North Carolina voters will soon decide if criminal defendants will be allowed the option of a bench trial. Under the proposed Amendment, which passed the state House and Senate with only a single dissenting vote, suspects can choose to have a trial judge determine the outcome of the case instead of a jury. Opponents of the change will have a hard time gainsaying the new law because it saves time, money and 49 states and the federal government already use bench trials. In other words, this option is only new to North Carolina and voters should consider why it has taken this long to catch up with the rest of the country. Why have defendants been forced to rely on juries despite all of their problems?

I envy the legal systems of states utilizing bench trials. The defendants who got to have a judge decide the case don't have to worry about racial bias in the selection of jurors, nor will there be any concern the trier of facts is ignorant of the law, unfamiliar with crime scene contamination, falsified confessions, statistics, serology, DNA and ballistics reports, psychiatric diagnoses, the fallibility of witnesses, and other expert testimony. That's because the judge is an expert in the practice and knowledge of the law, and he or she is well qualified to deal with anything an attorney brings up.

Juries, by contrast, are generally ignorant of the law even when given uncomplicated instructions about a very small part of it. Jurors are typically the last people to know anything about a case, unless they've researched it online or otherwise heard about it prior to selection. As a collection of "peers" it can only be said they are human beings who are susceptible to suggestion, lies, personal bias, and the misfortune of being forced to do their civic duty. The very last thing an ordinary member of the community should be is a trier of facts in a court room, but this is the legal system we have in America.

It's a shame, really, that attorneys must rely on this group of lay people to comprehend their arguments. Some jurors try real hard to pay attention to the facts, but a savvy prosecutor can manipulate emotions and command the jury's allegiance without ever referencing the truth. No matter how twisted the logic or histrionic their actions, emotional appeals to the unwary work under most circumstances. Take, for example, DNA evidence. It requires expert testimony to interpret laboratory results but a jury will only hear what a prosecutor screams or objects to. The DNA expert is subject to be ignored in the wake of a fiery "I OBJECT!" A judge might better understand the nuances of a particular science, but the jury? Forget it.

If a judge were asked to consider a death sentence as a possible punishment, but first they must determine guilt or innocence, I believe he or she could compartmentalize each phase of the trial and remain impartial. Ordinary citizens (let's stop calling them peers) who think about bills, lost wages, childcare, and a thousand other things besides the facts in a case, are unlikely to pay attention let alone remain impartial. They are not trained jurists, merely victims of a bureaucratic lottery that provides the illusion of fairness on imbalanced scales of justice.

Juries area critical problem plaguing the criminal justice system, a fatal flaw upon which is heaped the most responsibility in the courtroom. Even a barely competent defendant has a better chance of understanding the process simply because he or she has a vested interest. The bailiff, who is little more than basic security, likely knows more about trying facts than any citizen juror unless they've had prior experience. If such were discovered during voir dire the potential juror would be dismissed. Well meaning jurors are supposed to be ignorant, but intuitive enough to listen and be critical of both sides while carefully weighing the facts as they apply to the law. I would rather take my chances playing Russian roulette with five bullets and one empty chamber.

Fortunately, jury trials are not that common. About 90% of criminal cases never go to trial, instead plea bargains are struck to save time and money while keeping the bowels of the system loose. For the unfortunate percentage forced into jury trials they must undergo the farce that is an understanding and impartial jury. It doesn't have to be this way.

The best solution is to eliminate forced jury trials and grant the option of a bench trial in every criminal case -- especially those involving capital murder.

If I am to be compelled into a situation where my life and liberty depend on who is paying attention to the arguments in a case, then I want an expert to decide my fate, not a group of strangers who may not mean well and will probably think of everything but the facts. If whether or not I spend the rest of my life in a prison cell or die by lethal injection depends on what kind of person my trier of facts is than, please God, give me a bench trial every time. At least this way, with one qualified judge, I stand a better chance of receiving justice rather than the mythical version that is the jury trial.

