Moses -- great points on our legal system. I've noticed that most people smart enough to understand the case usually either find their way out of the "evil" of jury duty or get rejected in the first round of cuts.
I've also found, in my limited scope of military justice, that justice (even in the military) is bought and sold. Do we take him to a court martial and get real time in the brig, or do we just discharge him, because it'll cost thousands of dollars (that's a lot for a small command like mine) to get justice in this one?
On the bright side, the jury is a randomly picked batch of people who have no excuse and cannot really be rejected by either attorney. Attorneys are, in fact, randomly chosen. The downside is that they're free, so when you tell a kid "You have the right to a free lawyer," they get pretty excited, and I get a lot of kids who think they're entitled to something wasting a lot of time (and the Navy's money!) with attorneys.
Military justice isn't perfect, but it's a fair sight better than the civilian version. Knowing Kerry's an attorney really puts his waffling in perspective -- he's just placing the audience in the role of judge, and himself in the role of the accused. He'll say whatever it takes to get a good verdict.
Dan