Blago Sentenced to 14 Years for Corruption (Only One Man On Jury)

Submitted by anthony on Wed, 2011-12-07 19:32

Story here. Excerpt:

'In the end, the 11-woman, one-man retrial jury found the former governor guilty after nine days of deliberation. Jurors decided Blagojevich had tried to sell Obama's Senate seat and personally gained from his position of power. Each of the wire fraud convictions carry a maximum 20 years in prison.

They spared the former governor on count 17, however, saying he never shook down the Illinois Tollway. The jury didn't come to an agreement on counts 11 and 16, which dealt with the Illinois Tollway and trying to get favors for releasing funds for an elementary school.'

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Comments

... it's women under-represented-- at least when speaking of genders, anyway.

Is Blago guilty? My gut tells me he is. But that's not the point, nor is "my gut" the appropriate way to determine a man's guilt. One thing that is needed for justice to work is that a jury of one's peers in principle should consist of a fair representation of the society in which they live in all pertinent respects, or as many as can be obtained practically. Study after study of juries has shown that generally, male and female jurors view and analyze different kinds of evidence in different ways based on their experiences as men or as women. A jury that is overwhelmingly made up of one or the other sex is inherently biased in this way and thus cannot be reliably relied upon to render a fair verdict. Now, can they? I am not saying it isn't possible. I am saying that it is unlikely enough that having such a skewed breakdown of gender representation as this should not be allowed since it doesn't serve the interests of justice.

But silly me, that's only true if the vast majority of a jury's members are men. Sorry, forgot about that. *sigh*

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Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2011-12-08 02:04