The validity of Juries in Trials

[Formless]

From Juror to Lawyer to Judge, the more disassociated from the "human condition" they are, the better. It's not just the life or livelihood of the accused, or the justice of the accuser at stake, it's the validity of the whole dammed system at stake.

I disagree from this particular point: you have to understand the human condition before you can make any kind of ethical choice in the first place. People who don't know or care about how their actions effect the emotions of others are called "sociopaths" and are NOT the people you want determining who gets what punishment.

[Highlord Laan]

From Juror to Lawyer to Judge, the more disassociated from the "human condition" they are, the better. It's not just the life or livelihood of the accused, or the justice of the accuser at stake, it's the validity of the whole dammed system at stake.

I disagree from this particular point: you have to understand the human condition before you can make any kind of ethical choice in the first place. People who don't know or care about how their actions effect the emotions of others are called "sociopaths" and are NOT the people you want determining who gets what punishment.

On the other hand, making legal judgments based on emotion completely undermines the system. It does not matter how many tears are shed, how pathetic the condition of the victim, or how completely unrepentant the accused is. All that matters is knowing what laws were broken, how they were broken, to what severity were they broken, the state and legality of the evidence, and how it applies to the accused.

Judgments can only be made with the evidence and information known, letting personal emotions get in the way of the known facts makes people ignore evidence they want to disagree with, see "evidence" where there is none, and worst of all, go by gut feeling. This is something that needs to be sternly discouraged in any legal setting.

[Darth Yan]

one thing i read about the oj trial was that three of the jurors (including one of the black ones) DID think he was guilty; the police did such a shitty job that they felt it was impossible to be sure and it's better to let a guilty man walk then send an innocent man to prison. I would also make it illegal for police to edit confession tapes (which sometimes happens) and they have to show the full details of the tapes before they are admissible.

[Elfdart]

Oh no you don't. You insisted on bringing up all overturned convictions in the US while only citing those overturned by the highest court in Germany. Don't want to produce the numbers for all overturned convictions in Germany?

How the fuck do you expect me to produce something which does not exist?

Really? There's no record of overturned criminal convictions in Germany aside from cases handled by the high court?

I can produce how many cases there are, but that is about all. Link. As they do not mention the reason for why they were finished or so.

In other words, you can't back up your claims without mixing apples and oranges.

Fine -we won't count those. At the same time, we should also exclude all overturned convictions in the US unless they were overturned by the Supreme Court. Which is it?

This would be a relevant argument if the BGH would be structured like the supreme court, instead of being more like a court of appeals.

It's relevant because in order to show that non-jury trials produce better results than jury trials, you would need to compare similar cases at all levels of the court system combined. Selecting only the cases that reach the high court in one case, while including the entire process in the other is cherry-picking.

No, you came back later with another link and tried to muddy the issue by lumping jury and non-jury cases together.

Weren't you the one who wanted us to focus on the overall rate of convictions by jury and non-jury cases alike in Germany and the USA?

In order to compare them. But that's not really possible when you insist on bringing up one small part of the German system on one hand, but the entire American system on the other. I try to narrow it down to wrongful criminal convictions in the two systems and you try to add in procedural hearings and bankruptcy.

So what are you complaining about here?

The nonsense you've presented so far in this thread.

This article identifies four emerging themes from the research:
- Jurors rarely make decisions exactly in the manner contemplated by the jury instructions.
- Personal characteristics are not a very powerful predictor of decision making.
- Jurors are most susceptible to influence from nonevidence factors when the evidence does not clearly favor one side.
- Deliberation processes do sometimes affect jury decision making.

So what do you say to that? At least 3 of those will not be present in professional judges. Especially not number 1 and 3.

I say that once again you failed to read the very article you linked to (my emphasis):

Since it is rare for researchers to have the opportunity to observe real juries deliberating due to the private nature of deliberations, most of the research relates to mock juries.

Mock juries are not real juries.

[Formless]

I disagree from this particular point: you have to understand the human condition before you can make any kind of ethical choice in the first place. People who don't know or care about how their actions effect the emotions of others are called "sociopaths" and are NOT the people you want determining who gets what punishment.

On the other hand, making legal judgments based on emotion completely undermines the system. It does not matter how many tears are shed, how pathetic the condition of the victim, or how completely unrepentant the accused is. All that matters is knowing what laws were broken, how they were broken, to what severity were they broken, the state and legality of the evidence, and how it applies to the accused.

