In the United States, there are quite a number of judicial trial enthusiasts. It is conceived that "12 Angry Men" are having heated debate somewhere at this moment to decide whether the accused is guilty or not. In reality, however, all the criminal cases do not proceed to trials. While more than 10 million crimes are reported annually and two million criminals (Note 1) are arrested, only 100,000 cases (Note 2) reach a jury.
What about cases that are not sent to a jury? Most charges are dismissed by plea bargain. In this way, prosecutors can dispense with the long process of investigation and trial while the defendant will have the sentence reduced accordingly. As an ultimate case for such, a serial killer named Gary Ridgway (commonly known as Green River Killer) who allegedly slaughtered more than 48 people got his death penalty commuted to life imprisonment after plea bargain in 2003 at the King County Superior Court, Washington.
Should a criminal commit an aggravated first-degree murder, he or she is likely to be sentenced to death even if the victim is only one. It is quite illogical then that a serial killer could escape from death penalty.
It is true that investigation will take enormous time ad labor if the victims total as many as 48 or more. Bereaved families would prefer having the case probed as soon as possible to spending many months and years for a trial. If they could do without a trial, it would save a lot of costs, which is beneficial to the citizens as taxpayers. In case of Ridgway who was certain to be guilty and sentenced to death in a trial, he might have calculated the odds that he could stand a fair chance of avoiding death penalty by fully cooperating with the prosecutors for investigation. Here, a very weird win-win relationship was created.
The verdict delivered to Ridgway was 48 life sentences without parole. It means living a life 48 times in prison. To the question if such judgment makes any sense, a prosecutor in charge replied that it was decided according to the rules. Even if it is unrealistic and physically impossible, the judicial authorities take a stance that the decision is made legally based on theoretical measurement of a crime.
Incidentally, 29 percent of the American citizens do the jury duty at least once in lifetime (Note 3). Average daily allowance for jury service is US$22, just a quarter of a normal wage (Note 4); therefore, it is a duty that could only be accomplished by service-minded people.
The government casts a wider net to collect necessary jurors taking account of a certain number of dropouts. The estimated number of people summoned each year for jury service is 32 million, representing 15 percent of the adult population. Majority of them are screened out eventually because they are found unqualified, or cannot be reached as their whereabouts are unknown, or by some other reasons. Therefore, the number of jurors impaneled each year is estimated at 1.5 million (Note 5).
In principle, jurors are supposed to be the nationals of the United States. However, the government summons citizens indiscriminately regardless of their nationalities. As a matter of fact, the writer, a Japanese national, has got a notice ordering to report for jury service four times in his seven years' residence in the States. Every time it arrives, he excuses himself from the duty on the ground that he is not an American citizen, but it appears that no amendment has been made to the record so far. Does it going to happen over again?
Written and Photographed by Masafumi Mori
Note 1 - Crime in the United States 2008 by FBI
Note 2, 4, 5 - State-of-the-States Survey of Jury Improvement Efforts: A Compendium Report, April 2007 by National Center for State Courts
Note 3 - Jury Service: Is Fulfilling Your Civic Duty a Trial, 2004 by HarrisInteractive
