A jury of one's peers is normally guaranteed for the defendant in a case, not for witnesses in testimony.

A jury of one's peers is normally guaranteed for the defendant in a case, not for witnesses in testimony. But Washington follows different rules, and in the Libby case the journalists who were called in droves had a colleague in the box, and sometimes even a friend. Juror Denis Collins had prior relationships with several key witnesses: "Bob Woodward was my boss at the Washington Post for three or four years," he wrote in his trial diary; Collins had twice conversed with reporter Walter Pincus at parties thrown by a mutual friend; and Tim Russert had been his neighbor, and had Collins over for neighborhood barbecues. Friendship does not an impartial juror make, and though the press was not on trial here, the veracity of their claims was. Collins should never have made it onto that jury, just as Scooter Libby should never have been on trial. But such is justice in our capital, where the Sixth Amendment holds no sway.