Pointless to be honest. In many cases the technical and scientific evidence as well as medical or psychological expert testimonies are far beyond the comprehension of your average jury member. You effectively get evidence that is difficult to understand compounded by legal beauracracy and decisions of innocence or guilt being left to people who understand neither.
Used to get them all the time. Even a jury questionnaire from Uncle Sam. Put the Fed one start in the trash. They sent me a f/u a few months later and said I did not send the first one back and to fill out another one.
Again in the trash it went. Called them up yesterday after a few years and they said no your good.
I figure if Uncle Sam is trillions in debt, they are going to do what put me in jail for a year? Silly stuff.
Served twice.
Philosophically, I abhor our system, not just with the peer review aspect of it (laymen are woefully ignorant of not just scientific matters but legal ones as well, which makes many juries scarily manipulable), but I also object to it on moral grounds. My opinions on moral responsibility don't look kindly on our system of punishments.
On the former problem, a lot of confusion could be cleared up by appointing more judges and having them serve as a jury. If I were innocent, I'd far prefer a jury of, say, 3 or 5 judges trained in legal matters. If I were guilty, I'd much prefer a confused group of my "peers." On the latter, there's no easy solution, though several tentative proposals have been put forth by philosophers and social activists. Basically, shifting from a system of punishment to a system of rehabilitation would be the primary alteration in my ideal system.
I also don't get into the debate of privilege or pointless. It is what it is; it does nothing to tack on needless patriotism, or equally needless disdain for the system (you're just annoyed, so admit it and suck it up).
That said, the first of my two times was amazingly fascinating. I served on a fairly high-profile case with wildly high-stakes implications. The trial itself lasted a full week, and was tense and interesting. The second time was far more boring. But that's that.
I also don't get into the debate of privilege or pointless. It is what it is; it does nothing to tack on needless patriotism, or equally needless disdain for the system (you're just annoyed, so admit it and suck it up).