice.
The stuff about defending the accused really misses the point anyway. Most accused, guilty or not, plea bargain. Most juries consist of you and 11 statists who couldn't care less about exculpatory evidence and think "the grand jury wouldn't give us the case unless he was guilty." Of course, grand jurors like to say "we're not the trial jury, we should indict and let them figure it out." Well, we see how that works.
The price we pay for civilization is kidnapping? Interesting. Sounds so...uncivilized.