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> Luckily, lay people are qualified to make those judgments. Whenever I have seen an actual jury at work, I have consistently been impressed by the degree to which folks can absorb the information presented at trial.

Having been through a jury trial for patent infringement, I saw nothing of the sort. My company was defending, and the plaintiffs dismissed every juror who had anything more than a high school degree. They were incapable of understanding any nuance in the engineering or math, and so they sided for the home team (the plaintiffs managed to get jurisdiction in their home town).

If you like, call it sour grapes because my company was on the losing side, but I think the majority of jurors are completely unequipped to understand basic science, mathematics, engineering, software, medicine, or technology.

>My company was defending, and the plaintiffs dismissed every juror who had anything more than a high school degree.

Your problem appears to be that you had a biased jury rather than a comment for trials by jury in general

His point is that the bias is systemic.

The jury is always biased by design. It’s never a goal to make the jury objective and/or competent, ever.

I thought both sides get to pick who is on the Jury?

I'm not sure how much the rules vary, but in our case there were 18 candidate jurors and both sides were allowed to dismiss 3 without cause or justification. Additionally, if either side could argue there was a cause, additional jurors could be dismissed (requiring new jurors to be summoned), but that didn't happen. The plaintiffs removed the 3 with any college at all.

Is the problem not that only 3 out of 18 had college-level education? That seems like a very low number.

That could be a representative sample of the area the trial was held in. Trial by jury of your peers means that some juries will be composed of mostly and sometimes even all "peers" with less formal education that most would think appropriate for the subject matter being discussed.

Right and both sides try to make the jury as biased as possible. trying to select for objectiveness is harmful.

Harmful to the side doing the picking or harmful to the justice process in general?

i would argue, both

>The jury is just there to evaluate the credibility of the competing experts who have offered opinions on that question.

It's not clear that they're competent to do this, either.

>If lay people are not equipped to evaluate such credibility, that calls into question the very underpinnings of our policy-making institutions.

Not necessarily. It just calls into question whether the system works well in this class of cases.

>Whenever I have seen an actual jury at work, I have consistently been impressed by the degree to which folks can absorb the information presented at trial.

Have you seen something even remotely comparable to the case being discussed here?

>Have you seen something even remotely comparable to the case being discussed here?

The tobacco cases come to mind.

I was part of one growing up, the jurors definitely were not just judging based on emotions or lack of facts. They end up voting on a series of yes/no questions that ultimately narrow down the decision. End of the day the judge is still in charge and if he doesn't like the result it will get tossed. We went through the process twice - winning both times no less.

Are you suggesting that the juries in those cases were competent to understand and evaluate the science of cancer?

Just because they happened to make the right choice doesn't make them competent. A broken clock is right twice a day.

>Just because they happened to make the right choice doesn't make them competent.

So let me get this right...you don’t think a jury can comprehend and understand the facts being presented to them through experts, yet without hearing any facts or experts you can confirm these juries “made the right choice”?

As I said before there will be educated people in this thread who down play a juries ability to make a accurate finding of fact and yet be all to happy to make their own findings without any knowledge of the facts of a given case or expert testimony, just as you did.

>So let me get this right...you don’t think a jury can comprehend and understand the facts being presented to them through experts, yet without hearing any facts or experts you can confirm these juries “made the right choice”?

Yes. It's possible to make a good decision through a flawed process.

So, what exactly are you arguing for - an autocratic class of rulers who make decisions for the general public about their own health?

I'm arguing that even though the system works well in many (most?) cases, there are common corner cases in which it does not.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that I endorse autocratic rulers, but it's absurd and borderline inflammatory.

> It's not clear that they're competent to do this, either.

What's the alternative, though?

I think we would need to develop a system that restricts the potential jurors to those who are qualified without restricting it so much that they are drawn from a small set of gatekeepers who can easily be corrupted.

Perhaps both lawyers could be allowed to negotiate requirements for the jurors (e.g. they must have a technical background, at least half must have college degrees, etc.). Or perhaps each lawyer negotiates requirements for some of the jurors with the judge.

Another approach would be to make changes to the legal system. For example:

Make it illegal for a lawyer to present evidence that they know to be scientifically or technologically unsound or to present a witness that they know to be unqualified.

Make it perjury for an expert witness to knowingly present scientifically unsound statements or to comment on something that they are unqualified for.

Make unsound science valid grounds for overturning or appealing a case.

Require statements to be backed by data that meets statistical requirements.

I'm not a lawyer and I'm sure these wouldn't be a perfect solution, but perhaps they would help.

