Ballooning Judicial System Needs an Overhaul

We all understand the constitutionally guaranteed right to a trial by our peers. However, the ballooning of the judicial system, brought on largely by the “lottery” attitude toward personal-injury lawsuits and the drug industry, is out of hand and desperately in need of overhaul.

The Times missed that point in its article, “Tough Rules for Jury Duty Try Patience of Residents,” May 28.

Recently I wasted a full day serving my “civic duty” along with 150 more silent lambs in the jury assembly room. Although I could complain about closing my busy medical practice for a day--losing a day’s pay, leaving an office staff of four with nothing to do, inconveniencing and rescheduling patients--those excuses are no longer valid.

There remains a much more important reason why all really civic-minded citizens should resist this fashionable abuse of their time: By acquiescing silently, we support a broken and often meaningless system that mainly serves to support the incomes of those judges, attorneys, bailiffs, recorders and janitors who rely on that system.

Take a look at the court docket on any given day. The civil calendar is filled with personal-injury cases and trivial differences between angry people. For example, did the rich lady insult the owner of the fancy restaurant, or did the restaurant owner slap the rich lady?

The criminal calendar is filled with drug-related cases. The responsibility to decide how much of the insurance lottery pool goes to the guy with the whiplash (minus 40% to his attorney) or whether a druggie goes to jail is not one that I take seriously. I have many more important things to do: read the newspaper, water the flowers, go to work, visit my grandchildren, etc.

If juries were reserved only for important issues such as murder, my argument wouldn’t be realistic. Just think what might have happened to O.J. Simpson if he had no constitutional right to a trial by his peers.

Complaining without recommending solutions only serves to vent anger. I do have two simple suggestions that would go a long way toward solving the problem that upsets most subpoenaed jurors.

First, no-fault automobile insurance. Eliminate most personal-injury lawsuits. It works in other states.

Second, decriminalize drugs. Can’t we as a society admit that we are losing the war on drugs? We spend tens of billions of dollars on interdiction and only stop a small percentage of the inflow. There are casualties in all wars. Why shouldn’t we accept the casualties and move on to a more realistic and effective strategy? Instead of putting another 100,000 police on the street, we could take a million or so off the street and train them to be teachers.

We all pay huge amounts to feed the current system of justice, which clearly is broken. Taxes and hidden insurance costs in virtually everything we spend money for are required to support this folly.

We will never see changes such as these because they would put too many people out of work. What’s more, these changes would make too much sense!

Short of that, consider what many of my once-bitten friends do: When the jury summons arrives in the mail, they don’t open it but simply toss it in the trash with the rest of the junk mail.