LSAT 104, Section 3, RC Passage 1, Impartial Juries

RC Passage 1 Explanation

Paragraph Summaries

1. Mass media has made it hard to find jury members who know nothing about crimes that happened in their communities.
2. Some critics say that changes of venue and judicial instructions to juries don’t work.
3. Voir dire often doesn’t work either.
4. Some countries have responded by getting rid of the old solutions, without replacing them. A better solution would be to recognize that the average citizen will be aware of crimes.

Analysis

This passage is an argument, though it’s not always obvious.

The author’s conclusion is that we should allow people to serve on juries even if they know about the alleged crime.

The author goes through all the proposed remedies to this problem, and one by one he shows they don’t work.

Therefore, says the author, the only solution is to stop caring whether jury members know about the alleged crime.

The author thinks that an impartial jury should have members who represent the average citizen. Since the average citizen has prior knowledge of crimes, they should be allowed to sit on juries.

Lines 52-58 show the author’s conclusion. Whenever an author makes an argument, it’s extremely important to know exactly what the conclusion is.

You don’t need to remember all the details on a passage like this. But you do need to know to look in paragraphs two and three if a question asks you about the failed remedies, for example.