Right to Juries

When criminal trials are effectively eliminated, those who are accused are deprived of their rights and the legal system itself is deprived of the right to test the fairness of its laws, its evidence, or its conduct. We strive to address the many factors that work together to coerce guilty pleas rather than encourage a person to exercise their constitutional right to a jury trial and are trying to remove the procedural impediments that exist which unfairly balance the scales in the favor of the government. Further, we believe that the government should not extract a “penalty” when someone exercises their right to a trial.

We also focus on the many procedural hurdles to the right to trial that exist, including:

• the numerous instances in which judges attempt to increase criminal punishment based on facts not found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, including the practice of so-called “acquitted conduct” and “relevant conduct” sentencing;
• failures to provide a “speedy” trial; and  
• violations of the Confrontation Clause–the constitutional guarantee that anyone accused of a crime be adequately informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against them.