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Comment by iClaudiusX | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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

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