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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 5, 1976)
V Vol. 77, No. 124 Eugene, Oregon 97403 Monday, April 5,1976 Jury duty ‘frustrating’ experience By NICK GALLO Of the Emerald Mark Twain, in characteristic hyperbole, called them human donkeys, ignorant and prejudiced, unable to distinguish between arson and incest. To a defendant, they are designed to be his or her peers. "You have heard the evidence, you are the exclusive judges of fact.” The right to a trial by jury carries with it society's power to compel citizen participa tion on juries. Ken Paul. University associate professor of fine arts, recently concluded a jury term of one month in Eugene He says it was “scary and frustrating, a helluva responsi bility." He adds that he would never want to do it again. In 1350 England, records reveal that juries were deprived of food and water until they reached a verdict. Today, pressures still exist, not the least of which are For ASUO positions Three days left to file There are only three days left to file for ASUO President, Incidental Fee Commit tee (IFC) and six OSPIRG positions. Filing deadline for all three races is 5 p.m. Wed nesday, and prospective candidates must submit petitions and voter's guide state ments by that time. Maximum words allowed for the voter's guide statements are 500 for presidential contenders, 150 for IFC and 100 for OS PIRG, according to ASUO Vice-president Kirby Garrett. These statements will be in cluded in the mail-out ballot packets scheduled to be sent April 21 and 22, Gar rett said. The packets will also include com puter card ballots, postage-paid return en velopes and detailed explanations on how the new voting system functions. Deadlines for filing for Student University Affairs Board (SUAB) positions and class officers have been extended to April 14. These races will not be included on the mail-out ballots. Voting for class officers will be conducted in Suite 4, EMU, during last week of April. SUAB ballots will be cast in departmental offices. Voter s guide statements submitted by contestants in those races will be made available at the polling locations. The SUAB race will not be included in the mail-out ballot because including it would require compiling current computer print out information on all students enrolled and their academic majors, according to Gar rett. That information is “impossible" to ob tain this early in the term, he said. economic hardships. An Oregon juror re ceives $10 a day and traveling expenses. ‘‘A guy sitting next to me told me he was losing $60 a day," says Paul. "It really in trudes on your life. It makes you wonder how it affects people's votes.” Loud and harsh criticism of the jury sys tem in the 1960s forced some dramatic and controversial jury reform. Some states, in cluding Oregon, now use six rather than twelve-member juries at times. The move to speed up jury selection came after cases such as a Black Panther trial in Connecticut which took 17 weeks to assemble a jury out of 1,500 prospective jurors. Oregon also allows for a 10-2 decision rather than a unanimous verdict in certain cases. Paul has reservations about this, but thinks it was beneficial in his cases. "After a long time deliberating, it seemed the issue of right and wrong became sec ondary," he says. “It came down to coming out for one side and sticking by your guns." But he adds "The social structure makes the foreman influential to some extent, and everyone is aware that no agreement means a hung jury." The most serious allegation made by jury critics goes back to Mark Twain. Do juries fail at the job of finding facts? “The problem is, neither side would give us all the facts,” Paul says. “We were handed half-truths all the time. In one case we honestly had nothing to go on, and that's when jurors start looking at a {Continued on Page 11) Lobbyists want student fee control By NICK GALLO Of the Emerald The Associated Oregon Student Lobby (AOSL) voted unanimously Saturday to en dorse the concept of total student control over incidental fees. “This is an extremely important deci sion,” said Kirby Garrett, AOSL chairer. “We now have collective, statewide strength to present to the Legislature.” Presently, decisions made by the Inci dental Fee Committee at the University must be approved by University Pres. Wil liam Boyd and the State Board of Higher Education. “Onthis campus it would mean students controlling student monies without any in terference — without a veto power hanging over them," Garrett said. “The effect could be even greater at other schools where they limit student control to certain areas such as educational matters only.” Garrett indicated that as consumers of education, students must have this power to protect the education they are paying for. The AOSL will submit its endorsement to the Interim Committee of State Govern ment Operations April 24. In other matters, the AOSL voted to table a collective bargaining “last best offer” mo tion until its next meeting. Under the pro posal an arbitrator could break an impasse in collective bargaining by selecting either labor’s best offer or the administration's best offer. Proponents argued that this clause would bring the two parties closer together during negotiations if both sides knew it was an “either-or” situation. But some AOSL members did not agree. "Only if students were involved in two party negotiations could this work to our advantage," said Garrett. “With our present status it appears to restrict students' power in affecting a final offer.” AOSL also voted to withhold endorse ment of any candidates running for the stu dent vacancy on the State Board of Higher Education. Since a candidate could con ceivably come out of the ranks of the lobby organization itself, AOSL members agreed any endorsement would be inappropriate. New business on the AOSL agenda in cluded research into the idea of state in come tax credit for students. This would help defray increased costs in tuition and books. But opposition from some lobby members who feel energy could be better spent lobbying for increased state revenue for higher education has already formed. Solar power beats rate hike (CPS) — Texas Power and Light Co. fi nally pushed the rural town of Bridgeport too far. The 3,600 residents decided not to go along with the latest rate increase, and opted to have their electricity cut off within three years instead. As an alternative, the city fathers have decided to have a solar electricity generator built for the city. The generator, designed by a Nevada company, will use solar collectors to heat water. The hot water will then heat liquid silicon which will run a hydraulic en gine and generator for the city.
