(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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Jury trials are the best way to get the facts and justice [1]
['More From Author', 'June', 'Ed Tibbetts']
Date: 2023-06-15
Lately, the same phrase keeps popping into my head: Thank God for juries.
They’re hardly perfect. Studies have pointed to discrimination in the selection of juries in this country, and the jurors themselves are subject to the same biases that exist in society at large. Not to mention, their use has sharply declined over the past 60 years.
Still, there’s a reason juries were enshrined in our Constitution; why, in one form or another, the modern-day jury system has existed since the time of the ancient Greeks.
Tempered by the rules of our system, I believe, juries are still the best way to achieve justice.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, while watching developments in the two most prominent news stories to hit the Quad-Cities over the past couple weeks: The partial collapse of the Davenport apartment building, where three people died, and the indictment of former President Donald Trump on federal crimes.
First, Trump.
His reaction to the indictment last week was predictable. He attacked prosecutors.
His political allies, meanwhile, attacked Joe Biden.
Rarely, if at all, do these defenders engage with the allegations in the indictment, one of which is that Trump showed a classified U.S. attack plan against another country (reportedly Iran) to a writer and others at his New Jersey golf club.
Instead, they seek to leverage the situation politically, even if it means damaging confidence in the legal system. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds played her role by blaming Biden for the indictment.
She wasn’t telling the truth. It wasn’t Biden, but a grand jury, that leveled these charges — and at the behest of a special counsel, not the Justice Department. It’s the same kind of special counsel, by the way, that Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed to investigate Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
This is why I’m grateful for juries. When done right, they don’t get to play politics. They also don’t get to ignore the possibility that Trump is guilty.
At some point, surely months down the road, a jury will get to hear the case; that is, if there is no plea deal, which seems unlikely with Trump.
I realize there are cases where people think juries blew it, but I believe those are exceptions.
It’s not fashionable these days to trust “the system,” but I’d much rather put my faith in a jury than on Twitter or the other so-called arbiters of truth when it comes to today’s controversies.
I’m not alone, either.
Even as Americans demonstrate dwindling confidence in the courts, especially the U.S. Supreme Court, they still retain a high level of trust in juries. A 2022 poll conducted for the National Center for State Courts found that 84% of those surveyed said a trial by jury would ensure courts and judges only make decisions based on the Constitution, the law and the facts.
Maybe that’s because people believe juries are us.
Building collapse engulfs community
I don’t know if a jury will hear the facts in the case of the partial collapse of the six-story apartment building at 324 Main St. in Davenport. But, according to the Quad-City Times, there already have been four lawsuits filed in connection with the case, so it’s possible.
The owner of the building, along with the City of Davenport, among others, are listed as defendants, according to news reports, which say the suits allege negligence in maintaining the building and failing to abate a public nuisance.
For two weeks, this terrible event has engulfed us here. Beyond the tragedy of lost life, injuries and the scarring of many others who had to experience this awful event, aggressive news reporting, especially at the local level, has documented warnings and complaints preceding the collapse of the building.
Yet, there were no official warnings for tenants to leave.
On Sunday, the city confirmed that firefighters were on the scene the day before the collapse. (The Times first reported this development.) Inspectors from the city’s development and neighborhood services department also were there, though the city said as work went on, “external shoring was in place with no observable signs of difficulty or bowing in the external shoring.”
There also remain questions about the city’s decision a day after the collapse to transition from rescue to recovery operations and announce it was going to commence demolition the next day. It was after this that a woman was unexpectedly found alive in the building.
On Monday, nearly two weeks later, crews were beginning to knock down parts of the structure. WQAD-TV was offering a livestream of the demolition on Tuesday.
Despite the extensive reporting on this incident, I’m sure there are a lot of things we don’t know about the response to the collapse, what happened in the days ahead of it and, also importantly, in the months and years before that.
One thing about lawyers: They’ll explore all these angles.
I hope these cases make it to the jury stage. Too often, settlements leave outstanding questions.
At least at the federal level, the decline in the number of trials has long been documented, but I don’t think a lot of people know how rare it truly is. One study said just 1% of federal civil cases go to trial, while only 2% of criminal cases in the federal system get to the trial stage.
Lawyers and judges believe damage caps, mandatory arbitration, sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences are the most common reasons for the decline in jury trials, according to a 2020 report by the American Bar Association.
The jury system has long been seen as an important way to advance the rights of the community in the administration of justice and provide a safeguard against overzealous prosecutors or biased judges.
Whether it’s determining whether Trump committed a crime or affixing culpability in the collapse of the Davenport apartment building, the court system — and juries — are how we will best get at the facts and achieve justice.
I trust this system. I trust, in both of these cases, it will serve us well.
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