[] What do you think of your duty as a citizen to serve on on a jury if ordered?

[] If the evidence presented during the trial supported a guilty verdict, would you vote GUILTY! if you strongly suspected that the lawyers and/or Judge had hidden evidence from your consideration?

[] If you accept the fact that the lawyers and/or the Judge can hide evidence from Jury consideration, then what is the purpose of the Jury other than as a pawn of such powers, moved to a conclusion as suits these powers, when their interests are personal and may not related to the case?

[] When the lawyers and Judge are as interested in fame and fortune, influence and deference, as any human may be, how do you isolate such influences from the process of justice?

[] Living with television every day, suspending your sense of reality for entertainment, how well would you be able to separate truth from theatrics during a trial? The guilt or innocence of someone or something you had been conditioned by the media to like or dislike?

[] How would you isolate such influences as fame or disrepute from the process of rendering justice?

The appeals process in the USA greatly increases the cost of justice for everyone involved: plaintive, defendants, court, and state. In most cases, except for the plaintive and defendants, justice is a money making enterprise. There need not be a conspiracy for those involved to take advantage of such income opportunities. Acquisition is an aspect of human nature. Even monks and nuns, dedicated to poverty, have their favorite religious symbols, sites and friends.

The flawed jury system requires an appeals process that is seemingly endless as each flaw in the original and succeeding trials is explored. The maintenance of such income opportunities has become more important to the legal profession than justice.

Even people in prison are hostage to the money making enterprise. For example, people guilty of murder are not put to death, but live decade after decade on appeal, or are set free because of their good behavior while in prison. Some, I am sure, expect them to kill again in order to perpetuate the process. And too often, they do. The objective it would seem is not to decrease the population, but to increase its fear of crime.

To such end, maintaining a fearful public is also a money making enterprise. Taxes for police, courts and prisons; money for lawyers and personal security devices. Its as if we've let the beasts loose in our neighborhoods, made them hungry for our flesh, paid to provide them with shelter, built them hiding places from which to spring, and sit as audiences enjoying their feasts.

A just jury system would go a long way towards reducing its price both in monitory and human terms, while reducing fear and dependence on politics for personal safety.

[] When is "absence of malice" malfeasance (positively unlawful) or misfeasance (lawful act in an unlawful manner) rather than nonfeasance (failure to do duty)?

[] Can magazine, newspaper, and TV Editors, Reporters, and News Anchors be found guilty of obstruction of justice when they act to intimidate prosecutors and witnesses?

A claim of an "absence of malice" can be refuted by the content of statements used and their frequency.

The First Amendment does not license people:
• to lie,
• to misdirect the focus of inquiry,
• to cause a delay in inquiry beyond the statute of limitation,
• to induce witnesses to hide or refuse to give truthful testimony, or
• to reduce support for those whose job it is to seek the truth and/or enforce the law.

There is an implied warranty to the consumers of news, that news claims are based on honest investigations of the facts. Repeating the claims day after day, implies a warranty that real investigations have provided evidence to support the claims. People who act in response to news, particularly when it has been repeated often may have grounds for a class action suite.

What is the difference between a surgeon who makes a mistake during an operation and a newsperson who has claimed that information, subsequently found to be false and misleading, was true--when a life or lives have been threatened, lost, or ruined?

What is the difference between a surgeon who neglects to tell the patient of possible adverse consequences and a newsperson who purposefully neglects to tell customers facts they know or should know to be true--when such decisions result in missed opportunities for the law to be enforced and/or justice to be rendered.

For surgeon and patient there are questions. Could the patient have been more objective in deciding between consequences of operating or not operating than the surgeon? Even if the surgery is successful, does the patient have a case against the surgeon for his or her failure to notify them of the possibility of a undesirable outcome? ("I could have died!") And, would telling the patient of the possible adverse consequences have affected the surgery? ("You might not have let me act in time for the best consequences.")

For the newsperson, the assumption is that they know the facts unless they state that they do not know them to be true. Does the newsperson's customer have a case against the newsperson for his or her failure to notify the customer that what they are reporting may not be true.

There are options for presenting known facts:
"The crook, he went that-a-way." (Misdirection)
"The crook? I've a right to protect my sources." (Obstruction.)
"The crook? No comment."
"The crook? What crook."
"The crook? You are the crook." (Redirection)
"The crook? Alleged cook."

Which of those choices are in effect criminal?

Is it not an obstruction to justice for a reporter to purposely cause or even inadvertently cause: a misdirection of the focus of inquiry, to cause a delay in inquiry beyond the statute of limitation, to induce witnesses to hide or refuse to give truthful testimony, to reduce support for those whose job it is to seek the truth and/or enforce the law?

Because of the possibility of such obstruction, the court should insure that juries be shielded from the influence of news reporters and commentators--including being identified in the news as jurists in an ongoing trial.

The identification of jurists by news reporters and commentators could cause a mistrial because of its influence on the the individual juror's judgment. Remedies for such actual obstruction might include the reporters and/or news source paying court costs and attorney fees, plus the possibility of fines and/or jail time.

[] If it can be determined that there are multiple degrees between sanity and insanity, at what point does "not guilty by reason of insanity or temporary insanity" result in a failure to render justice?

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