The Logic and Morality of Trials by Jury

[Thanas]

Fuck off, troll. Your passive-aggressive bs is not going to get you anywhere.

[Darth Wong]

So if you insist, I concede that for all I know, there has been a correspondingly brilliant invention in the political sciences: self-policing government! Experts can now operate without anyone watching them, and reliably catch themselves before they start abusing their power or blundering into intellectual cul-de-sacs.

You're a worthless smarmy stupid fucking asshole. The entire medical profession and engineering profession are both based on self-selected professional organizations. And I'd pit the historical integrity of those professions against democratically elected politicians and fucking randomly selected juries any damned day of the week.

[PeZook]

Fine. Perhaps the judiciaries of Europe have achieved a new miracle in the world, and managed to build a branch of government with functional self-policing.

Wow, the point just flew right over your head, didn't it?

Here's a tip: I was pointing out how you have a completely warped idea of how real world judge panel systems operate, criticizing them for their lack of oversight and imaginary self-policing within the judiciary.

But...newsflash! Panel systems actually do have oversight, separate from the judges themselves!

Turns out most of the world isn't run by retards, yes?

My natural instincts tell me that such a thing is about as likely as water turning into wine or squadrons of pigs dive-bombing major metropolitan areas. But since everyone here familiar with the judiciary of Europe insists that it's exactly what they've managed, I'll take their word for it. It's enough to make the jaw drop and the mind reel.

Fine. You win, feel proud. I can't prove there's anything to worry about; I lack the skill set to be sure where to begin. And I'm not going to try any more.

You can start by asking people how the system you're trying to criticize actually works before mouthing off about imaginary lack of oversight.

Also, you can take one look at Europe (curiously not full of dysfunctional police states) and wonder if perhaps yours ideas about panel systems are entirely justified...

Hell, Thanas pointed out several times that Germany managed to work as a democracy for the last sixty years,despite having appointed judges and a jury-less system.

[Thanas]

It is quite clear that the idiot came into this thread with a preconceived opinion on how the world works. All his responses are nothing but worthless semantic whoring and a massive wall of ignorance turned into preconceived "knowledge" about the rest of the world.

He may have read the responses, but he sure as hell didn't understand them.

[Simon_Jester]

I sincerely hope my preexisting opinion was wrong, that there is nothing to worry about, and that I was grossly overestimating.

Moreover, I can't prove that it was right or even reasonable for me to worry about the entire category of problem I've been worried about, even though I remain worried about it for reasons of my own.

I openly admit both those things.
_______

I apologize for offending you all with the tone in my previous post; the replies I've been getting suggest that I have managed to take intelligent and levelheaded people and outrage them beyond all reason.

I'm not going to continue or expand on my argument about the theoretical merits of self-organization without external bosses, mostly for practical reasons.

[Spoonist]

A question: is it only the former british commonwealth that has the ridiclus system of jury trials?
I tried googlefu but couldnt find a comparison of legislative systems in different countries.


When it comes to jury trials it falls on the same assumption as does the "enlightened despot vs democracy". ie the old argument that what is best for the country and its people is a benevolent despot who dictates everything from above, the worst for the country and its people is the ordinary despot who only seeks selffullfillment. This is why democracy is preferably even though it is not the "best" form of governement, even in the worst case scenario it still works and does limited damage to country and people.
Same thing for juries, if you have an enlightened benevolent jury it is better than a panel of proffessionals, but the ordinary ignorant jury is worse. That is why a panel of proffessionals is always preferable.


Another thing that I have been wondering. Is it common around the world that evidence gained illegaly is not admissable in court? Since my gut feeling would be to use it as long as it is evidence then prosecute (and sack) seperately whoever did the illegal "gathering". Thanas could you please sort me out on the benefits of dismissing illegaly gained evidence since I dont get it.

[Thanas]

A question: is it only the former british commonwealth that has the ridiclus system of jury trials?
I tried googlefu but couldnt find a comparison of legislative systems in different countries.

Jury trials are a feature of common law, so you'll get them in Common Law countries.

