jboot, Your account of the “dumbing down” process during jury selection is appalling and all too true.
A biggest part of the problems w/ our jury system can be summed up in one word: lawyers. Apply such descriptive adjectives as you see fit in a given case - smart slick sleazy crooked paid-off dirty stupid uninterested etc and many more. This lawyer pool is to include the trial judges and the lawmakers that craft our laws and helped to form the rules of evidence. And also all in the appellate system up to and including the Supremes.
There is a reason why lawyer jokes are so ghastly funny. They are true.
So, the opinions expressed here are not new.