Ask HN: Do you believe in the right to a trial?

Yes, I do believe in the right to a trial. The right to trial gives us an opportunity to reevaluate our own laws and see where they may conflict of fall short and so create room to improve them as we evolve.

If you take away the right to a trial and just throw the law books as they are at people, with no flexibility and human consideration, our laws will likely remain archaic and most likely oppressive. The law must be in accordance with the people of the time, for after all, they are the country.

Also, you will find that circumstances around crimes vary a lot and considerations for these variables ought to be made. A non-flexible approach that does not involve these considerations quickly becomes inconsiderate and perhaps even oppressive.

A trial also reduces the chance of bias and irregularity in the dishing out of justice. Leaving the fate of a person in the hands of one person's interpretation and determination can be a slippery slope.

I am not a lawyer but have an opinion on this question. Our laws are written in a way that in effect demand a trial by peers. Most laws have vague clauses, conditions that can permit a judge to determine a person to be any degree of innocent to guilty. Some call this wiggle-room. Judges can make mistakes and/or can be biased. People must be able to interpret the spirit of the law and the original intent.

Adding to this there is the issue of stare decisis that can make laws lean in a particular direction that may not always apply to the situation they were originally formed from. People must be able to determine if case law is applicable.

Even a trial by a jury of peers may not be good enough. A jury can still be a small mob of like minded individuals that would group-think in the same potentially biased manor as a judge. In this case the defendant must be able to appeal to higher courts and get different a different set of peers to review the case.

As a fun side note even a jury has some potential caveats. Here [1] is one of them. I think it would be interesting to get opinions from judges and lawyers on jury nullification.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqH_Y1TupoQ [video]

Everyone has the right to a day in court, the right to be represented by competent legal counsel, and to be judged by a jury of their peers. The government is fundamentally biased in it's own favor, massively asymmetrically equipped, and needs to be balanced against the mores of the populace it serves.

Note: This has degenerate cases, That too is okay. A government is there to serve the People, and if the People look at a case the Government thinks is airtight, and goes "nah", that's it. Case closed. The People have spoken.

We have a legal system, not a Justice System. No matter how hard people want the latter, that's the ideal we'll always fall short of. The happiness, if you will, we are pursuing.

I absolutely believe in the right to a trial... but I also don't think the system is particularly good, or even marginally acceptable, at upholding this right. And I'm talking about the US, I'm sure it's worse in many other places.

> The reason I ask is that I am familiar with a situation where the Govt has accused someone of a crime and all levels of state and federal law enforcement, etc has all agreed this person is basically dead already, has never been arrested for anything, and will get no chance to defend themselves in court.

This is tyranny. Even if the target is guilty. I'm sad to hear of it.

> This is tyranny. Even if the target is guilty. I'm sad to hear of it.

Hear, hear.

Trials are prone to bias, often unjust, and costly to society (including the cost to state responsiveness). But it's the best we have, and no one should have this right taken away from them.

Yes, this is a basic right. BUT, and I am quoting others here since I still don't have a strong opinion for or against it, in cases of "extreme and imminent danger" (whatever it is) actions can be taken without a trial with the most notable example are information about terrorists on their way to act but with the information not valid enough to be presented in court, for example some kind of illegal wiretapping