Completely undermines the system? What part of "you are describing a sociopath" do you not understand? If you don't have empathy or understand the human condition, you have no frame of reference for understanding WHY a crime is a crime other than "the law says so". Legalism is no substitute for ethics, and to have ethics you have to have emotions. Emotion and logic are NOT polar opposites, despite the old vulcan memes to the contrary. They are an integral part of how we think about other human beings, as confirmed by countless psychological studies and case studies of sociopathy.

Furthermore, you cannot pass judgments on the "severity" of a crime without understanding emotions. Human minds do not think that way. Say if you were passing judgment on a domestic abuse case; you would need to know how bad the battery was in order to know how likely the accused is to reform so that the sentence reflects this. But you simply can't make that judgement without taking into consideration the emotional state of the accused, which means you must have empathy and therefor emotions yourself.

Are you by any chance a deontologist of some sort?

Judgments can only be made with the evidence and information known, letting personal emotions get in the way of the known facts makes people ignore evidence they want to disagree with, see "evidence" where there is none, and worst of all, go by gut feeling. This is something that needs to be sternly discouraged in any legal setting.

I smell straw...

[Kanastrous]

I was on a civil-case jury to hear a complaint from a patient claiming that her hospital treatment had messed her up to the point where she was effectively disabled, and was suing the hospital for $$$ to cover her expenses, pain, and suffering.

We all felt sympathetic to her but the facts of the case, the judges' instructions and the law all made it very clear that no matter how much we might empathize with her, we had to find against her in the suit.

Had we decided to set her up for a payout - which would have been the *sympathetic* or *empathic* thing to do, and we spent an extra day arguing with one recalcitrant juror who wanted to do precisely that - we would have been undermining a system in which both the petitioner and respondent expect equal consideration on their respective cases' merits when they come before a court.

When I walked out of the courthouse the plaintiff was sitting forlornly on the front steps looking as miserable as I have ever seen a person look. It was painful to see, and I wished that we could have found in her favor. But my feelings regarding the matter have zero to do with my obligation as a juror to act within the rules.

[Formless]

What were the facts of the suit? I never said human concerns should override the facts, that's the strawman I was talking about. But Highlord Laan was making an even more sweeping generalization than that: that human emotions have no place in a court of law regardless of whether you are the jury, lawer, or judge when that's simply untrue on multiple accounts. That you felt sympathy for one person when both deserved it is a different matter entirely.

[Kanastrous]

Long story short: the plaintiff was a dialysis patient who had skipped more than one dialysis appointment, and was brought into the ER pretty much at death's door. Part of her emergency treatment involved shooting her up with (a drug I don't remember - potassium citrate? some potassium compound, anyway) which she claimed had extravanized and gone into the muscle and fascia of her arm instead of the vein where it belonged. Extravasation with this stuff is spectacularly painful and injurious...and that she had not received proper treatment for *that*, after it reportedly had happened...

...problem was that in the end neither the medical time line nor the expert testimony backed her up: in fact one of her attorney's expert witnesses actually wound up backing the hospital's account, instead of hers. And she skipped the evaluation and treatment appointments set up for her by the hospital to address the injuries she reported, without offering any explanation as to why she had to miss them. And did not display functional impairment consonant with the type of injury she claimed.

I'm still more in agreement with Laan than not, though. I can recall having been instructed regarding matters of law and procedure; the only instructions I remember judges offering regarding my personal feelings or emotions where my deliberations are concerned were: do not deliberate based upon your personal feelings; deliberate based upon the facts and upon the law.

And I think that principle is in the public consciousness, where jury work is concerned: one of the most prominent works on the topic is probably still Twelve Angry Men and while of course that's a fictitious story part of its point is the importance of rendering justice based upon facts and law rather than personal passions.

[Simon_Jester]

Long story short: the plaintiff was a dialysis patient who had skipped more than one dialysis appointment, and was brought into the ER pretty much at death's door. Part of her emergency treatment involved shooting her up with (a drug I don't remember - potassium citrate? some potassium compound, anyway) which she claimed had extravanized and gone into the muscle and fascia of her arm instead of the vein where it belonged. Extravasation with this stuff is spectacularly painful and injurious...and that she had not received proper treatment for *that*, after it reportedly had happened...