Same thing for juries, if you have an enlightened benevolent jury it is better than a panel of proffessionals,

Why, goddam it?

Another thing that I have been wondering. Is it common around the world that evidence gained illegaly is not admissable in court? Since my gut feeling would be to use it as long as it is evidence then prosecute (and sack) seperately whoever did the illegal "gathering". Thanas could you please sort me out on the benefits of dismissing illegaly gained evidence since I dont get it.

The benefits are that there are certain safeguards against the state doing illegal things and profiting from them (for example, breaking into your house and searching it illegally). If evidence was still admissable, the protection of those safeguards would be worthless. The ends do not justify the means in those matters. The whole concept of evidence requires that there are certain standards for it. If we can dismiss them on a case-to-case basis, this renders the whole concept moot. For example, what would privacy be worth if the state can hack your computer, admit the evidence in court and then erase the papertrail to make it impossible to find whoever made the hack?

In the end it comes down to the state having limited powers. Having the state enjoy the rewards of illegal actions would be contrary to that theory.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Same thing for juries, if you have an enlightened benevolent jury it is better than a panel of proffessionals, but the ordinary ignorant jury is worse. That is why a panel of proffessionals is always preferable.

I think you have your analogy backwards. The benevolent dictator is a competent and professional judge, the corrupt dictator is a corrupt and malicious judge, and democratic rule is the jury. The issue is that the legal system is set up in such a way that the latter variety of judge is mostly a thing of the past and there are safeguards against them anyway, whereas the idea for setting up a jury of peers is that it came from a time when the perception was that most judges were corrupt or malicious towards the lower class.

[Simon_Jester]

The whole concept of evidence requires that there are certain standards for it. If we can dismiss them on a case-to-case basis, this renders the whole concept moot. For example, what would privacy be worth if the state can hack your computer, admit the evidence in court and then erase the papertrail to make it impossible to find whoever made the hack?

To make matters worse, if they can erase the papertrail, it's harder to be sure they didn't fabricate the evidence in the first place.

[Junghalli]

Another thing that I have been wondering. Is it common around the world that evidence gained illegaly is not admissable in court? Since my gut feeling would be to use it as long as it is evidence then prosecute (and sack) seperately whoever did the illegal "gathering". Thanas could you please sort me out on the benefits of dismissing illegaly gained evidence since I dont get it.

In my Communication Law class the Prof talked about the "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine"; IIRC generally in the US evidence obtained illegally is not admissable.

[Stofsk]

The biggest problem with Juries is that their decisions are often unaccountable. Even if you appeal, you appeal on the basis that the trial judge made errors in law, not on the basis that the jury reached an incorrect and unjust verdict. Its assumed that juries can only do right by what the judge allows, and the judge being experienced and professional, should know better.

If you had a video camera taping the deliberations juries made, and penalise them for making inadmissable lines of reasoning (ie "I think he's guilty because the cops said-so") then you might see a different outcome in jury trials. Good luck trying to get that to happen, though.

A step in the right direction is to give the accused the right to choose either a jury or a judge. If I had had the chance, I would have chosen a judge in a hot second.

[JBG]

I've just caught up with this thread and, holy fuck, Simon, you need to read the responses rather than just pushing the mantra. As a lawyer and, I suppose by your definition, also a technocrat, you appear to be hamstrung by both an utter ignorance of the realities of the administration of justice and by a lack of any true vision. There are an absolute shitload of papers on this subject, in the US, here down under etc about these issues.

The biggest problem with Juries is that their decisions are often unaccountable. Even if you appeal, you appeal on the basis that the trial judge made errors in law, not on the basis that the jury reached an incorrect and unjust verdict. Its assumed that juries can only do right by what the judge allows, and the judge being experienced and professional, should know better.

If you had a video camera taping the deliberations juries made, and penalise them for making inadmissable lines of reasoning (ie "I think he's guilty because the cops said-so") then you might see a different outcome in jury trials. Good luck trying to get that to happen, though.

A step in the right direction is to give the accused the right to choose either a jury or a judge. If I had had the chance, I would have chosen a judge in a hot second.

