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Nathilus posted:I can see several ways around the selection bias issue. Don't make it a choice but rather a random selection with an opt out, for example. This is effectively how the system operates today. twodot posted:I didn't understand this at all. I get prosecutors, prosecutors have a disincentive to try police, because they need police to gather evidence and if police dislike a prosecutor, the prosecutor may have trouble securing evidence which they need for future trials. How does that map to jurors? Fill in the blanks "Jurors have a disincentive to convict <group X> because they need <group X> to <activity Y> and if <group X> disliked jurors, the jurors may have trouble securing <result of activity Y> which they need for future <activity Z>". This isn't why prosecutors are disincentivized.
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Oct 30, 2015 22:21
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The entire advantage of a jury of your peers is a guarantee (in concept) that the decider for your case will be normal members of society-people like you. A group of professional jurors creates the following immediate problems: - Verdicts as an everyday part of the job, rather than a drastic decision one rarely faces in life. Desensitization to the process. - Susceptibility to the same weaknesses our current public attorney system has succumbed to (Sloppy and quick defenses due to pay being on a cases-finished than hourly basis) - Corruption similar to that of our judge system; members who will favor law enforcement and/or wealthy elite over justice. These are just a few flaws off the top of my head. It's an incredibly terrible idea that would require an absurd amount of regulation to make workable, let alone ideal. You'd be better off arguing for the complete removal of the jury system than what you're currently proposing. The problems in our system are a result of public decay and compromised aspects of our legal system unrelated to the jury system.
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Oct 30, 2015 22:26
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blowfish posted:There are plenty of countries that both are more democratic and less obsessed with the concept of a jury than the US. Germany, where the class system is enshrined in the schools, is surely a model for democratic ideals. In fact, the assumptions around "the average person is poo poo" are exactly that "cult of the expert"- lawyers are necessarily on a higher plane of existence, congenitally elite. Can a full caste system be far behind? In any case, it's questionable whether the current obtuse state of the law is a necessary requirement or a coincidental consequence of the way law has evolved or a means of recentralizing control such that the average citizen is helpless against legal mechanisms, such as with policing.
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Oct 30, 2015 22:43
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The decision of the jury is that of a moral decision, not a legal one. That's why you need the entire jury to agree, and why jury nullification results in a mistrial that finds the defendant free. No one group of citizens holds an iron-clad expert hold on morality.
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Oct 30, 2015 22:47
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Neurolimal posted:The decision of the jury is that of a moral decision, not a legal one. That's why you need the entire jury to agree, and why jury nullification results in a mistrial that finds the defendant free. The big objection is that jurors can't possibly understand the legal framework they make their decision under.
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Oct 30, 2015 22:49
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Effectronica posted:Germany, where the class system is enshrined in the schools, is surely a model for democratic ideals. If your basic premise is that people are poo poo I'm not sure how you move on to "but lawyers are better"
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Oct 30, 2015 22:55
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computer parts posted:This is effectively how the system operates today. Right, except that we're talking about an assignment via national service.
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Oct 30, 2015 23:15
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Also longer-serving jurors who are not quite long-serving enough for them to become entrenched, though possibly long-serving enough to encourage a wider diaspora of people entering the legal profession and certainly enough to alleviate the general dislike of jury service as an inconvenience.
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Oct 30, 2015 23:19
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OwlFancier posted:If your basic premise is that people are poo poo I'm not sure how you move on to "but lawyers are better" I'd assume that "the plebs are litteral subhuman trash who shouldn't be trusted with anything" and "elites are the only people who should ever decide things" aren't mutually exclusive concepts, but then again I'm talking to someone who gets outsmarted by loving Effectronica so whatever
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Oct 30, 2015 23:20
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WitchFetish posted:I'd assume that "the plebs are litteral subhuman trash who shouldn't be trusted with anything" and "elites are the only people who should ever decide things" aren't mutually exclusive concepts, but then again I'm talking to someone who gets outsmarted by loving Effectronica so whatever Please don't resort to personal attacks in these hallowed halls.
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Oct 30, 2015 23:27
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Wat if we kept jurors, but simplified the law code to about 3 pages so every1 could under stand it? no more lawyer's needed, no more washingtown dc bureaucats. checkmate, thread.
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Oct 31, 2015 00:36
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Amused to Death posted:Juries don't exist to rule on law, they exist to rule on whether or not the state has provided enough evidence to convict someone. We have judges to make decisions on law. Despite what the courts tell you, this is untrue due to the system of Jury Nullification. edit--Which was already mentioned. D'oh.
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Oct 31, 2015 01:42
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The US system is scary because it means having your fate decided by a group of people too stupid to get out of jury duty.
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Oct 31, 2015 02:59
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Rodatose posted:Wat if we kept jurors, but simplified the law code to about 3 pages so every1 could under stand it? no more lawyer's needed, no more washingtown dc bureaucats. checkmate, thread. Herman Caine's account spotted. Nice try, pizza man.
