A Time to Kill (Jake Brigance, #1)

by John Grisham

It’s a fragile system, this trusting of lives to twelve average, ordinary people who do not understand the law and are intimidated by the process.”

It still amazes me that we do this, and not only do it, but believe in it fiercely. I once trusted juries and for the most part still do, but I have seen so many bad decisions in wrongful convictions cases that I doubt the wisdom of allowing lay people, and often uneducated and/or unsophisticated lay people, to pronounce guilt or innocence.