Russ,
Excellent summation!
I served as jury foreman on a murder trail and was a first-hand witness to the mindset of the jurors through the deliberations. The eyes of twelve independent and diverse thinking individuals cast a broad perspective upon the facts and evidence under evaluation. Though examination and deliberation of this material, the collective wisdom of this empowered panel can, in most cases, reach unanimous agreement
Our society must divorce ourselves from a presumption of guilt or innocence and must let the facts and evidence decide the case. No system is perfect but with tricks and deception, not all juries are smart enough to filter out the emotions and biases and come to a legitimate verdict.
If I have a complaint about our judicial system, it is the means used to select jurors. “Cherry Picking” jurors to match the case’s profile seems unjust. Unfortunately, in OJ’s murder case, I do believe that happened.
