Most of us, I imagine, are familiar with the jury system in the Western world. Citizens (usually registered voters) are summoned to jury duty where they are either assigned to a trial or released. My question is: Would it be beneficial to have people whose job it is to be a juror? There are 2 reasons right off the bat that I think motivate this move. First, being on a jury can sometimes be a genuine hardship for your average citizen. Missing work, getting to the courthouse (and having to pay for parking or transportation), and basically putting their lives on hold for a few days to several weeks can by trying. The second reason is that jurors are often asked to do things that are quite difficult for many of us. Suppose a piece of evidence gets introduced but is then thrown out. The jury is instructed to disregard this piece of evidence. It's very hard for most of us to actually do this. If the police find a bloody knife in the defendant's house but the search is illegal, we have a hard time ignoring this 'smoking gun' evidence. But a professional juror who has been trained on how to reason through evidence properly might not have the same difficulties.
So I'm wondering what you guys think. Would this actually solve any problems? Would it just create a different set of problems? And is it even practical to try to implement?
