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Guilty or not guilty?

Where does our sense of justice come from? We all have an innate sense of what’s OK and what’s not. And it’s usually pretty refined.   I was on jury duty last week in Gainesville, GA. One of the cases before us featured a woman who left her two kids (nine and five) in the car while she wen…
By Seth Barnes
Where does our sense of justice come from? We all have an innate sense of what’s OK and what’s not. And it’s usually pretty refined.
 
I was on jury duty last week in Gainesville, GA. One of the cases before us featured a woman who left her two kids (nine and five) in the car while she went into the Walmart to get a few things. They were asleep, it wasn’t too hot, and she didn’t want to wake them, so she locked the car and ran in.
 
It took less than half an hour, but when she returned, she was arrested for negligence. She sat before a jury that convicted her. She had to pay a fine of $500 per child and do two days in jail.
 
If you sat on the jury would you convict her? If so, what penalty would you assign her? This internal sense of justice we’ve got fascinates me. Is it God speaking to us or is it just some cultural norm we’ve absorbed?
 
Once you’ve formulated a conclusion – ask this question: What was wrong or right about it and how should it get set right?

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