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  3. Many Americans regard the jury system as a concrete expression of crucial democratic values, including the principles that all c

Many Americans regard the jury system as a concrete expression of crucial democratic values, including the principles that all c

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问题     Many Americans regard the jury system as a concrete expression of crucial democratic values, including the principles that all citizens who meet minimal qualifications of age and literacy are equally competent to serve on juries; that jurors should be selected randomly from a representative cross section of the community; that no citizen should be denied the right to serve on a jury on account of race, religion, sex, or national origin; that defendants are entitled to trial by their peers; and that verdicts should represent the conscience of the community and not just the letter of the law. The jury is also said to be the best surviving example of direct rather than representative democracy. In a direct democracy, citizens take turns governing themselves, rather than electing representatives to govern for them.
    But as recently as in 1968, jury selection procedures conflicted with these democratic ideals. In some states, for example, jury duty was limited to persons of supposedly superior intelligence, education, and moral character. Although the Supreme Court of the United States had prohibited intentional racial discrimination in jury selection as early as the 1880 case of Strauder v. West Virginia, the practice of selecting so-called elite or blue-ribbon juries provided a convenient way around this and other antidiscrimination laws。
    The system also failed to regularly include women on juries until the mid-20th century. Although women first served on state juries in Utah in 1898, it was not until the 1940s that a majority of states made women eligible for jury duty. Even then several states automatically exempted women from jury duty unless they personally asked to have their names included on the jury list. This practice was justified by the claim that women were needed at home, and it kept juries unrepresentative of women through the 1960s.
    In 1968, the Congress of the United States passed the Jury Selection and Service Act, ushering in a new era of democratic reforms for the jury. This law abolished special educational requirements for federal jurors and required them to be selected at random from a cross section of the entire community. In the landmark 1975 decision Taylor v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court extended the requirement that juries be representative of all parts of the community to the state level. The Taylor decision also declared sex discrimination in jury selection to be unconstitutional and ordered states to use the same procedures for selecting male and female jurors.
The practice of selecting so-called elite jurors prior to 1968 showed_________.
选项 A、the inadequacy of antidiscrimination laws
B、the prevalent discrimination against certain races
C、the conflicting ideals in jury selection procedures
D、the arrogance common among the Supreme Court judges
答案A
解析 本题考查考生对细节进行总结概括的能力。文章第二、三段分别分析了陪审团制度与民主化理想之间的冲突。第二段最后一句话指出，“虽然早在1880年strauder诉West Virginia案中，美国最高法院已经严禁在陪审员的挑选中存在故意的种族歧视，但是所谓的挑选精英陪审员为逃避这个规定以及其他反歧视法律提供了一种便利途径。”本句为该题的正确答案提供了依据。因此选项[A]“反歧视法律的不完备”为正确选项。选项[B]“对某个种族的普遍歧视”，过于宽泛，故为干扰项。选项[C]“陪审员挑选过程中的相互冲突的理念”，与原文不符。选项[D]“在最高法院法官之间常见的傲慢”，也与原文没有关系。
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考研英语一

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