Right To A Fair Trial

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Every citizen is guaranteed certain rights laid out in the U.S. Constitution which sets the foundation for the fundamentals of basic American freedoms. This is important in America because the country was founded on the principle of democratic government that rules at the consent of the governed. The main purpose is to make sure that the government doesn’t interfere with any citizen’s rights and that includes those citizens who are being accused of a crime. This is why an individual will commonly hear “innocent until proven guilty” and there are many amendments in the constitution that are in place to protect those in this situation. It is to emphasize that being charged with a crime doesn’t take away any freedoms or rights until a verdict …show more content…
However, there are numerous ways in which a trial can be dismissed and considered a mistrial for certain occurrences that could unfairly skew the outcome of a case. This can commonly happen as a result of bias from a juror that has been selected. Jurors have a profound amount of responsibility in determining whether or not the defendant is guilty or innocent and in some cases can literally mean life or death. Because of this extreme influence they have, the jury selection process is crucial for establishing a jury that will be impartial and unbiased so the outcome of the trial is as fair and just as possible. If there is a juror that shows the potential to be biased, whether implicit or explicit, the attorney can challenge for a …show more content…
The juror agreed to remain impartial, but in reality that is impossible. This juror will have implicit, natural bias in his decision making and the judge should have agreed to excuse him as a juror. The same was carried out in the following cases. In the case of Cotiere v. Washington, a man was found guilty of murder but the case was appealed to the U.S Supreme court where the court reversed the conviction because there was a juror member who personally knew both the defendant and the victim from middle school. The court found that this information made for an unfair trial and presented bias in the jury. In the case of Dean v. Group Health Cooperative, there were a few issues in jury selection that caused biased in the case resulting in its appeal to a higher court and a reversed conviction. First, there were two jurors who were connected with Group Health Cooperative who were not immediately excused as jurors for the trial even know it was apparent they would have natural bias in their decision making because of having a personal relationship with the group. The trial did end with a ruling in favor of Group Health Cooperative and the appeal for this case was accepted because of the jurors presenting

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