If all we did was focus on unpleasant or awful aspects of the news (which, to a great extent we do), then the copious amounts of news stories about juries giving large sums of money based on fuzzy legal issues or due to personal injury cases involving fools would cause many of use to pull out our hair in anger.  Or assemble a militia to go after these plaintiffs making off with a windfall of money.  However, even though lawyers participate in the process of voir dire to weed out prospective jurors, this process can take some time and this happens to be the longest amount of time spent for the average citizen during jury duty. 

Despite the probing questions, during which the lawyers ask whether the jurors know anything about the case, the individuals in court, and a variety of other topics.  Sentiments, prejudices, and opinions tend to surface at this time, but we can't say with any certainty that the juror's opinions may pop out and the case may be decided by an issue totally unrelated to the trial (as the O.J. Case from 1997 taught us); issues such as racism, political sentiments, or something that hits a personal nerve.

Of course, there aren't many cases decided through "Law and Order" -style formats, but generally, the public at large isn't too inspiring when it comes to intelligence.  Mark Twain famously said that "we have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is marred only by the difficulty of finding twelve men everyday who don't know anything and can't read.'"  I would agree with this sentiment.   Furthermore, renowned 19th-century individualist/anarchist philosopher Lysander Spooner criticized juries from his era as being "the tools of the retired business interests."  Apparently, opinions about the public and their responsibility in the criminal justice system.

Rather than waste time and try the patience of the individuals selected for jury duty, why not institute a professional jury system?  We have an abundance of lawyers in this nation (approximately 2.2 per person), some of whom perhaps are unemployed or underemployed.  Why not use this section of the population as a pool of professional jurors?  Lawyers, by their profession, spend their careers in the courtroom, and serving as a juror would serve a few purposes:
     1.  Trials can begin almost immediately, as the jury selction process can be eliminated, saving the legal system money since the county won't need to mail jury summons notices to thousands of people.
     2.  Judges won't need to instruct juries about what evidence to withdraw, restrict, or otherwise be guarded against.
     3.  Jurors will have an already thorough understanding of the legal process in question.
     4.  Professional juries will free the rest of the public from taking time off from work (or, in the case of Grand Jury summonses) with little to no guarantee that their employer will treat the employee fairly (which, by law, they must). 
     5.  If nothing else, trained lawyers could use this as an internship of sorts; almost a form of student-teaching experience that new teachers endure, in order to get more experience hearing court cases for their future professional careers.

When it comes to payment, it will certainly cost more than the current  to pay for jurors, but even if jurors were payed $150 per person per day, that would still save money in this system, since the courts won't need to pay money for mailings, save money because the voir dire process will save hours off the court case.  Of course, saving money in the court proceedings for one profession may cut the pay for other court professionals making far less than lawyers.  Court reporters, stenographers, court attendants, and other valuable but lower payed professionals would probably see their wages drop based on the hours saved in this process.

Type in "preofessional jury" on your favorite internet search engine and you'll get several thousand hits on other blogs regarding this topic.  Oddly, I had no idea that this topic could generate so much thought and interest.  I spoke about this topic a decade ago and wrote a paper about it in college (this is where I found out about Lysander Spooner).  But I suppose that the other writers have had local court cases to earn their ire. 

Certainly, a professional jury needs to have the pay scale situation resolved, but overall, having a jury of trained lawyers would better serve the legal system and this nation in general.  Having knowledgeable and impartial jurors from the beginning of the trial is more beneficial than the current option.  Potential money saved could be one benefit, but perhaps having a professional jury system could eliminate the possibility that court cases could be retried based on discrepencies with the jury from the previous trial.

Just a thought.