Comment Re:After reading the article (Score 2) 126
Out of 13 jurors, which includes one alternate, I believe that only 2 of us had jobs that might be called "professional". The others were roofers and holders of various jobs that don't require any college education. These are the kinds of people who serve on juries.
This is a result of the adversarial juror selection process where legal teams from both sides, plaintiff and defendant, try very hard to remove any liabilities from the juror pool. Knowledgeable people are liable to be on a "side" and therefore will be removed by one side or another.
That combined with the fact that, as a juror, you are not rewarded or likely to get compensation from your employer, means that people who have valuable knowledge, skills and generally good understanding of lots of stuff, try very hard to not be selected.
I'm not sure there's a better way, other than perhaps to try to increase the overall average knowledge of the entire juror pool (either by free, compulsory 2ndary education) or by restricting the juror pool to prevent the "know nothings" from deciding the law on cases that could have society wide impact (a slippery slope that I probably wouldn't recommend).
How do they do this kind of thing in Europe?