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Oct 31, 2015 11:18
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Imagine that a group of profession jurors is being charged with corruption. Who gets to decide if they're corrupt? Other profession jurors. Guess what group of people they're going to go out of their way to protect, even if it means making absurd comparisons or flouting legality? In-group and confirmation bias is a real thing that everyone has, it's not something limited to cops or politicians or bankers or whatever. Being an expert does not ameliorate this, it just provides an ad-hoc rationalization for corruption under the guise of enlightenment. Everyone must be accountable to their peers, not 'their betters', no exceptions. If I was charged with a crime, I'd take a jury of dim-but-well-meaning rednecks over a bunch of blowhard law graduates, with an inflated ego on account of their judgment literally being over-valued. rudatron fucked around with this message at 12:44 on Oct 31, 2015 |
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Oct 31, 2015 12:30
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Finland has a system like this. Essentially, every juror (tho they're actually lay judges, properly) operate under the guidance of the speaker of the court, who is a professional judge (nominated by the Ministry of Justice and appointed by the President, as opposed to elected). Every lay judge has a maximum amount of days in court per year and they get rotated out every four years since they are politically appointed. Usually, they're appointed from the ranks of the poo poo tier municipal election candidates who didn't get elected from their respective parties. I got like five votes in a municipal election and had a shot at a post like this.
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Oct 31, 2015 19:37
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Can't we figure out how to make IBM's Watson do the job?
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Oct 31, 2015 20:24
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Rodatose posted:Wat if we kept jurors, but simplified the law code to about 3 pages so every1 could under stand it? no more lawyer's needed, no more washingtown dc bureaucats. checkmate, thread. I'd be down for this. Get rid of all the loitering laws etc. If your society can't function without more than three entire pages of rules you need to go back and write some better laws you loving fascist.
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Oct 31, 2015 20:45
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HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE posted:I'm on a jury right now. I sure as gently caress wouldn't want any of these fuckers making decisions that affect me like that, myself included. I can't ignore the average statistics of any given district attorney's office. I can't ignore the very nice clothing on the two defense lawyers on a misdemeanor case. I can't ignore that the defendant looks like a loving creep. I was on a jury for a serious crime that may have resulted in the defendant going to jail for a very long time (attempted first degree murder + possession of firearm as a convicted felon + something else; I was actually recused in a hotel for a week with the other jurors). At least half of my fellow jurors were also dumb as poo poo and obviously thought the defendant was guilty from the very beginning (he was black and had been convicted of crime in the past). Ultimately I was chosen as the alternate immediately before deliberations and wasn't able to contribute to the verdict, so I don't know what ended up happening.* However, our current system at least takes this into account to some extent. It only takes one juror to offset all the rest of the jurors being dumb and wanting to wrongly convict someone. And the idea of wrongly convicting innocent people bothers me more than letting guilty people go free, so I'm okay with this bias (and it seems that in practice people still get convicted too often, so the latter isn't really a concern). *For the record, the guy probably was actually guilty. But it was super obvious that a bunch of my fellow jurors were 1. super sure that he was guilty from the very beginning and 2. wanted to convict him of a more serious crime than the evidence actually supported - attempted first degree murder instead of second degree. There was zero evidence of premeditation or motive and it seemed very likely that the defendant was drunk or something when he committed the crime. It was actually kind of funny in a scary way how the prosecutor didn't' even attempt to prove the conditions for first degree attempted murder were met; she just kind of asserted that it was the case because the defendant/victim knew each others' names (there was literally no other evidence of a connection between them aside from them knowing each others' nick/"street" names). blowfish posted:The average citizen is also unqualified to evaluate much of the evidence used in court. See e.g.: CSI effect. To be fair, prosecutors/defense lawyers seem to be aware of this. In my trial they repeated countless times how real life was not like CSI and seemed to really hate the existence of the show. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Oct 31, 2015 |
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Oct 31, 2015 21:02
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rudatron posted:
The Bloop fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Nov 1, 2015 |
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Nov 1, 2015 19:51
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Trent posted:Having jurors that are not peers except in the vaguest sense of being humans that currently live in the same nation rather than sharing any sense of cultural awareness feels somehow off to me. Well firstly, it's typically not in "the same nation as you", it's usually the same city as you (since most crimes are prosecuted at the local level). Secondly, there are plenty of examples where shared cultural awareness presents a clear and present bias towards the defendant (you can think of  for why that might be bad).
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Nov 1, 2015 19:56
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computer parts posted:Well firstly, it's typically not in "the same nation as you", it's usually the same city as you (since most crimes are prosecuted at the local level). Secondly, there are plenty of examples where shared cultural awareness presents a clear and present bias towards the defendant (you can think of Generally true, although it is also true that shopping for jurisdictions based on prosecutorial favorability is a thing, and big cities have many diverse subcultures. In any case, my issue isn't so much a criticism of the reality of the situation. My issue is that it feels disingenuous to universally label jurors peers of the accused, and then use this as an argument in favor of the system.
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Nov 1, 2015 20:26
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What problem is this actually attempting to solve? The articles mostly complain that jurors don't have a full legal education and aren't allowed to take notes, which are probably intended, on-purpose aspects of the system. And the general complaints in this thread are "jurors are dumb", which is largely true but is also something that the system has spent the last two hundred years building itself around. What problem, precisely, are amateur jurors causing besides the facts that they're easy to tell humiliating anecdotes about and that some law experts don't get the point of having a non-legally-trained entity in the room?
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Nov 1, 2015 22:30
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