...problem was that in the end neither the medical time line nor the expert testimony backed her up: in fact one of her attorney's expert witnesses actually wound up backing the hospital's account, instead of hers. And she skipped the evaluation and treatment appointments set up for her by the hospital to address the injuries she reported, without offering any explanation as to why she had to miss them. And did not display functional impairment consonant with the type of injury she claimed.

Well, here's the thing.

Emotions should not trump facts in a legal case, but they should inform them. If someone in a bad situation tells a lie, then it is not a question of "emotion tells me to reward them but logic tells me not to." Emotion informs logic that yes, this person is in a bad situation... but they're lying, and the court should not award them money for lying.

But if you're dealing with a case where the scale of harm done is actually in question (say, it is known that the plaintiff was harmed in the way they describe, and we now have to judge the damages), at that point emotion becomes a bit more relevant. It becomes extremely relevant if subjects like criminal intent come into the case, because emotion is the tool we use to understand the motives of other human beings.

A person who cannot think about emotions, or who dismisses all concerns that involve an emotion, is unfit to serve on a jury in any case where mental states matter.

But once again, this is not because "emotions are more important than logic;" it's because they are not mutually exclusive. In human affairs, emotions are facts, and empathy is part our mechanism for gauging the magnitude of harm caused to another human being. It cannot and should not be taken off line entirely.

[Kanastrous]

If the judge presiding over a case on which I'm empaneled offers me a framework within which it's appropriate to bring in emotional responses or concerns, then as a juror I can admit them into my deliberations, sure.

[Formless]

Emotions should not trump facts in a legal case, but they should inform them. If someone in a bad situation tells a lie, then it is not a question of "emotion tells me to reward them but logic tells me not to." Emotion informs logic that yes, this person is in a bad situation... but they're lying, and the court should not award them money for lying.

Another point to consider: empathy is part of our lie detection kit. People tend to inadvertanly give off cues that they are telling a fib (facial expressions, inconsistencies with how they talk, etc.). If you've ever had the feeling of "I know he's telling a lie, but what lie?" you know what I'm talking about. Not everyone has the skill, and some people (particularly the psychopathic) can lie through their teeth without breaking a sweat, but its something to consider.

It becomes extremely relevant if subjects like criminal intent come into the case, because emotion is the tool we use to understand the motives of other human beings.

Exactly, another good point. For all the good forensics, expert witnesses, clues, and timelines do for determining actus rea they are of diminished use when it comes time to establish mens rea (well, to be fair to expert witnesses a professional psychologist would obviously help). It requires a different toolset, one in which emotions are facts.

[Kanastrous]

My understanding is that psychopaths generally excel at lying etc not because of additional abilities or skill they have but rather because of normative abilities that they lack.

[Thanas]

Really? There's no record of overturned criminal convictions in Germany aside from cases handled by the high court?

Sure there is, it just is not accessible without shelling out major bucks to have the statistics of the individual courts shipped to you.

In other words, you can't back up your claims without mixing apples and oranges.

The German BGH is pretty much comparable to a US circuit court of appeals. Let's use the 9th circuit, okay? The population is pretty much comparable (60 to 80 million) and it is an apellate court. So yes, that at least makes it very comparable to the BGH, enough to suffice for a comparison.

It's relevant because in order to show that non-jury trials produce better results than jury trials, you would need to compare similar cases at all levels of the court system combined. Selecting only the cases that reach the high court in one case, while including the entire process in the other is cherry-picking.

You are right, comparing the BGH to a court of appeals is much better, instead of comparing the US Supreme Court to the BGH, as the BverfG would be the better comparison for it.

In order to compare them. But that's not really possible when you insist on bringing up one small part of the German system on one hand, but the entire American system on the other. I try to narrow it down to wrongful criminal convictions in the two systems and you try to add in procedural hearings and bankruptcy.

We can just focus on criminal convictions if you like. It is not as if that rate is any more favorable to the US system.

This article identifies four emerging themes from the research:
- Jurors rarely make decisions exactly in the manner contemplated by the jury instructions.
- Personal characteristics are not a very powerful predictor of decision making.
- Jurors are most susceptible to influence from nonevidence factors when the evidence does not clearly favor one side.
- Deliberation processes do sometimes affect jury decision making.

