"Court cases are often handled by a jury. Now who are on the jury? Ordinary citizens with no legal training."
A few points on this quote.
Not all cases are decided by juries. The petitioner (the Plaintiff) in a civil suit I believe has the right to have the case heard by a jury or by the court (the Judge is decider of both law and fact). It is the reverse for criminal cases.
Jurors are not allowed to use their legal training if they have any. This is by design. It is the Judge's responsibility to make legal decisions (what evidence can and cannot be heard). It is the juries' responsibility to be the decider of fact (is the evidence credible or not and what is the weight of the evidence).
If the parties elect for a jury trial the first step is sitting a jury. This is a lengthy process. The purpose is to make sure no one on a jury presents any conflict of interest or is ineligible. Jurors must be unbiased toward the suit being heard and have no connection to the parties of the case.
The attorneys representing the Watchtower would make sure that no juror on a case they are defending is -
- A current Jehovah's Witness
- A former Jehovah's Witness
- Related to a current or former Jehovah's Witness
- Knows the Plaintiff
- Knows about other cases involving the Watchtower
The attorneys are presented with a list of the jurors and their backgrounds. The Watchtower's attorney's could easily cross reference the list with publisher records to see if any of the perspective jurors are current or former Witnesses.
In addition, each side gets a number of "strikes". This allows an attorney to remove perspective jurors from the jury panel without cause. The attorney needs no legal argument. The person is just excused. No questions asked.
If the strikes from both sides and the persons struck for cause (there is a legal argument for the person not to be a juror) dwindles the pool down to less then the minimum number of jurors required this is called a "busted panel". A whole new jury panel has to be brought in. Keep in mind that jury panels range from 50 to 200 people in most cases.
The point I am getting at is Splane's accusation is highly misleading. In a sense Splane is saying that the Watchtower's attorneys are incompetent legal counsel as the are allowing people to serve on a jury that have no business doing the job.