Why? For a number of reasons, one likely related to the "bifurcated trial", one trial to determine NOT Guilty or Guilty, and a second to determine the sentence if Guilty.
That means more work for the lawyers, and they discourage their clients by telling of the huge additional legal costs, and frighten them with stories of "fickle", "excessive", or "harsh" sentences given by Jurors.
CLICK on the Image below to enlarge for ease of reading, and seeing the near 70 per cent DECLINE in LIBERTY in Virginia during the "RULE" of Chief Justice Hassell.
Then even if the Client demands a Jury Trial, the JURY Trial System is all too often manipulated by lawyers and judges with tricky or even un-Constitutional "Jury Instructions" that a lazy lawyer or complicit "sell-out my client" "go-along, get-along" lawyer may not make, on the record in Court, an Objection to the poor Jury Instructions.
And far more than any Juror, one judge on a case can be far more easily "bribed" by influential lawyers with promises of income with a "Distinguised Professorship" at a law school or boondoggle payments for a "Continuing Legal Education" conference in a posh Resort. So no cash on the barrel head is able to be easily tracked, and there is "plausible deniability", but the reality is bribes are offered to judges and taken.
The Founding Fathers, far more wise than modern day Americans, well knew the power and importance of the Juror.
Indeed, in the Legislative Branch there was the Senate (Upper Chamber) and the House (Lower Chamber) to provide balance and ACCOUNTABILITY in a Bi-Cameral legislature, the Founding Fathers considered the Jurors as the lower chamber and the Judges as the upper chamber in a Bi-Cameral Judiciary, so to force balance and ACCOUNTABILITY.
Yet, again, I call to Virginia Voter's attention for ACTION, in Virginia, the Report of the Chief Justice shows a 70 per cent decline in JURY Trial use from 1999 to 2008.
