msvelawciraptor:

carpenters3:

op was a terf so I’m stealing the post but yeah if you’re called for jury duty and during the elimination process you’re asked if you’ve ever had any adverse experience with a man (harrassment or rape or any other male violence) just fuckin lie and say no & vote that fucker guilty bc they sure don’t screen for rapists on jury duty only survivors

Ok, so I’m going to have to do this again…

As a public defender, I can flat out tell you that this post is both incorrect and dangerous.

Let’s leave aside the fact that you’re encouraging people to commit perjury when you tell them to lie during jury selection (though you are, which obviously is problematic in and of itself.)

Jury selection is about screening out people who cannot judge a case fairly. That’s it. Being a survivor (Or a victim of any kind of crime) is not an automatic disqualifier. But you have to be able to listen to the evidence and sit in judgment fairly. If you walk in with the assumption that if a person has been charged, they must have done something wrong; if you’re going to be reliving your trauma instead of listening to evidence; if you, for any reason, cannot follow the law as contained in the jury instructions (including honoring the presumption of innocence and holding the state to its burden of proof), you don’t belong on that jury. Because EVERYONE deserves a fair trial, regardless of the charges they’re facing.

And I expect that, yet again, I’ll get called a rape apologist for defending basic constitutional principles and discouraging perjury, but I didn’t choose this career path to be popular.

Tl;dr-the Constitution is not a technicality. Jury duty is not a game. Everybody deserves due process and a fair trial, which includes an unbiased jury that is prepared to follow the law.