Jury duty should be a requirement

In regard to your Thursday editorial discussing jury duty: Having sat in Los Angeles Superior Court in the capacity of court reporter for 25 years, I would like to share my thoughts.

It is my firm belief that each and every citizen should be required to serve jury “duty.” Most of our citizens go through life without ever putting a foot in a courtroom, except perhaps in the case of a divorce or a small civil dispute. The majority of people have no idea what goes on in court or exactly how it operates. What exactly is the function of the judge, the clerk, the bailiff and the court reporter?

A juror will see, and have a chance to judge, how we interact between ourselves and our community. Trials were so interesting, in general. Sometimes I couldn’t wait for court and the commencement of whatever trial we were on. The judges, attorneys and witnesses were like characters in an exciting book or play. I would go home wondering how that witness came forward and why certain witnesses or plaintiffs or defendants did what they did.

Trust me: You become very involved. And it is a wonderful thing to know you contributed. (I know this because I would often join the attorneys afterward as they discussed the decision with the jurors.)

Jurors would often complain that they were kept waiting for hours and then dismissed. This seemed to them a waste of time. But the judge would always remind them that their very presence closed a case — be it criminal or civil — in that both sides knew that the jury was waiting to be seated. They would, therefore, either plead guilty or settle, thereby saving the state much money and time.

Be proud to be a juror. It is one time when justice is in your hands.

Sandy Runkle

Henderson

Gun vote

I’ve noticed some new commercials trying to make the case for supporting Question 1, the gun background check initiative. The latest one features District Attorney Steve Wolfson telling us how this measure is going to close loopholes and save us from the bad guys. It then shows said bad guys furtively exchanging money for guns on a dark street corner somewhere.

This very commercial perfectly illustrates just how useless this measure would be.

The implication is that if it were just a requirement to get a background check, then these bad guys would have no choice but to stop being bad guys. Maybe they could also explain why people who know they couldn’t pass a background check would waste their time and money trying to pass one now?

We already have laws, rules and regulations stacked to the rafters that make it illegal for criminals to do the things they do, but they do them anyway. The only people this latest effort is going to affect are people we didn’t have to worry about in the first place. For criminals, it is simply one more law they will ignore.

Finally, this whole thing was conceived and financed by out-of-state gun control groups headed by Michael Bloomberg, the same guy who tried to legislate the size of soft drinks in New York City. Now he hopes voters will take these slick commercials and mailers at face value without pausing to think about how little sense they make.

There’s plenty of information out there, folks. Please check it out before you take the first step toward turning Nevada into New York, California or Illinois.

Bob Dixon

Las Vegas