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Comment by quickthrower2 | Hacker News Reader

Yeah I can't see how a jury would not convict on murder unless there is some technicality or excluded evidence.

Robert Durst got away with killing and dismembering his victim because his defense claimed self-defense while shifting the jury's attention and anger toward the prosecutor for being an ambitious woman. If you haven't seen HBO's The Jinx it's well worth the time and absolutely terrifying to see how easily manipulated a jury can be.

While that's fascinating and creepy

I just want to point out that the Danish jury system have very little incommon with the American jury system

Professional jury vs a jury system basically designed to ensure the least qualified people are in the jury

Can you please elaborate the point "professional jury vs a jury system basically designed to ensure the least qualified people are in the jury" ?

The way the "jury of your peers" is selected in the american justice system means that sometimes if a person actually has any knowledge in the field the case is about (say a computer scientist in a software patent infringement case) they will be filtered out in the jury selection process. On top of that, jury duty is seen as something to be avoided, so there's also the adage that juries only consist of people not smart enough to get out of jury duty.

In contrast to Denmark, where in a lot of cases the jury is the three judges preceding over the case, or in cases where there's a real jury, they jurors have some form of law degree

Okay ! Didn't know this - thank you for your explanation.

I just researched to make sure I got it right

I'm wrong about the jurors usually having a law degree. Maybe. Apparently each jurisdiction has a committee that creates a short list every 4 years of people suited for jury duty. I can find no further info on what "Suited for jury duty" means, so the "has a law degree" thing might be untrue

Denmark doesn't really have jury trials, all trials are judged purely by a judge.

This is to ensure the facts matter more than how they are represented.

Not true. All trials where it can give 4 or more years of prison have a full jury trial (Nævningeting).

Smaller but serious trials have a limited jury (domsmænd) if the accused claim they are not guilty.

But these are not juries of peers.

What would you say the difference is between a nævningeting And a jury of peers?

It's the difference between professionals and amateurs, besides that the judges can overrule the jury.

According to Wikipedia they can overrule a guilty verdict, but not a non-guilty verdict. I think that's actually very similar to America, where judges can set aside a jury guilty verdict if they deem "no reasonable jury" could convict based on the presented evidence.

Nævninge are not professionals in any way. They are selected from the general population. The judge can only overrule a guilty verdict, not a not guilty verdict.

> Nævninge are not professionals in any way.

Hm, apologies. I was under the impression they are not laypeople.

Thank you for correcting me. Question: does this imply that Denmark also has a jury duty?

Edit: this later comment makes me doubt again...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15081350

So, reading a bit, it seems to work like this.

There is a jury duty in the sense that if you are asked to serve as lay judge you can not refuse. However, in practice the system is set up so that only volunteers get asked.

Every 4 years, each municipal council (kommune) provides a list (grundlisten) of candidates for lay judges (nævning). The list must be representative of general demographics. To be eligible for the list, you must be "suitable" for the role (which seems to mean you should not have a criminal background), and you must not be a lawyer, prosecutor, judge, or police officer. The cities can use their own procedures to compile the list, but in practice the way it works is you write to the selection committee giving your name, age, job title, and motivation for why you want to be a lay judge.

The lists are combined, and about 10,000 people are randomly selected from them. If you are selected you have a duty to serve. You serve for a period of 4 years, and will typically sit on 4 to 5 cases per year.

https://www.frederiksberg.dk/politik/kommunalbestyrelsen-og-... http://www.domstol.dk/saadangoerdu/tildigderer/naeavningdoms...

Thank you for this comment, that's more than I could find about it, even with Google translate it can be quite hard to understand what is written on a page in a language you do not understand.

Wow if you are called to serve that'd make you quite unattractive to employers, and would limit your movements e.g. working abroad?

There's always something. Look at the OJ Simpson case. Bizzare to say the least, especially the whole Mark Furhman saga.

Only an extremely small fraction of the trials in Denmark are jury trials.

All trials where it can give 4 or more years of prison have a full jury trial.

In that case I suspect mr. Madsen will have ample opportunity to waste the time of more people.

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