Tynan: Are jury trials going extinct amidst plea deals?

The American Civil Liberties Union recently filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

The lawsuit alleges the MCAO threatens those it arrests for criminal drug or lower-level felonies with “substantially harsher” prosecution to pressure them to plea bargain, i.e. plead guilty, rather than exercise their right to a jury trial.

A plea bargain is a shortcut that is used in place of a jury trial to expedite criminal case resolution in our age of litigation. Extreme pressure in the plea bargaining process can lead innocent people to crack and plead guilty. They fear that they will be sentenced far more severely should they lose their case in a jury trial.

How did plea bargaining come to be? In the 1700s, a single English jury could settle a dozen or more cases in a single day. Today, a single case heard by a jury may last days or weeks. Jury trials are not feasible for every case given modern case loads: The MCAO reports that it prosecutes upwards of 30,000 criminal cases yearly.

With the maturation of the jury system, efficiency has suffered while the degree of justice increased; the net result has been to require a new approach to handle the huge load of would-be jury trials. Thus, plea bargaining was invented as one solution for a quick and simplified process. It has been estimated by various legal experts that 90% to 95% of criminal cases are now plea-bargained, not tried before a jury.

Noticing that Sept. 5 each year for the last 25 or so years has been celebrated as Jury Rights Day, it is an opportune moment to consider this state of the vanishing use of a trial by a jury. What might be lost as jury trials vanish?

The jury system is notable mainly because it takes the decision of guilt or innocence out of the hands of the government, or those with a possible interest in conviction (judges running for re-election, political appointees, etc.). The power instead is given to fellow citizens.

While jurors have the authority to judge the facts in a case, they also have the power to declare innocence in a case where the law itself is unjust or where its application would work an extreme injustice due to some extenuating circumstance. Thus a jury can provide an immediate check and balance on an unjust law when governments prosecute violators.

We should take the opportunity this Jury Rights Day to educate ourselves by visiting online sites such as the Fully Informed Juror Association, Right on Crime, or other informative site. Then we can better grapple with changes to our legal systems and continue to enjoy our inherited freedoms.

Ed Tynan is a 51-year Scottsdale resident and has served as a juror a number of times.