[conspire] [Off-topic] Always a bridesmaid...

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Darlene Wallach (freepalestin at dslextreme.com):

> I would surely want you on the jury esp. if I was on
> trial!

Flattery's always welcome, but, honestly, whether a juror's considered
good or not most often seems to depend on whose ox is getting gored.
I'd be an attentive juror, at least -- but maybe a rather harsh one.

> Thank you for so elequently explaining the wonderfully
> corrupt "justice" system. It is small wonder there over
> 2 million people in prisons in this country more than
> any other industrialized nation!

Don't know if it can be called corrupt merely on the basis of the
inherent problems of juries (other considerations aside).  India
eliminiated juries from its system in the 1950s, after one infamously
defective jury verdict; it's not clear that their system was itself
at fault -- it might well have been just human perversity on the jurors'
part.  Equally, I'm not sure their system is better for the change,
since then.

I'd actually see juries as one of the least corruption-prone parts of 
our legal system, and something outsiders often envy.

As to the cause of ~2 million imprisonments:  My mother served on the
Contra Costa County grand jury, for some weeks, a year or so ago.  
She could not discuss with me the cases brought before them for
indictments, but said that _well over half_ involved the War on Some Drugs.