The jury’s job

Re: Putting justice on trial. Richard Warnica, Feb. 12

It has taken the death of a young Indigenous man, a racially charged court proceeding, the rendering of a polarized verdict and a substantial national analysis to get to the point where we are finally having a conversation about the frustration our First Nations are living with.

As a country, have we ever had such a discussion before? If Mr. Stanley, charged with second- degree murder, was found guilty by a jury of 12 Indigenous people, how would the narrative change? Would we be questioning the validity of the system or that we had a system which could produce such a verdict?

These are the same cries we hear from our First Nations. The appearance of justice is just as important as the delivery of justice, and Canada’s Indigenous population has had more than 100 years where the appearance of justice has been virtually nonexistent. This narrative isn’t much different from Black Lives Matter.

If a more diverse jury had found Mr. Stanley not guilty, would anyone ques t i on the veracity of the system? Would we even be having this conversation?

Paul Baumberg, Dead Man’s Flats, Alta.

When I was a juror in a criminal case involving both fatality and race, I was instructed repeatedly throughout the trial to attend to the facts, to avoid conjecture and not to allow personal or emotional considerations to influence my decision.

We were constantly reminded that our job as jurors was to find the defendant either guilty, or, if there was any reasonable doubt, not guilty ( the word “innocent” was never used).

I wonder if present discussions about the “failure” of the justice system and the need to include jury members who understand the culture and background of defendant or plaintiff, would actually lead them to engage “personal or emotional considerations” in their deliberations. Once subjective factors are brought into play what happens to impartiality?

Colin Brezicki, Niagara- on- the- Lake, Ont.