Chelsea King; or, what to do with sex offenders

[Stofsk]

Forget professional juries, it will cost more. Judges and bench trials are the only workable alternative.

What makes you think that? I don't know about you, but if I were a black dude falsely accused of some violent crime like, say, rape sitting in front of an old white dude in formal regalia that was outdated a century ago and told that he will be deciding whether or not I am guilty as charged, I think I would just about shit my pants. The idea of trial by jury may be traditional, but the basic justification for it hasn't changed much since it was written down. I don't think its going anywhere for a while.

I'm not saying ditch it entirely, I'm saying make it a choice between the two.

I guarantee you if you were ever falsely accused of a crime you knew you were innocent of, you'd still shit your pants at the thought of your life no longer being in your control - with either a judge or a jury.

[Questor]

I'm not saying ditch it entirely, I'm saying make it a choice between the two.

I guarantee you if you were ever falsely accused of a crime you knew you were innocent of, you'd still shit your pants at the thought of your life no longer being in your control - with either a judge or a jury.

I'm pretty sure that, at least in some parts of the US, you can waive your right to a jury trial.
Wikipedia, I know.

[Formless]

I'm not saying ditch it entirely, I'm saying make it a choice between the two.

And I'm saying that if I choose a jury, I want to be confident that its composed of reasonably intelligent people who understand the letter of the law and the spirit of it rather than people who were selected by the bureaucracy and trial lawyers because they were the lowest common denominator and too stupid to get out of jury duty. I think injecting a little professionalism into the jurors would go a long way to solving this, although I would admit up front that there are other solutions that could be employed either in its place or ideally alongside it.

I guarantee you if you were ever falsely accused of a crime you knew you were innocent of, you'd still shit your pants at the thought of your life no longer being in your control - with either a judge or a jury.

Certainly, but even being white as a sheet I still would trust a jury more than a judge who is part of one of the most sheltered demographics in the country.

[Stofsk]

I'm not saying ditch it entirely, I'm saying make it a choice between the two.

And I'm saying that if I choose a jury, I want to be confident that its composed of reasonably intelligent people who understand the letter of the law and the spirit of it

So basically, like judges. Only 12 of them, except just the one. Hence why it would cost much more, since those professional jurors will have to have training in the law and training to be a juror.

You might as well have a judge at that stage.

I guarantee you if you were ever falsely accused of a crime you knew you were innocent of, you'd still shit your pants at the thought of your life no longer being in your control - with either a judge or a jury.

Certainly, but even being white as a sheet I still would trust a jury more than a judge who is part of one of the most sheltered demographics in the country.

Are you being serious? You'd trust a jury over a judge because judges are a 'sheltered demographic'? Jury vs Judge: judges, whose ethical responsibilities includes bending over backwards to ensure you get a fair trial, whether you are guilty or innocent; a judge who has likely decades of experience in the practice of the law, as well as being educated in it, as well as specific training on how to be a judge and how to apply the law in several different ways because no two cases are the same; a judge whose every word is typed down and recorded, as well as every word uttered by opposing counsel, and when giving a judgement, must give and publish reasons why he has judged accordingly.

Jury: none of that. Twelve people that are randomly selected to provide common sense. You have no idea who they are, what they know or think about anything, but in particular about the law. In America I understand you can question jurors in the selection phase, but even so, how much can you find out about a person from a short Q&A? And at the end of it, that jury still has no accountability because there is no one overseeing their deliberations.

[Hillary]

There's a good essay by Richard Dawkins on the fallability of the jury system here

I've not pasted the essay as it is pretty long

[Liberty]

I saw a movie on the Lifetime channel a few months ago about a guy who got put in jail for a rape and murder that he was framed in, and a DA who works for decades to get him out. To me, the most thought provoking part was when the DA went to the victim's family and told them, look, if the guy didn't do it and is wrongly in jail, then your daughter's murderer is still out there. So you should help me and release the evidence.

Also, I think one thing about the sex offender registry that needs to be cleaned up right off is the issue of consensual sex between people of close ages. I've heard that in some states a 17 year old having sex with a 15 year old is automatically counted as rape. I mean, what the heck? My good friend's brother was caught in bed with a 16 year old when he was 20, but my friend says his record got wiped clean when he turned 21 (though he did do a few months in jail). In this case, the brother has major disabilities resulting from fetal alcohol syndrome, including lack of judgement, and the sex was totally consensual. Is there a way to clean up the list so it only has people who have actually raped or attempted to rape people (i.e., non-consensual)?

Finally, I agree that people are going way more bananas over this than they ever would over a 17 year old black girl in the inner city getting killed. I HATE that. Oh, Casey Anthony, Casey Anthony! Elizabeth Smart! Madilyn McCann! It happens again and AGAIN. Nobody ever hears about or cares about little black girls or little Hispanic girls. It's all about white rich girls. Ridiculous.

Gotta go keep the wee one out of the fish tank she's playing in...

[Formless]

So basically, like judges. Only 12 of them, except just the one. Hence why it would cost much more, since those professional jurors will have to have training in the law and training to be a juror.

You might as well have a judge at that stage.

Or, you know, you could add into the selection process "must have at least x amount of education to apply." Simple improvement, don't you think? Like I said juries are too ingrained into American culture to go away any time soon, so rather than fixating on the negatives of the system, I think its better to look into ways of improving it.

Besides, I doubt its so expensive as to not be worth it. I live in the USA, our taxes are among the lowest in the first world. Assuming that we can convince the country to accept a small increase in taxes (okay, a little far fetched, but again the whole proposal of professional juries in America is far fetched anyway) money shouldn't be that much of an issue. And its not like their training would have to be as extensive as a lawyer or a judge (who, iirc, usually start out lawyers in the first place). At the end of the day, your problem with juries are that they have no accountability and tend to be very ignorant: I'm proposing a solution to both of these problems, so I don't see why you keep harping on them.

Do you think diversity of opinion is a bad thing, Stofsk? I don't. Even that paper by Dawkins doesn't (for those who don't want to read it, his criticism is basically that the herd instinct undermines this in juries. Not that judges can't similarly be influenced by religion, class and race. He even proposes a solution to the problem: multiple, smaller juries/multiple judges). And frankly, most of America doesn't. We already have the option to forgo a jury trial, but that doesn't solve the problems with juries.

[aieeegrunt]

It's a tragedy what happened to the girl, but it's just fucking disgusting, the reaction of the community. Oh, boo fucking hoo, something awful happened and showed you your pretty little gated community thing isn't 250K+ protection against Bad Things so now you want to start hacking the balls of off people? Typical well-off assholes.

.

I must confess to being almost as angry at all the "my God, how could this happen in a GATED COMMUNITY" comments as I am about the actual crime, because of course this sort of thing happens all the time and is to be expected amongst the lower classes. Fucking aristo wannabees.