Trial by Judges

CHRISTIE DAVIES

IN ALL THE wringing of hands about race, civil rights, and the relations between police and public occasioned by the Rodney King verdicts, no one has dared to criticize that sacred cow, “trial by jury.” No institution competing in the marketplace would ever survive if at its core it had a system of decision-making like this, one which is about as reliable as an examination of the entrails of a ritually sacrificed free-range rooster.