District courts already exercise extensive control over what and how scientific evidence gets presented to a jury. Before trial, experts submit reports detailing their opinion (these can be hundreds of pages with supporting appendices). There is then a period of expert discovery, where the experts are deposed for a day or more each and grilled by the other side’s lawyer. Then there are “Daubert motions,” where each side asks the judge to exclude parts of the other expert’s testimony. Excluding testimony based on unsound and unreliable methods is the key focus of the Daubert motions. This is a process that takes months, and involves hundreds of pages of additional briefing, plus usually oral argument to the judge. And those decisions are then reviewable on appeal. Appellate courts routinely throw out jury verdicts because expert testimony was based on unreliable methods. By the time the case gets to the jury, the expert evidence has been vetted and the jury is presented with a very controlled picture of each side’s argument.

The issue is, experts genuinely don’t agree on much of anything. Is salt bad for your blood pressure? Many medical doctors would say yes, many would say no. There is almost no subject where you can’t find highly qualified experts that have conflicting opinions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitorial_system

Some such systems, such as the one in Germany, don't have "jury of your peers," but a panel of professional jurists who act as both judge and jury.

Is that actually better, though? On the surface, it sounds like a recipe for corruption.

If I had to choose between the systems, I would choose the non-adversarial approach. There's a famous paper, "Land without Plea Bargaining: How the Germans Do It", https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti..., where I first learned of the German system. That paper was written in 1979, and since then, Germany does have plea bargains (https://www.dw.com/en/german-court-upholds-plea-bargains/a-1...). But in the US, plea bargaining essentially is our criminal justice system.

I'm curious why you think it allows for more corruption than the US system. Something I find compelling about the German system is that the primary point is not to decide guilt or innocence of the accused, but to determine the truth. (See https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ilj/vol34/iss2/5/).

> But in the US, plea bargaining essentially is our criminal justice system.

Plea bargaining in the US is, in my opinion, a corrupt practice.

> I'm curious why you think it allows for more corruption than the US system.

I didn't make that claim in the big picture, I was talking specifically about the the role of jurors in terms of evaluating the credibility of expert testimony.

My concern with the idea of "professional jurors" is that they represent an easy target for corruption in the form of coercion, bribery, etc. How can you ensure that a professional juror is actually impartial and fair? If jurors are always coming from the same pool of people, won't they develop relationships with prosecutors and the like that may influence their impartiality?

The only counter suggestion I've ever seen are expert panels that remove decisions from The People and move it up the ladder of control and power, where the elites and bureaucrats can ideally be more easily paid off by companies like Bayer to rule in their favor. The elites love choke points that amplify their control over society, always under the guise that they know best (inevitably resulting in vast, systemic corruption that is nearly impossible to stop).

Panels and government oversight boards are just another easy target for lobbying (in all of its various flavors). As though the US system doesn't have enough of those corruption points in place now. There are an enormous number of jury cases in the US every year however, and bribery is rare.

If you replace traditional juries with expert panels, it's guaranteed that the system will be designed - by those that benefit from all other forms of lobbying - to have holes in it that allow forms of legal lobbying and influence, whether direct or indirect.

I'll take juries of The People in all regards, and without exception, over the extraordinarily dangerous, anti-democratic risks involved in shifting the system toward elitist expert panels. We already have enough of that shit dominating our country as it is. I choose the less perfect system - if that's indeed the choice - that retains power in the people broadly, keeping a critically important piece of the justice system mass-involved - something we're all part of.

Not necessarily disagreeing with your points but who exactly are “the elites”? Elite thinkers? Elite earners? Elite influencers? Elite who, and elite by what criteria?

I read it as elite politicians. People especially apt at getting what they want.

The billionaire class and the multinational conglomerates under their control.

Not sure why you are downvoted.

I disagree with the outcome of this case and leaving scientific decisions in the hands of people who may not have the cogitative skills to make the best assessments is an issue and would like see a solution. That being said, the moral hazards you point out do appear to be a much larger potential issue and I agree the risks of "expert panels" probably aren't worth it. We need some sort of redress to non biased citizens.

Perhaps civil trials with monetary rewards are a different matter than criminal trials though, not sure. Anyway, your point is good.

I'm not sure there is one, but the fact that something is the least bad option available doesn't make it not bad.

That is interesting, but the study you cite concerns medical malpractice lawsuits. Determining that a doctor was negligent in such lawsuits no doubt involves difficult issues, but issues perhaps far less complex than those at play in the Roundup lawsuits, where, as the parent comment said, the jury must decide "does glyphosate cause cancer, and did it specifically cause this cancer."

> the Roundup lawsuits, where, as the parent comment said, the jury must decide "does glyphosate cause cancer, and did it specifically cause this cancer."

The system isn't set up to answer or ask the question "did it specifically cause this cancer", because that question is known to be unanswerable.

Isn't it the case that the standard of proof here is 'via a preponderance of the evidence' (it is more likely than not) rather than the criminal trial 'beyond a reasonable doubt'?

That seems decidable.

You have situations like the following:

- The age-adjusted baseline rate of a particular type of cancer is, say, 1%.

- An age-adjusted 2.5% of people in an afflicted community have been diagnosed with this type of cancer. This is a huge increase above baseline.

