Joe,
The sentence that I quoted is from Chapter 8, "The Paper Building", of
John Guinther's book, The Jury in America (ISBN 0-8160-1727-7).  This
chapter discusses a number of attacks on the jury system in America by
some prosecutors, plaintiffs, defendants, judges, legislators, people
called up for jury duty, and taxpayers-- who argue that some legal
cases:
*  Are too complex.
*  Will take too long.
    AND/OR
*  Will require too specialized knowledge for a jury empaneled from
   ordinary citizens to decide.

I read the sentence as satire, and dead-on point for the RoHS Directive,
Senate Bill 20, China RoHS, etc., banning the use of lead in electronic
solders and platings.

Let me quote the entire paragraph from page 210:
   "Perhaps not always.  A case can occur which is so complicated that
   neither a judge nor a jury (or, for that matter, the contesting
   lawyers and their clients) can understand it.  In that event, the
   judge's supposed superior intelligence if of no moment, and the jury
   remains the preferable forum, since, even though it will be as
   bewildered as everyone else, by permitting it we are upholding the
   Seventh Amendment's implicit purpose of bringing the community's
   sense of fairness into play; for that reason, its guess may be better
   than the judge's and could not be worse.  The occasional case of this
   kind-- incomprehensible to any rational person under existant law--
   may be inappropriate to adjudication and should be placed before a
   legislative body where rationality has never been a necessary
   criterion for solving anything."

If you are wondering why was I reading this particular book, I received
a summons for jury duty just before Christmas.  (For the first time in
my life, having lived in Lexington, Kentucky for almost 30 years.)  I
applied for a permanent exemption, based on my having had surgery for
colon cancer over 11 years ago.  But I decided that if Kentucky wanted
me to serve anyway, I was going to be extremely-well prepared to serve
as a juror.  Therefore, just like I attack most problems, I went to the
(public) library and started checking out-- and reading from
cover-to-cover-- every book that I could find on jury duty.

This was about book #10, and I was reading it while printing out some
really long reports on lead-free electronics.  When I came to this
sentence, I spent about three minutes reading it over and over, thinking
about the 10's of billions of dollars that have already been wasted
because of the MEPs' (Morons of the European Paliament?) passing the
RoHS Directive.

John Barnes KS4GL, PE, NCE, NCT, ESDC Eng, ESDC Tech, PSE, SM IEEE
dBi Corporation
http://www.dbicorporation.com/

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