How does this work in a group setting?

But I do see V’s point about pressure to waive a jury trial due to the length of time it can take. However, in my experience, I have not seen or heard about any pressure because a jury was unavailable (which isn’t to say it doesn’t happen). I have seen pressure, however, where the defendant has hired private counsel, who charges by the day. Then, if the attorney charges X dollars for each day of trial, and jury selection will take an extra 2-4 days (or shorter or longer, depending on the charges), the client is in the unfortunate position of weighing his/her right to a jury trial with however much extra money it will cost him or her. I, for one, hate to see any client waive a jury (or the whole trial, for that matter) because he/she can’t afford it, but I don’t think the jury selection process in CT causes this problem as much as the way we allow attorneys to charge clients, which may be unavoidable anyway.

Overall, I don’t see that the selection process has created any great or notable burden on our system, and I think it essential to ensuring that the people deciding the case are appropriate jurors for that particular case.

As far as having to wait a while to get a jury trial; sure that’s the process, but I don’t think many defendants would complain that they want an immediate trial and that their trials were held up for lack of jurors. More often than not the trials aren’t held immediately for reasons of investigation, pre-trial negotiation, discovery, etc. A lack of jurors is hardly a concern.

Most defendants feel “pressure” to waive their Constitutional rights and plead guilty because they are all too aware that the sentence meted out after trial is almost invariably greater than the sentence they would receive via a plea agreement. The state holds that over them (in fact, the most common threat is “We’ll go to trial and you’ll get the maximum”) and wields that sword effectively.

If you want a trial, you’ll get one within a reasonable time period. The speedy trial act was enacted for that purpose.

My point of view is shaded by the experience of a friend who went through the system for a year in another state, and eventually was willing to waive his right to a jury trial in order to shorten his ordeal, and had the charges against him dismissed by the judge. So, happy ending and all, other than the year-long ordeal and the expense and so on. But his experience led him to believe that most defendants are under tremendous pressure to waive their right to a jury trial, simply because the system is not set up to provide jurors for more than 1 out of a hundred defendants. In his somewhat resource-based view of the system, which has largely influenced mine, Connecticut’s “appropriate” time spent selecting jurors may come at an inappropriate cost.

Myself, I don’t know. I want to believe that we are (mostly) giving defendants their Constitutional rights, and that the system isn’t set up to thwart them. But I can’t, quite.

Thanks,
-V.

So all states are devoting similar percentages of resources to jury trials.

I think you’re making the erroneous assumption that no one in CT is under pressure to plead guilty. The same pressure exists everywhere. However, when selecting a jury - the very people that will decide whether to deprive an individual of liberty, the more time we spend effectively choosing the right people, the better it is.

I noted SC takes 30 minutes on average. On average, that is barely enough time to get to know the names of each juror and ask basic biographical information. In Connecticut, you question each juror individually and get to ask them detailed questions about their biases, their preferences, their openness. That is what serves us all better, in my opinion.

I also don’t think calling Connecticut’s system “luxurious” is appropriate. I don’t think anything associated with a criminal trial is “luxurious”. “Appropriate” might be a better word.

Now that’s not to say that the average may have been pushed upward due to some cases where the attorneys are incredibly slow; but my basic point is more time > less time spent picking a jury.

Given that, in some states, defendants are under tremendous pressure to waive their constitutional right to a jury trial, it seems likely (on the face of it), that Connecticut’s luxurious system is, in fact, depriving many defendants of a speedy trial by a jury of their peers. I don’t know if that is truly the case, but it is worrisome.

Thanks,
-V.

A Public Defender points to this report from the National Center for State Courts and the State Justice Institute, which includes all sorts of statistics about how jury trials and comparisons of various states’ practices….