GOP presidential front-runner Newt Gingrich today unveiled his plan to reform the nation’s juries, the second — and what he describes as “most crucial” — step to rein in what he views as our most troublesome branch of government.
The former House Speaker, acknowledging that bullying and browbeating so-called ‘activist judges’, “can only accomplish so much,” called for jurors — whose pay is taxpayer financed — “to be held to the highest possible standard or face severe consequences.”
When asked to elaborate, the erstwhile ethically challenged former GOP leader explained, “The judicial system is our only branch of government yet to be privatized — it remains fully funded by the public. While the Executive and Legislative branches both answer to private interests as well as, to some degree, the public at large, activist and renegade judges and juries are free to run wild secure in the knowledge that the average voter is too busy to monitor their activities. Unless and until private money finds its way into this third branch of government, the other two branches, I feel, can only be derelict in their duty to uphold the public trust unless they have the authority to more closely scrutinize and influence an otherwise independent judiciary and judicial system.”
from TheDesperateBlogger.com
Gingrich’s plan –which was immediately endorsed by both the American Medical Association and the insurance industry — calls for Congress to be given the authority to subpoena for testimony jurors who reach controversial or subversive verdicts. In criminal cases, jurors who vote to acquit ‘obviously guilty’ defendants may be forced to serve whatever sentence ‘a reasonable judge’ would have given the defendant. In addition, in cases involving national security, the President would have the authority to declare any juror voting to acquit a suspected terrorist an ‘enemy combatant’ and order their indefinite detention without trial or even charges being brought.
Additionally, any civil jury granting a medical malpractice award in excess of $250,000 would collectively be responsible for payment to the plaintiff of 10% of the excess award.
When asked by one reporter how he would respond to criticism that his plan might be perceived as putting undue pressure on jurors to be less partial than they might otherwise be out of fear that outsiders whose only knowledge of the facts involved in the case would be derived from media coverage, the pandering recovering philanderer responded, “Unlike the media, and for that matter the Democrat party, I know the American people. The American people are a good and proud people — proud of our country, proud of our democracy. Most Americans realize how lucky they are to live in a land where they have been taught since they were young impressionable children that is a privilege to serve on a jury — to have their lives disrupted in order to sit in judgment of a neighbor for 40 bucks a day — and they take that responsibility seriously. What I’m proposing would apply only to those traitorous, unpatriotic few who view our hallowed court rooms as a place to impose their own agenda on an unsuspecting populace.”
In related news, the Gingrich campaign today announced that it had scrapped plans to fly blimps bearing the likeness of the former Speaker over states holding primary elections and caucuses. According to a campaign staffer familiar with the situation, they were unable to find any available airships large enough to display Mr. Gingrich’s head.