Most people don't take the jury trial because they can't afford the lawyers fees.
I agree that people might challenge bullshit cases by going to trial more often if fees were more affordable. Too bad there's no free market for professional legal services.
I've had a couple pretty good lawyers inform me it would be more sensible to take the plea.
And they weren't "bullshit cases". Some of them involved doing real time.
One of those lawyers, I knew since I was five. But they still gotta get paid.
And doing the whole "jury" thing is pretty expensive.
So they use their clout to say "heres a pretty decent white guy I've known a long while, and he has relatively no criminal past." And they pleabargain it down to minimum, and everybody shakes hands and walks away. And the lawyer slaps you on the back and says "you got off lucky", meanwhile knowing he might have to pay for that favor one day, representing some guy who happens to be on the losing side of a better crony.
When in a jury, maybe you'd have been found not guilty - period. And it wouldn't have been incumbent upon who knows whom, and who owes who favors.
Thats not exactly justice. Thats intimidation and a lack of funds to execute the whole process to its fullest within a sterile and impartial environment.
I know I wouldn't expect my whole "right to legal council" court-appointed defense to be as ... viciously protective ? as I would a million-dollar lawyer. And if thats what passes for "blind justice" in our supposedly equal system, I think it's pretty fuckin' wack.