> I discovered that the average person on a jury has a great deal of trouble with evidence. It was really quite troubling.
Trial by jury--it's far from perfect but I believe the best solution mankind has devised thus far
Trial by jury--it's far from perfect but I believe the best solution mankind has devised thus far
You really want your future to be decided by a group of people that are going to make preconceived judgements about you based on your facial hair and skin color?
Who are probably going to go home and watch The Real Housewives when the trial is over?
People whose conception of reality comes primarily from the tv shows they watch?
Nothanks.
to some extent, my fellow jurors have been more or less what you might expect. most of them cared a lot more about going home than the outcome of the actual case and didn't appear to have highly developed critical reasoning skills. at the same time, they were a lot more skeptical than you give them credit for.
in most of the cases I've been a juror for, it looked like the accused probably did commit the crime. but prosecutors are pretty good at making it look that way. in the end, one or two jurors who actually cared found a couple holes in the prosecution's case and persuaded everyone to return not guilty and go home. I have yet to be part of a jury that returned a guilty verdict.
once the judge makes up their mind, that's it; that's your outcome. but it only takes one juror to throw a serious wrench in the gears, and this usually seems to favor the defense.
As an engineer, I have been on the receiving end of this over and over.
While the defense needs jury strikes, I really think that prosecutors should no longer get jury strikes.
If a prosecutor, with all his advantages, can't get the charge through a jury picked by a defense lawyer, he really doesn't have a case.
You mean the system used in most of Europe? Seems to be working fine. Arguably even better than the US system.
Basically decisions by judges, none-to-little plea bargaining, none-to-little bail. You do have the right to appeal to several levels of court.
Not having a jury also makes court much less of a drama theater than in the US. Everyone is presenting evidence to a judge, not to random people off the street who have much less developed bullshit detectors and experience in interacting with lawyers and knowing what they are aiming to achieve with any given sentence.
It is still too early to make a judgement about Europe. The US has had a democracy close to 231 years. Much of Europe except for the UK, Netherlands, and Switzerland was ruled by absolute monarchs for much of this period.
As a juror you are supposed to judge only by what has been presented in court. But this leaves a lot of room for bullshit experts.
I think there need to be some nationwide standards about accuracy of different methods like alcohol tests, speed traps and especially forensics where I have read that a lot of completely false methods are being used to convict people. The judge should have the ability to call out such things based on established scientific evidence and inform the jury.
For example, how do you feel about the parent in the OP's example convicting someone because she has children (being less interested in evidence)? Some people are logic-minded, others... well many people believe in astrology and all sorts of concepts that they believe apply day to day without any interest in cause and effect or other'system' rules. The law might be one of those things where less educated people will suffer understanding as systemic rules are being asked to be used as part of the reasoning process.