Rehabilitation vs. Punishment...
I got called for jury duty (again...jeepers Harris County) today.
The way they do it here is that everyone gets pulled from four different jury holding tanks for voir dire. There's no getting out of it, typically on a Monday because the Houston courts are busy.
Short story. There were 60 of us for the penalty hearing for a young man (18) who had pled guilty to aggravated robbery. The DA begins asking questions and it's typically a "show of hands," and he'll zero in on people who raise their hands in answer to his query. Then, it goes to the defense attorney for the same thing. DA strikes 10, Defense strikes 10 and the judge can strike jurors who have vacations/whatever that conflict with expected trial length.
All was proceeding, and the question came up (by the DA) "Do you think prisons are for rehabilitation or for punishment... "Rs raise your hands..." "Ps raise your hands" (it was little more involved with factors such as age, crime, history, but that was a sustained objection by the defense). 6 of us out of 60 raised our hands. But I had a problem with the question because I was not sure if the DA was asking what I thought prisons were for or what I thought prisons should be for. The two are very different in my mind.
I was pretty sure he was going to strike me for asking. He also asked me why I thought the defendant had entered a guilty plea, which I thought was rather inappropriate because we hadn't heard any evidence and people have all sorts of reasons.
Anyway, driving home, it bothered me. Yes, I'm in Texas, but Houston is rather open-minded. The fact that 54 of my fellow jurors thought prisons were/should be strictly for punishment really bothered me. Yes, we should be punishing, but we should also be rehabilitating or why wouldn't we just bring back a firing squad (purposely over the top here)?
What do you think? Rehabilitation? Punishment? A mix? Interestingly, a mix wasn't an option, but that was my answer. All 6 of us who voted "R" (ugh, that sounds dirty) were struck from the jury. Pretty sure that kids going to get the 99 year/life end of the 5-99 year range.
This is the second time I've left jury feeling sick about what was about to go down. Both times, it was an 18-year-old Hispanic man. Houston really does have a problem, in my opinion, with its justice system.
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Otherwise, we're gonna have repeat offenders trying to do the same old behavior.
