The Orange-Chatham district attorney and a local civil rights lawyer are both speaking out against a proposed amendment to automatically allow criminal defendants the right to waive jury trial.

“The amendment will give prosecutors another lever to exact concessions out of defendants,” said Orange County Commissioner Mark Dorosin, who’s also the managing attorney at the UNC Center for Civil Rights.

North Carolina’s November midterm ballot includes a question for voters on whether the state constitution should be amended to allow criminal defendants the right to waive a jury trial, in favor of letting the judge decide their guilt or innocence.

Supporters of the proposed amendment say that it would cut down the judicial backlog, and save taxpayers money.

Dorosin said he agrees that those are important issues, but he’s not buying the proposed remedy.

“I don’t think that the solution is to add another tool in the state’s already ample arsenal of pushing or coercing defendants to accept a plea, or to make some other deal.”

The referendum hasn’t sparked much public discussion, or public interest. Dorosin said he figures that’s because most people don’t have direct contact with the criminal justice system, which means the issue doesn’t affect them so much.

Mark Dorosin

That, he said, is an important reason to vote against the amendment.

“Why would we want to take citizens out of this process — take citizens out of the public oversight role that they get by serving on a jury?”

District Attorney Jim Woodall for Orange and Chatham Counties is also opposed to the amendment. He said he’s concerned about other parties being taken out of the process: the state, law enforcement, the victims, and their families.

He said that defendants shouldn’t automatically be granted the decision about the nature of their trial.

“There are a lot of criminal cases where it’s important for the community to have a say in the guilt or innocence of a defendant,” said Woodall.

Woodall also pointed out that Superior Court judges appear on the bench on a rotating basis, which speaks to Dorosin’s point about community involvement in the criminal justice system.

“More often than not, we have an out-of-district judge conducting court here in Orange County,” said Woodall. “So we would have a person who does not even live in this district – perhaps has never lived anywhere near this district – being the voice of the community.”

North Carolina is the only state in the nation where defendants automatically get jury trials, a reason cited by the Independent Weekly for endorsing the amendment.