So what do you say to that? At least 3 of those will not be present in professional judges. Especially not number 1 and 3.

I say that once again you failed to read the very article you linked to (my emphasis):

Since it is rare for researchers to have the opportunity to observe real juries deliberating due to the private nature of deliberations, most of the research relates to mock juries.

Mock juries are not real juries.

You really are grasping at straws here. What magic elements makes mock juries worse than real juries when it comes to listening to instructions? You do realize that this is a tried and true instrument of science, right?

[Enigma]

I've only noticed this thread now and I've only read the first two pages but here is my opinion. Reform the jury system.

What I'd do despite being off the wall idea is to have the jury watch the proceedings from a different room with a camera on or by the judge's bench(?). This way the lawyers would face the judge as they make their case. Picking the jury could be left to the court. Have the lawyers on each side write out what they want in a juror and have the court select the jury based on them or at least close enough. Basically have the whole process done without the lawyers actually seeing them. Except for one part. When the jury has deliberated, then they can enter the courtroom so the verdict can be read.

This way the lawyers cannot try to influence their emotions to get the verdict they want. I know that the jurors are instructed not to go by their emotions but by evidence but then again are they really going to go just by evidence alone or are they going to be influenced by their emotions?

Another idea is to make the jury system voluntary instead of being drafted. To those that apply, they'd be notified in advance that they'd be experiencing some mind numbing proceedings and still have to pay attention. Make the pay at least minimum wage if not more depending the case.

I'd also keep the jurors separate from everyone else so that they stay focused on the trial and prevent them from being harassed. In my wife's trial during recess, even though they did not interact with either party, they were still out and about. I wonder if it is the same for criminal trials? I mean it would have been easy to intimidate a juror. Again in my wife's trial, during recess I went to the men's washroom. When I got there one of the jurors had exited as I entered and one entered as I left. Either time if I was criminally inclined, could've dragged one of them in and forced them to side with my wife. The bathroom was out of the way so I could have gotten away with it (unless of course the juror squealed).


Personally I'd do away with the jury system. Or at least do a major overhaul. My experience with juries has soured me. At my wife's trial, they were completely bored. Only one juror actually bothered to follow the proceedings! The rest appeared like they were fighting to stay awake!

Either drop the jury system or reform it and make it voluntary with a decent wage.

[Stofsk]

Personally I'd do away with the jury system. Or at least do a major overhaul. My experience with juries has soured me. At my wife's trial, they were completely bored. Only one juror actually bothered to follow the proceedings! The rest appeared like they were fighting to stay awake!

That matches my experience as well.

[Enigma]

Personally I'd do away with the jury system. Or at least do a major overhaul. My experience with juries has soured me. At my wife's trial, they were completely bored. Only one juror actually bothered to follow the proceedings! The rest appeared like they were fighting to stay awake!

That matches my experience as well.

It is almost like the evidence in a trial is almost irrelevant if the foremost thing on their minds is "I want to go home". Adding fire to that is the fact they are poorly paid for their time.

If the system was voluntary and paid at least min wage if not more then you'll get people that are interested and more likely to stay awake and pay attention.

[Darth Yan]

wait, what happened to your wife? I mean, I know about Stofsk, but what happened to you?

[Enigma]

wait, what happened to your wife? I mean, I know about Stofsk, but what happened to you?

Long story short, my wife was involved in a rear end collision. The guy claimed that it wasn't that bad but my wife sustained (and it was backed up by a couple of doctors) neck and lower back injuries. The guy's insurance company in writing was offering to pay her medical bills up to that point plus $400 *BUT* the insurance rep, while holding the paper said that they were only going to offer her $400. My refused and sued.

Unfortunately due to comedy of errors plus the inattentiveness of the jurors, my wife lost. To be quite honest, if this was done before a judge, she would have won.

[Elfdart]

You really are grasping at straws here. What magic elements makes mock juries worse than real juries when it comes to listening to instructions? You do realize that this is a tried and true instrument of science, right?

Are mock juries compelled by law to show up?
Are they subject to legal punishment for lying?
Do they actually hold responsibility for another person's life, liberty or property?

No, no and no.

The only way such an experiment might work is if the mock jurors are summoned and seated just like real ones and are treated just like real ones, are made to sit through the trial just like real jurors and for all they might know, they are real jurors. Having a gaggle of indentured servants graduate students play "let's pretend" is a circlejerk. It's worthless playacting.