The way you do it is appeal on the basis of the judge's directions to the jury. Then you have an "error of law" that allows the appellate court to entirely ignore the jury's findings and make a finding contrary to both the jury's deliberations and the judge's directions.

[Stofsk]

Um, I am aware of how the system works and on what basis do you appeal an unjust verdict. I've had first hand experience.

[JBG]

Um, I am aware of how the system works and on what basis do you appeal an unjust verdict. I've had first hand experience.

Eek, sorry to hear that.

But, did you discern the grounds for appeal or did your solicitor or barrister do that? ie the difference between being exposed to the system and actually knowing how the system in all its myriad manifestations actually works - for all sorts of matters, not just yours.

[Stofsk]

I didn't, no. I let the professionals do that.

But I made it a point to learn as much as a I could about not only the appeal but even before that, the whole process. It was my future at stake after all, so I took it upon myself to learn all I could about it.

For example, the judge's directions to the jury are common areas to look to for appeal points, but there may be other areas too such as appealing the result of any voir dire application for exclusion of evidence, especially if the ruling made by the judge goes against the interests of the accused towards getting a fair trial. Also, if any objections were made at trial where the judge ruled against the accused, then that might also be enough to sustain an appeal. An appeal need only succeed on one point, and by a majority of the bench.

That's appeals against conviction, of course. Appeals against sentence are a different kettle of fish (one I never bothered with).

[Elfdart]

A judge is harder to sway by emotional pleading than a jury of slack-jawed idiots, so you're taking more of a crap-shoot with juries than judges as it is.

How many people who think judges dispense justice better than juries have ever seen a trial in Texas? Or elsewhere in Dumbfuckistan? Judges here are every bit as fucktarded as jurors and believe the same bullshit. After all, it was a judge who allowed a man to be convicted and sentenced to death after his lawyer was caught sleeping during the trial.

I wonder if our European commentators are also aware that in many of these United States the position of judgeship is an elective office, so that crimes tried by state and local courts are tried by the winners of a political campaign rather than by selected civil service professionals. Obviously there are certain criteria you have to meet before you can even stand for election to a judgeship, but they aren't especially daunting. This is how you end up with people like Judge Roy Moore, the Chief Justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court, who was of the opinion that the state should discriminate against gays and prosecute them for homosexual acts, and who became most famous for placing a monument to the Ten Commandments outside his courthouse and then defying a federal court order to remove it, forcing the governor to dismiss him.

My point is that large sections of America are a long way from even the starting point of a professionalized or "technocratic" judicial system.

The only requirement for being a judge in Texas is to be 18 years of age and a resident of the state for at least 12 months. I wouldn't be surprised if other states had lax standards, too.

The entire medical profession and engineering profession are both based on self-selected professional organizations. And I'd pit the historical integrity of those professions against democratically elected politicians and fucking randomly selected juries any damned day of the week.

Doctors and engineers are seldom if ever appointed as judges. Lawyers are, and the various legal boards and bar associations that are supposed to police them are absolutely worthless. About the only thing that will cause an attorney to be disbarred is being convicted of a well-publicized felony. There's a reason lawyers -and by extension, judges- are held in such low regard.


The funny thing about this thread is all the people claiming that judges and judicial panels hand out better decisions than juries do. Can someone present evidence of this? Do countries that use panels have fewer wrongful convictions, for example?

[Serafina]

Well, Elfdard, there is an obvious solution to that problem: Select better judges.

Really, it works elsewhere - the US ist not "just that special" that it can not work there.

[Thanas]

The funny thing about this thread is all the people claiming that judges and judicial panels hand out better decisions than juries do. Can someone present evidence of this? Do countries that use panels have fewer wrongful convictions, for example?

In 2008, the Bundesgerichtshof (highest federal appellate court) concluded en banc that in a total of 96 cases the courts made an error. In other cases it judged that in 470 cases, the judges had made an error in law. On the other hand, they affirmed the judgement of the court in 62 times en banc and 2428 times in other cases. The problem now comes to comparing them to the american system, as the appeals courts are structured very differently over here in Germany.

[Thanas]

The source - PDF warning.