Little Confidence in Justice System
* Re “Public Shows Little Confidence in Courts,” Nov. 19: I recently received a traffic violation for blocking an intersection because another car ran a red light and turned left. I had to brake hard to prevent an accident even though I was on a green light. I felt that the officer was wrong and I exercised my rights by going to the Van Nuys traffic court, Division 109, on Nov. 18. I had spent five hours being arraigned to plead not guilty and another three hours at traffic court.
Out of the 10 or so cases, the pro-tem judge ruled guilty in every one of the cases, including mine. Circumstances did not matter, reason did not matter, justice did not matter. Of the 10 cases, I saw reasonable doubt in three of them and it appeared to me that the officers were not entirely truthful in two of those cases. What harm would it have been if those three cases were dismissed?
Talk about justice being blind; justice was run over by the train in this court. And you wonder why people have little confidence in courts? It starts with small courts like this one.
JERRY WICH
Studio City
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* Having just completed nine days of jury duty in downtown Los Angeles, I read with interest your story. I found myself agreeing with many of the complaints, especially the common juror criticism of having to wait too much. After seven days of sitting in the jury room reading books and watching terrible talk shows, I found myself ready to scream. It was a monumental waste of time.
But then I got on a trial, and days eight and nine restored my faith--maybe not so much in Los Angeles County’s judicial system as America’s jury system as a whole. It was a difficult case, and all jurors--a very mixed group ethnically, age-wise and occupationally--displayed an extraordinary amount of compassion, care, intelligence and cooperation in the deliberations.
It made me realize that while there are problems that need addressing, the core foundation of our jury system is very much alive and well.
LEWIS K. RIMER JR.
Los Angeles
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