[speaker001:] okay I guess probably the first thing uh we could start off with is uh if you've ever been on a jury before or not
[speaker002:] oh that's a very interesting question the answer that I have is no in fact um I was selected for jury at one time but uh fortunately for me or unfortunately just depending on your perspective
[speaker001:] uh-huh  um-hum
[speaker002:] I had already changed jurisdiction jurisdictions uh and so I had to reply that I couldn't do it
[speaker001:] uh right I uh just recently retired from the army and and so when we uh moved to this area here I got selected for jury duty as did my wife and uh it was an interesting experience I'd never done it before and
[speaker002:] well was it civil or or criminal
[speaker001:] this was uh all civil although I uh I did have a chance at a criminal one they uh actually had to interview like about a hundred and fifty people before they could actually uh get together a jury because there had been so much publicity about it but uh I was not selected for that one I would have been interesting I think but the I guess the question that is uh what we think of uh trial by jury that's a hard question
[speaker002:] yeah well on on the one hand there's a lot of uh of of of positive things you're not at the whim of one person who might have a grudge or a prejudice
[speaker001:] right um-hum
[speaker002:] on the other hand um well juries are not legally expertise experts and and they often just feel bad for somebody
[speaker001:] right um-hum
[speaker002:] but which is right they should often uh especially for example in a a civil case
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] they'll feel bad for the person who got injured and not take into account uh any of the legal aspects of the incident and award large damages that were really undeserving from a legal point of view
[speaker001:] right and it meant um-hum right course you're uh as a juror to you're you're really at the mercy of the uh the lawyers because you don't know what really went on and you can never depend on anybody telling the truth and uh you're kind of at the mercy of the various lawyers who are uh examining and cross examining the witnesses and they're so it's it's really tough and one of the things when I was on the jury that that bothered me was the fact that I was holding in my hands possibly the life of that individual and when you got right down to it uh you I really never knew who was really telling the truth and who wasn't you can't you can't go by what the the lawyer is uh is saying pretty much and you don't know if the witnesses are being truthful even though they are sworn to tell the truth
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] it's a very difficult decision I found uh one of the things that bothered me was the in one case the the trial was stupid these people were supposedly adults you'd think they could have worked their problems out but instead we had to sit there and listen to all the dumb things that they did and I felt sometimes like saying why don't you people just you're supposed to be adults why don't you get with the program and work out your problems instead of having to to go through all this in front of a jury it just seemed it just seemed dumb at the time
[speaker002:] yeah well it's hard you get when you get involved emotionally in somethings
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] so it it uh it gets
[speaker001:] it's an awful responsibility but it's like voting and all the other things that we're responsible for it's
[speaker002:] uh all the civic duty yeah
[speaker001:] one of those things you have to do I guess
[speaker002:] well I think one of the problems that we have here in the United States and the the question didn't seem to focus on civil things they want more focus on criminals
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] but um from my my perspective one of the problems is that in our Bill of Rights
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] we have it written that uh even for civil cases everyone's guaranteed a right to a jury as long as the uh dispute is for more than twenty five dollars
[speaker001:] right  um-hum
[speaker002:] now twenty five dollars at the time that they wrote the Bill of Rights was a lot different than what it is now
[speaker001:] yeah that was a lot of money
[speaker002:] and uh basically what it means is uh they try to say you know like uh petty things you don't get a jury and nowadays that same twenty five dollars might be I don't know
[speaker001:] um-hum  right
[speaker002:] ten thousand dollars I I'm not exactly sure the uh the economics involved and
[speaker001:] well yeah what the value would be equal to today
[speaker002:] that's right and uh it makes it very uh
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] oh most cases in small most small cases for uh civil suits really shouldn't have even have the option of a jury
[speaker001:] um-hum yeah
[speaker002:] uh I know we I was involved uh in a suit uh where the uh you know long time ago there was an accident whatever and an ambulance chaser came by and and wanted know you know I don't know five or ten thousand dollars
[speaker001:] right uh
[speaker002:] and they requested a trial by jury
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] and it seemed like really stupid that that they should even have that option for for such a small amount that our founding fathers didn't understand the economic principles involved
[speaker001:] hm um-hum the uh right first one that I had was a drug case and then the second one was a