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 The Chronicle welcomes you online! Please feel free to respond to these editorials or letters to the editor by sending your letters to the editor.

We condense letters; most, as published, won't exceed 300 words. A letter must include the writer's name and city, which will be published, and an address and telephone number for verification, which will not be published. Writers may be limited to one letter every 30 days. Open letters, letters to third parties and poetry are not considered. Letters from people living outside the Chronicle's circulation area usually are not considered.

Aiken jury nonsense

Web posted October 17, 1999

Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff

Until the era of mass transportation earlier this century, trial juries had to be picked from the counties or villages in which the crime occurred. It was too impractical in terms of geography, travel and time to import jurors from a neighboring community.

Consequently, most jurors not only heard of the crime, but they probably knew the defendant as well. This is what ``a jury of your peers'' meant in those days -- that jurors could put their biases and preconceptions aside and render a fair, impartial verdict based on the facts presented at trial.

But now, thanks to the simplicity of mass transportation, it's assumed that if potential jurors even have knowledge of a crime, it makes them too prejudiced to be fair or impartial.

This leads to the type of nonsense that went on last week when Circuit Court Judge Marc Westbrook held that out of a jury pool of hundreds of Aiken Countians, it was impossible to find 12 honest and true people who could fairly judge David Mark Hill, accused of murdering three caseworkers in the Department of Social Services' North Augusta office three years ago.

Westbrook, at the urgings of both the defense and prosecution, decided to bus in a jury from a nearby community. This not only delays the trial for at least another several months, it will also cost hard-pressed taxpayers to spend a lot more on the trial.

We don't fault the judge for making the ruling. Were Hill sentenced to death by an Aiken County jury, it's likely an appeals court would overturn the verdict and order a new trail. That would have been even more costly and time-consuming. Why take the risk?

What we do fault is a criminal justice system that assumes people who know what's going on in their community are unfit to serve on a jury. In short, when justice is at stake, knowledge is bad and ignorance is good.

Just about everyone in our two-state area knew of the triple homicide Hill is accused of. It was a huge story. Anyone who hadn't heard of it was too oblivious of their surroundings for their judgment to be trusted anyway.