Juries are necessary. Even if you just sit around, the fact that the court can assemble a jury on short notice helps move the justice system along. Many defendants (or their lawyers) will seek to plea bargain rather than face a trial by jury.
But I am opposed to the plea bargain system, and I don’t want to contribute to the process which facilitates it.
Prosecutors use the plea bargain system to force defendants to forgo trial by threatening to ask for maximum punishments, which are far out of proportion to the crime.
Lawmakers make sentencing guidelines with built in allowance for prosecutors to make leniency for plea bargains, which means that the ones who go to trial are being punished excessively.
We are basically punishing them for insisting on their right to trial.
I want no part in that.