A jury. As a teenager I vaguely understood this to mean a group of people who would decide if I was guilty of murder and whether this meant I should die for the crimes. My understanding of the process began and ended there.

Jury selection for my capital murder trial was odd in that way getting picked to play dodge ball in grade school is anticipatory of a winning and losing team. Each choice made at the beginning seems measured as you go for favorites and hope the other guy doesn't eliminate the ones you want. In voir dire you have to hope the potential juror who looks and sounds reasonably objective is not secretively some ultraconservative fundamentalist. If he or she is reasonable you also have to hope the DA doesn't use a preemptory challenge. Sitting at the defense table with a bailiff nearby and attorneys bookending the seats to my left and right, it seemed all of the reasonable people were absent or removed for cause or excused by the prosecution.

For those who don't know, the preemptory challenge removes a potential juror from the pool without needing to justify the removal. Both the prosecution and defense are allowed 14 of these free rejections during jury selection.

I was under no illusion this would be a jury of my peers in the sense they were like me, unless living and breathing and human were our only similarities. It was apparent from the pool most of these citizens with jobs, families, and opinions about the case knew nothing about me as a person. They likely did not care what I thought or felt. I could only hope we picked at least six people willing to listen -- even if such a hope was naïve.

The selection took about a week. This one heard about the case and formed an opinion, that one knew a cousin of a friend who went to school with one of the victims. I have to support my family of five, your honor, besides, he looks guilty. The guys in jail for a reason, ain't he? Kill him. He don't need a trial. It's against my religion. I get these really bad migraines. I can't leave my dogs alone for a single moment or they'll be sick with worry. It'll create an undue hardship on my family, your honor . . . . The excuses were many and for those not quick enough with a plausible lie or actually interested in doing their civic duty the first obstacle in their selection was cleared.

Being removed for cause just meant there was a legitimate reason a potential juror could not sit on the jury. In this circumstance it's the judge who agrees to excuse the person from service. Not all of the reasons sounded ridiculous. I was glad at times because the hatred, fear, disgust, self-righteousness, apathy, or anger and cruelty were plain to see on the faces of many -- like war paint or poorly drawn clown faces with mean looks and bulbous noses. One woman was absolutely against the death penalty and all for building more prisons. "Why your honor, if I could," she said "as soon as they arrest a person it's obvious they're guilty so why not put them in prison and leave us honest folk alone?" The scary and discouraging part is considering how many people thought such things and worse, but kept their mouths shut and were picked as jurors.

I guess for juries, "reasonable" means some fantastic ideal that doesn't exist in the sphere of capital murder trials. Not even when the phrase "beyond reasonable doubt" is used. I should have lowered my expectations. Hope is a foolish thing when you sit at the defendant's table selecting a jury, but you couldn't have convinced me without providing a glimpse into the future.

Once the obviously unsuitable candidates were eliminated the real selecting began. You don't want him - he's a Mason. Or her, she's too eager. Or that one -- he's too white collar. We don't want that one -- her brother's father in law is a cop. The standard my attorneys used to pick jurors was simple: anyone rejected by the prosecution is somebody we want, but since we can't have those we will take whatever we can get. In the end none of it really mattered because the DA had the final say so.

With twelve jurors and two alternates ready the trial was set to begin the following Monday. Both prosecutors wore smug looks the way people accustomed to getting their way do. My attorneys studiously ignored me, talking about where they would eat lunch as they packed away loose papers. Me? I sat dazed and quiet, dizzy from the cocktail of medications prescribed to me by a jailhouse shrink. All of my thoughts and emotions were smothered as if by a thick layer of ice over a deep lake. A small bit of optimism tapped at the barrier preventing me from breaking the surface of that frigid water. It was the faint hope present in anyone who doesn't know what awaits them but keeps their fingers crossed just in case it isn't quite as bad as they suspect it will be.