Let’s Bribe All Three Branches of Government

For the past three decades I have been a criminal defense attorney in California.  Last month I did a murder trial where my client was clearly guilty.  But I wasn’t worried in the slightest.  

          Why was I so confident?  The answer was simple.  I had hired the best jury lobbyist in town.  Sure, she was expensive but I knew it would be money well spent.

          As soon as I got the jury selected, she went to work.  She determined what jurors were likely to be sympathetic and then she arranged to meet with them.  All of the jurors had a price:  some fairly cheap, others more expensive.

        I did have some concerns.  The district attorney had also hired a jury lobbyist who was known to be strong.  But I knew that the government probably did not have the resources that I had access to on this case.  

         Sure enough, we were able to pay seven of the twelve jurors.  For the next two weeks, my jury lobbyist just had to make sure the money kept flowing to the jurors.

          Jury deliberations didn’t take too long.  Not surprisingly the jury was split 7-5 in our favor which was a huge victory for the defense.  My client got away with murder.  

          The above scenario is obviously farcical.    We don’t pay our jurors to make life and death decisions.  That would be downright un-American!

           But why shouldn’t we pay jurors to vote the way we want?  Why don’t we have jury lobbyists paying jurors to make life and death decisions.  Jurors could even set up a PAC and sell their vote to the highest bidder.   How does it differ from Senators and Congressmen who are getting paid every day by lobbyists from large corporations to make life and death decisions?

          In fact, you could argue it would be less egregious.  Jurors being paid by lobbyists would only influence one person in one case.  Lobbyists are paying our Congressional Representatives to make decisions that affect millions of lives.   

          If we are going to continue to allow public bribery of our executive and legislative branches of government, why should the judicial branch be immune? Isn’t there a strong equal protection argument to be made that the judiciary is being discriminated against if they cannot also fall under the Citizens United holding that allowed for legal government corruption.

          And why stop at just trials and jurors.  Shouldn’t the Supreme Court justices have their own lobbyists paying them for their decisions?  I mean if we are willing to allow our lowly representatives to be bribed, shouldn’t we at least give the same consideration to our most revered figures.   

           It’s true that not every defendant would have the resources to hire a jury lobbyist.   The poor would likely have little or no voice in the judiciary system.  But again, that’s no different from our current legislative system.   How many poor people do you know who can afford to pay a lobbyist to represent their interests in Congress?  This would bring the judiciary closer to the current direction of our country in the “Let them Eat Cake Era” we live in.  

          The concept of jury lobbyists may seem strange but it would not likely sound any stranger than the concept of Congressional lobbyists would have sounded to the Founding Fathers.   

       A few government do-gooders might argue that campaign finance reform is a better solution – to actually eliminate the heavy influence of money from all three branches.  But we know that is ridiculous.  After all, it would require the incumbent politicians to enact campaign finance reform that isn’t going to happen because the current system benefits – guess who – incumbent politicians.  

           So in the interests of making sure we have three equal branches of government, let’s crank up the jury lobbyist industry and start paying those jurors for votes.  And while we’re at it, we can change the last words of the Pledge of Allegiance – And Justice for a Few!

Note:  This essay was written before I knew that Clarence Thomas was actually taking bribes.  Talk about prescient.