[Elfdart]

It is almost like the evidence in a trial is almost irrelevant if the foremost thing on their minds is "I want to go home". Adding fire to that is the fact they are poorly paid for their time.

If the system was voluntary and paid at least min wage if not more then you'll get people that are interested and more likely to stay awake and pay attention.

There are so many ways to get out of jury duty honestly that for all practical purposes it is voluntary. I got out of it once by calling the courthouse and telling them I had a bad cold (which I did have). It's not like they ask for proof.

As far as payment is concerned, I thought the $6 a day I got was a joke back in 2006, and a much bigger joke when I found out that it was the same amount my mother got in 1990 when she was a juror. The amount doesn't cover parking at most of the garages and lots downtown.

This is one reason juries are here to stay: they're cheap. Yearly salaries for legal professionals would be exponentially higher than the $6/day a juror gets.

[Thanas]

You really are grasping at straws here. What magic elements makes mock juries worse than real juries when it comes to listening to instructions? You do realize that this is a tried and true instrument of science, right?

Are mock juries compelled by law to show up?
Are they subject to legal punishment for lying?
Do they actually hold responsibility for another person's life, liberty or property?

No, no and no.

The only way such an experiment might work is if the mock jurors are summoned and seated just like real ones and are treated just like real ones, are made to sit through the trial just like real jurors and for all they might know, they are real jurors. Having a gaggle of indentured servants graduate students play "let's pretend" is a circlejerk. It's worthless playacting.

I just love how you dismiss all the psychological science here and I really like how you somehow think real juries are more attentive than a bunch of more intelligent people. If a bunch of interested college students are not keeping up, what makes you think people who do not want to be there are any better?


BTW, as you have not replied to my words about the Court of Appeals, shall I assume you concede that there are far more erros in the US system?

[LionElJonson]

Ideally, any sort of research done into jury attentiveness would be double-blind; neither the jurors not the people carrying out the trial would know whether or not it was a real trial or just a test.

[Elfdart]

I just love how you dismiss all the psychological science here and I really like how you somehow think real juries are more attentive than a bunch of more intelligent people. If a bunch of interested college students are not keeping up, what makes you think people who do not want to be there are any better?

Because real jurors are compelled by law to do so, while college students are not. It's the same reason people gamble more with Monopoly money than real money. One is real; the other is fake.

BTW, as you have not replied to my words about the Court of Appeals, shall I assume you concede that there are far more erros in the US system?

Just because I find it tedious to point out your cherry-picking for the umpteenth time doesn't mean I concede anything. Using the 9th Circuit's rate of overturning convictions when it's above the national average is par for the course in this thread.

Ideally, any sort of research done into jury attentiveness would be double-blind; neither the jurors not the people carrying out the trial would know whether or not it was a real trial or just a test.

Indeed.

[Thanas]

I just love how you dismiss all the psychological science here and I really like how you somehow think real juries are more attentive than a bunch of more intelligent people. If a bunch of interested college students are not keeping up, what makes you think people who do not want to be there are any better?

Because real jurors are compelled by law to do so, while college students are not. It's the same reason people gamble more with Monopoly money than real money. One is real; the other is fake.

And you really think a compulsion by law has any effect on mental capacity? Oh, btw, the link said "most research", not all research.

Again - why do you think motivated, intelligent people are going to put in a better performance than people who are of questionable intelligence and forced to be there against their will?

BTW, as you have not replied to my words about the Court of Appeals, shall I assume you concede that there are far more erros in the US system?

Just because I find it tedious to point out your cherry-picking for the umpteenth time doesn't mean I concede anything. Using the 9th Circuit's rate of overturning convictions when it's above the national average is par for the course in this thread.

We can use any other circuit if you want as well, the rates are not going to be in your favor anyway. I just wanted to use that one because it is the closest to Germany in terms of population.

[Tiwaz]

Because real jurors are compelled by law to do so, while college students are not. It's the same reason people gamble more with Monopoly money than real money. One is real; the other is fake.

And this compulsion would be enforced and supervised how?

Based on what we see here on jury proceedings it is precisely opposite.

Jury can sit in their little room scratching their asses and asking one another if anyone was awake, determine that none were and then toss coin to decide the outcome and nobody would be any wiser.

Total lack of accountability.