We should listen to the voices that matter

Trials are the best way to get the facts and justice

Photo by Billy on Unsplash

Lately, the same phrase keeps popping into my head: Thank God for juries.

They’re hardly perfect. Studies have pointed to discrimination in the selection of juries in this country, and the jurors themselves are subject to the same biases that exist in society at large. Not to mention, their use has sharply declined over the past 60 years.

Still, there’s a reason juries were enshrined in our Constitution; why, in one form or another, the modern-day jury system has existed since the time of the ancient Greeks.

Tempered by the rules of our system, I believe, juries are still the best way to achieve justice.

I’ve been thinking about this lately, while watching developments in the two most prominent news stories to hit the Quad-Cities over the past couple weeks: The partial collapse of the Davenport apartment building, where three people died, and the indictment of former President Donald Trump on federal crimes.

First, Trump.

His reaction to the indictment last week was predictable. He attacked prosecutors.

His political allies, meanwhile, attacked Joe Biden.

Rarely, if at all, do these defenders engage with the allegations in the indictment, one of which is that Trump showed a classified US attack plan against another country (reportedly Iran) to a writer and others at his New Jersey golf club.

Instead, they seek to leverage the situation politically, even if it means damaging confidence in the legal system. Kim Reynolds played her role by blaming Biden for the indictment.

She wasn’t telling the truth. It wasn’t Biden, but a grand jury, that leveled these charges — and at the behest of a special counsel, not the Justice Department. It’s the same kind of special counsel, by the way, that Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed to investigate Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.

This is why I’m grateful for juries. When done right, they don’t get to play politics. They also don’t get to ignore the possibility that Trump is guilty.

At some point, surely months down the road, a jury will get to hear the case; that is, if there is no plea deal, which seems unlikely with Trump.

I realize there are cases where people think juries blew it, but I believe those are exceptions.

It’s not fashionable these days to trust “the system,” but I’d much rather put my faith in a jury than on Twitter or the other so-called arbiters of truth when it comes to today’s controversies.

I’m not alone, either.

Even as Americans demonstrate dwindling confidence in the courts, especially the US Supreme Court, they still retain a high level of trust in juries. A 2022 poll conducted for the National Center for State Courts found that 84% of those surveyed said a trial by jury would ensure courts and judges only make decisions based on the Constitution, the law and the facts.

Maybe that’s because people believe juries are us.

I don’t know if a jury will hear the facts in the case of the partial collapse of the 6-story apartment building at 324 Main St. in Davenport, which is seen above on May 30, two days after the collapse. But, according to the Quad-City Times, there already have been four lawsuits filed in connection with the case, so it’s possible.

The owner of the building, along with the City of Davenport, among others, are listed as defendants, according to news reports, which say the suits allege negligence in maintaining the building and failing to abate a public nuisance.

For two weeks, this terrible event has engulfed us here. Beyond the tragedy of lost life, injuries and the scarring of many others who had to experience this awful event, aggressive news reporting, especially at the local level, has documented warnings and complaints preceding the collapse of the building.

Yet, there were no official warnings for tenants to leave.

On Sunday, the city confirmed that firefighters were on the scene the day before the collapse. (The Times first reported this development.) Inspectors from the city’s development and neighborhood services department also were there, though the city said as work went on, “external shoring was in place with no observable signs of difficulty or bowing in the external shoring.”

There also remain questions about the city’s decision a day after the collapse to transition from rescue to recovery operations and announce it was going to commence demolition the next day. It was after this that a woman was unexpectedly found in the building.

On Monday, nearly two weeks later, crews were beginning to knock down parts of the structure. WQAD-TV was offering a livestream of the demolition on Tuesday.

Despite the extensive reporting on this incident, I’m sure there are a lot of things we don’t know about the response to the collapse, what happened in the days ahead of it and, also importantly, in the months and years before that.

One thing about lawyers: They’ll explore all these angles.

I hope these cases make it to the jury stage. Too often, settlements leave outstanding questions.

At least at the federal level, the decline in the number of trials has long been documented, but I don’t think a lot of people know how rare it truly is. One study said just 1% of federal civil cases go to trial, while only 2% of criminal cases in the federal system get to the trial stage.

Lawyers and judges believe damage caps, mandatory arbitration, sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences are the most common reasons for the decline in jury trials, according to a 2020 report by the American Bar Association.

The jury system has long been seen as an important way to advance the rights of the community in the administration of justice and provide a safeguard against overzealous prosecutors or biased judges.

Whether it’s determining whether Donald Trump committed a crime or affixing culpability in the collapse of the Davenport apartment building, the court system — and juries — are how we will best get at the facts and achieve justice.

I trust this system. I trust, in both of these cases, it will serve us well.

Planning our future

Last weekend, about 20 members of the Iowa Writers Collaborative met in the Amanas for meetings over two days.

The idea was to share best practices and grow our audience. And, as it was the Amanas, we ate well, too.

The collaborative was formed last year, initially as a response to the decline in commentary in Iowa’s traditional newspapers. But now, it’s expanded to encompass a wide range of writing and thoughtful reporting and commentary that used to be common in Sunday newspapers.

We’re all over the state, too, and we cover topics like politics, media, food, culture, poetry, humor, the environment and more.

Last week, Teresa Zilk wrote about a woman who’s a “violence interrupter” in Des Moines; Dave Busiek authored a piece about a former Voice of America head who, according to a federal inquiry, abused the powers of his office yet got no pushback from Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst. Meanwhile, Beth Hoffman’s “In the Dirt” column featured a lesson on the importance of eating pasture-raised meat, how to find it — and how to cook it.

Laura Belin also offers her own take on the response by Iowa’s governor to the Trump indictment.

That’s just for starters.

We’ve also developed a podcast feature.

I encourage you to get to know my fellow Iowa writers, most of whom are pictured in the photo above, and follow their work by subscribing to the collaborative’s newsletter, which rounds up our work every Sunday and puts it in one place.

By all means, keep subscribing to your Sunday newspaper, but spend some time with us, too. It will be worth it.

Where have you been?

I’ve been getting this question lately. I haven’t posted a new column for a few weeks, and I think some folks wondered whether I’d taken an extended vacation.

The answer is I’ve been working on a longer piece about poverty.

The article isn’t ready for publication yet, but it will be soon.

This is one of the challenges of producing this newsletter. In my more than three decades at the Quad-City Times, I believe I provided my greatest value to readers by spending time researching and writing stories that weren’t just here today and gone tomorrow.

Whether it was politics, government or demographic trends, these stories were of great satisfaction to me — and, I think, to readers.

With a whole newspaper around me, I could afford the time to do that. But now that I’m on my own, it’s tougher to put in the work on these longer stories and still offer readers the frequency that they have a right to expect.

Rest assured, I’m working to earn your support. I’ll see you soon.