(This is the continuation of the essay started in the previous post: https://centinel.locals.com/upost/5628888/why-the-right-to-trial-by-jury-is-so-important-part-1)
Imagine a world without government. We would still need to attend to our health and would seek out the services of doctors. We would still need to eat and when we don't have time to cook for ourselves, or just don't feel like cooking for ourselves, we would patronize a restaurant. If our home needs repair and we don't feel like repairing it ourselves, or the repairs are beyond our abilities, we would still seek out the services of a contractor. But in a world without laws, what would be the point in seeking out the services of a lawyer?
We created government as a means of protecting our rights against those who would violate our rights. To adequately do this we made government an instrument of force, a weapon greater than the weapons wielded by those who would violate our rights. One danger with government lies in the possibility that those who would violate our rights would somehow gain control of this instrument of force. A doctor, a restaurant owner or a contractor can only profit if he provides a service that benefits us and we voluntarily choose to use that service. The legal profession, a profession that only exists because of government, is the only profession that can force us to use their services. And it hides behind the veneer of protecting our rights.
We have two recourses when government grows out of control. One is the right to bear arms. We can use our arms to overthrow that government. The other is the right of jury nullification of the law. We can simply refuse to uphold bad laws or to enforce them in cases where we don't think the law applies. Of the two of these the right of a jury to nullify the law scares those in power more than the right to bear arms.
To use arms to overthrow a government is, of necessity, an act of violence. People on both sides are going to die before the matter gets settled. Property is going to be destroyed. And there is no guarantee the attempt to overthrow a government, that ultimate instrument of force, is going to succeed. Despite having this right, the people are reluctant to use it.
The right to nullify the law while sitting on a jury is peaceful. It involves people simply saying "no" to bad laws. No bloodshed or property damage to worry about. The people won't have the same reluctance to use this method to keep government in check that they would have in exercising their right to bear arms. But the people will only use this right if they know they have it.
When people begin to feel that government is out of control and the only resource they think they have is the right to bear arms, their rhetoric can be used by those in power to frighten others and keep them in check. The peaceful resistance to a government out of control that jury nullification provides is harder to counter. This makes it more dangerous to those in power than the right to bear arms.
This is why the right to trial by jury was included in the Bill of Rights. This is also why those in the legal profession have taken great pains to ensure the public is unaware of the full meaning of that right. The legal profession - whether prosecuting attorneys, defense attorneys or the politicians drafting the laws - is the only profession that can force us to patronize them. How dare we exercise a right that infringes on their ability to make a profit at our expense.
(This essay is longer than Locals allows for posts so I had to divide it into parts. Link to second part provided below.)
The right to a trial by a jury of our peers seems peculiar to the modern mind. Why would we want to place our fate in the hands of twelve people too stupid to get out of jury duty? Why not leave our fate to people skilled in the law (the prosecuting attorney, our defense attorney and the judge)? Aren't these legal professionals better qualified to determine whether we violated the law than a bunch of people who are so devoid of a life that sitting on a jury makes them feel important?
The problem here is that our understanding of what "trial by jury" means has been corrupted by those in the legal profession who see "trial by jury" as a danger to their livelihood. The danger to them lies in the ability of a jury to say, "Yes, this person violated the law but the law they violated is so stupid that we refuse to enforce it!" Or to say, "Yes this law is good but it doesn't apply in this particular case." The danger to ...
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