- By implication, of people in the community with a diagnosis of this type of cancer, 40% of them would have cancer anyway for reasons unrelated to whatever is being sued over, and 60% of them got it "because" of whatever the problem is.

It isn't possible to make any distinction between those groups at the level of an individual case. There's no difference in the cancer.

McGhee v National Coal Board is probably the most instructive case on the matter. It brought a 'material increase in risk' test to apply to the causation step of analysis. The case has been widely cited and has had international impact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGhee_v_National_Coal_Board

Your jurisdiction might deal with things differently, but this case has had international adoption, as the framework deals with scientific uncertainty fairly elegantly.

> The system isn't set up to answer or ask the question "did it specifically cause this cancer", because that question is known to be unanswerable.

I'm curious how you draw this conclusion. While many substances may not, with 100% reproduction rates, cause a particular response there can be a majority that happens when excessive or improper exposure happens. If you're saying the question is unanswerable because it's not 100% guaranteed you'll get cancer, but say 67% chance then that's proof it did cause cancer in the subset. In this case it appears there has been suppressed study data which points directly to the outcome which brings into question, for the jury, the morality of the organization selling the product which are likely influencing reference points for a jury.

The problem case is where the experts also can't answer the question the court is concerned about.

Did a certain specific person get cancer due to exposure to a chemical? Typically you can only assert that their risk of cancer increased, which makes the answer essentially unknowable.

Which is not to say that they shouldn't be held liable for this sort of thing, but a bunch of jury trials for individual cases probably isn't a great way to do it.

> The billion-dollar punitive damages verdict, moreover, is not crazy considering that the point of punitive damages is to deter similar conduct in the future. [..] here on HN [..] were saying about how much Facebook should be fined [..] were likewise in the billions of dollars.

Billions of dollars, yes. In cases of government vs company. Or a class action. But I don't think HN or anyone reasonable was ever in favor of billion dollar judgments in matters that ten thousands of also effected claimants trying to get the same.

Is there any requirement for people to be given equal punitive damages? For compensation damages it makes sense that similar cases get similar amounts, but for punitive it might well be that the first one gets it all, and then the court can consider punishment delivered for the underlying offense.

> The jury is just there to evaluate the credibility of the competing experts who have offered opinions on that question. If lay people are not equipped to evaluate such credibility, that calls into question the very underpinnings of our policy-making institutions.

Isn’t that the point being made?

Frankly I don’t see how juries can possibly be expected to weigh two expert opinions espousing statistical whatever’s. I can force a statistical argument either way, and if you don’t have both a background in the area and time to dig through assumptions you’re gonna have a hard time knowing if I’m right.

Punitive damages to deter similar conduct have less effect when the company has just been sold to Bayer. Bayer is not a saint, but it seems it will have to pay for all the evil of mosanto.

>The billion-dollar punitive damages verdict, moreover, is not crazy considering that the point of punitive damages is to deter similar conduct in the future

I think most would be ok with this reasoning behind punitive damages, as long as lawyers representing victims cannot collect more than, say 1.2 mln $USD (or some large multiple of a minimal wage).

Otherwise, the obscene punitive damages are transferred as insurance cost, baked into pharma costs, and covered exclusively by US consumers.

> If lay people are not equipped to evaluate such credibility, that calls into question the very underpinnings of our policy-making institutions.

Yes and yes.

>> If lay people are not equipped to evaluate such credibility, that calls into question the very underpinnings of our policy-making institutions.

That it does, but that doesn't in turn mean that lay people are equipped to evaluate such credibility. I can't help but browse social media, watch the news, or interact with people in my town without questioning the general ability to evaluate credibility.

If lay people are not equipped to evaluate such credibility, that calls into question the very underpinnings of our policy-making institution

Gee. Who would have thought that giving an equal voice to people on both sides of the bell curve would lead to any other outcome than what we're seeing?

(Answer: a lot of smart people thought that. Were they right?)

In the specific context of evaluating whether or not juries do a good job of making decisions in medical-malpractices cases (which is different from this article about glyphosate I think??), I'm confused about your interpretation of these two findings:

> The insurers had medical doctors closely examine the medical records in cases involving claims of medical negligence to determine if medical negligence had occurred. Tarragin et al. [31] compared these judgments with verdicts rendered by juries if the case went to trial. The jury verdicts tended to be consistent with the medical judgments.

> Those authors found that the jury verdicts favored the hospital in all cases that the hospital had rated as not-negligent.

Would those articles' findings also be consistent with the following hypotheses?

(1) Physicians tend to give their colleagues the benefit of the doubt, applying empathy and excusing neglect in borderline cases of negligence.

(2) Hospitals tend to issue findings of negligence which protect their employees, preferring to retain staff with otherwise positive job performance in borderline cases of negligence.

(3) Juries tend to trust the opinions of hospitals and doctors who say that other doctors were not negligent, more than they tend to trust experts who say the opposite.