Jury System

To protect jurors from intense media coverage of the O.J. Simpson double murder trial, prosecutors Friday asked Judge Lance A. Ito to sequester jury members from the time they are selected until their discharge, meaning they could be kept from their families and jobs for months.

405 free-for-all Re "Locals' ire doomed a simpler 405 plan," July 10 Once again, the wishes of a few special interests trump the needs of the many. The knee-jerk rejection of the alternative Mulholland bridge plan for the spurious reason of hurting the "unique and distinctly rustic character" of the neighborhood is both elitist and wrongheaded. That area of Mulholland Drive hasn't been rustic for 50 years and has neither character nor specialness; it's just a bunch of multimillion-dollar houses in the hills.

Jury-summons scofflaws, be on notice. The penalty-free ride for ducking jury duty is over. Los Angeles County courts this week began enforcing a rule that the vast majority of county residents simply ignore: Serving on a jury is mandatory if you're eligible. Under a new, get-tougher policy, potential jurors who fail to respond to summonses will first face a hearing and then a $1,500 fine.

An Orange County judge denied a motion Friday to move the trial of a driver accused of killing Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two of his friends, rejecting the argument that the defendant can't get a fair trial in the county where Adenhart played baseball. "I'm confident a fair jury can be selected to hear this matter," Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard Toohey said. An attorney for Andrew Thomas Gallo had requested that the trial be moved outside Orange County given the publicity surrounding the ballplayer's death.

In an era when our system of justice, and those who serve it, are constantly maligned, your editorial tribute to the American jury system ("Anchorage Jury Metes Out Justice," March 26), was timely, uplifting and highly appreciated. As never before, our traditional jury system is in jeopardy at the hands of those who would exalt expediency over justice and speedy process over sound deliberation. In lending your supportive voice, you eloquently remind us all that this time-tested system works, and ought not to be tampered with.

In a letter to The Times entitled "Jury Duty's Waste" (March 30), James Harris of Tustin airs his dissatisfaction with the jury process. In his cynical comment, Harris suggests that attorneys use their peremptory challenges as a way of extending trial time by "days, weeks or months" in order to further their "money-making schemes." While the author of that letter may have been called for jury duty, it is evident that he has never been summoned as a defendant in a lawsuit tried by a jury.

To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the A&E network's "American Justice" puts the jury system on trial. Like jury duty itself, the two-hour program, "We, the Jury" (tonight at 9), can be tedious--but also rewarding for those who pay attention. Host Bill Kurtis looks back at a tumultuous decade in U.S. justice. Controversial outcomes involving O.J.

I have been following with personal interest the news items in The Times regarding the developments connected to the conviction of Dr. Thomas A. Gionis in the attack on Aissa Wayne and Roger Luby in 1992. As a member of the jury which convicted Dr. Gionis, I was appalled when I read later of the overthrow of that conviction by the 4th District Court of Appeal. According to the latest report in The Times (March 29), that court's summary decision is now being questioned by our state attorney general's staff in an appeal to the California Supreme Court to review that lower court's decision.

Sonny Morper wasn't the least bit daunted when his Orange County jury mates voted him foreman as they prepared to decide whether a convicted pedophile should be released from a state hospital. A retired middle school principal from Lake Forest, Morper, a firm believer in the system, was pulling his first jury duty.

Re "The Web's yellow DNA," Opinion June 22 Jonah Goldberg argues that the Rodney King video shows that reality isn't captured by objective media, as the jury saw something different than the media-fed rioters. Instead of pinpointing a problem with objective media, Goldberg's example highlights a shortcoming of our justice system: a suspect jury made up of something other than one's peers agreed to ignore the obvious, probably because of their fears and prejudice. It wasn't the first time the jury system produced an unjust and incorrect verdict, and sadly, it won't be the last.

If Cook County, Ill., had its druthers, President Obama would be showing up for jury duty today. But court officials were told several weeks ago the prospect was a no-go, a White House official said Sunday. The summons arrived at the president's Chicago home. Obama, a 1991 graduate of Harvard Law School, president of the Harvard Law Review and later a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, would have been bound for the courthouse in suburban Bridgeview had he not been otherwise occupied.

Jinko Takahashi stares with trepidation at the six oversized, black-cushioned chairs in a Yokohama District Court room. The 49-year-old has just finished a four-hour program designed to prepare citizens for Japan's new jury system. Like many potential jurors across the world, Takahashi is not particularly enthused about her potential fate. "To be completely honest, I don't want to be on a jury," Takahashi said, sighing.

Nearly one year after the indictment of former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona, some 650 prospective jurors are expected to file into the Santa Ana federal courthouse today in the first step in choosing a jury for his upcoming corruption trial. Despite speculation in Orange County law enforcement circles that the case would end in a plea bargain before trial, all indications this week are that testimony would begin Oct. 28 as scheduled.

At first brush, there was nothing about the 74-year-old beauty contest supplier from the Bible Belt bastion of Texarkana that inspired trial consultant Robert B. Hirschhorn to want her on his high-tech client's jury. The case involved patent rights, and it was Hirschhorn's job to identify jurors in the pool who might be receptive to the claim that a lucrative Internet dating service had copied his client's search engine accelerator without paying for it.

Sonny Morper wasn't the least bit daunted when his Orange County jury mates voted him foreman as they prepared to decide whether a convicted pedophile should be released from a state hospital. A retired middle school principal from Lake Forest, Morper, a firm believer in the system, was pulling his first jury duty.

An aunt of three girls killed in a fire in Long Beach last week was wounded in a shooting Sunday night, Long Beach police said Monday. The 22-year-old woman, whom police have not identified, was at a vigil near the burned detached garage on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue when she was shot in the lower leg and a 17-year-old boy was shot in the torso, Long Beach police said. She was not at the apartment at the time of the fire early Friday, police said. -- Molly Hennessy-Fiske

I read with profound dismay the May 31 letters to the editor concerning how the jury system works. The right to a jury trial is one of the most fundamental constitutional rights, and one for which brave men and women died with their faces in the mud. Yet there are people who complain bitterly about the "inconvenience" of serving on a jury and feel that "jury service is something to be avoided." Part of being a citizen in a democracy is being "inconvenienced" to serve as a juror. The jury system ensures that everyone is given a fair trial by his or her peers.

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was dismissed on his second day of jury duty after attorneys passed him up while choosing a panel to hear a personal-injury case. If the billionaire mayor had been chosen, he would have become the second sitting mayor in a row to be part of a jury in a city that no longer allows occupation-related exemptions. His predecessor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was the foreman on a jury in a landlord-tenant dispute during his second mayoral term in 1999.

High-profile Los Angeles trial attorneys told law students Thursday that lofty notions of jurisprudence, such as the presumption of innocence or burden of proof, are all well and good. But in defending clients, it's best to focus on how jurors actually think, they told a conference on celebrity justice at Loyola Law School.