In our democracy the people are the highest authority. Life is sacred and we must do everything that we can to protect the lives of innocent citizens. The challenges that we face to protect and improve our future are not just government's challenges, they are our challenges. We must look to ourselves to preserve freedom, which is why we love this country so much, and why others hate it.
The sad fact is we knowingly shirk one of our core responsibilities as citizens to defend our freedom. It's simple and painless and only requires one to use his/her intellect - it's serving on a jury.
The right to a trial by jury ought to be considered a privilege and a way to rally around the flag. But to enjoy this right, we must share the responsibility. Otherwise the right is meaningless. It takes government "by the people" to bring the Constitution to life, to make it real.
Citizens, with doubts about jury service should consider the words of Thomas Jefferson: "The jury is the only anchor ever yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution ... the jury is the ultimate safeguard of our civil rights."
Here in California, where jury service is commonly avoided, there were reforms enacted to improve jury participation. For instance, the one-day, one-trial system enacted allows employees to return to work the next day after reporting for jury service. And at that point, they cannot be called again for at least a year.
Although we have made steps to improve our jury service system, the problem is that it's virtually impossible to measure the depth of California's struggle to improve the jury system and the impact of recently implemented reforms, according to Dan Klerman, a Professor of Law at the University of Southern California, where he has prepared a report on the state of jury participation in California. The current state of data collection among state and county courts need to be streamlined and made uniform to properly measure California's success in this realm.
In order to formulate strategies to remedy the remaining problems in our jury service system, we must implement a data collection process, whereby responses to jury summons are made public on a regular basis. Jury statistics must be collected and published every year and old jury duty should be made available.
Furthermore, we need legislation that creates consequences for those who fail to respond to a juror summons.
Fixing our jury service system is a goal that every American should be in favor of because preserving our freedom does not begin at the judge's bench in a courtroom. It begins with knowing that in a democracy, government begins with principles and stands for opportunity, like the right to a trial by jury, so that citizens can stand on their own.
Honorable Philip Mautino is a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge.
