The validity of Juries in Trials

[Formless]

Those people's identities are very deliberately and carefully protected, although since essentially it's private business doing the protecting they're probably more effective at it than a government entity would be.

Well, if the professional jurors are organized under a non-governmental organization similar to the MPAA, engineering associations, or Bar association for lawers that's no problem.

[Thanas]

So we have:

2.3% overturned in total

11.6% partially overturned. What does it mean to be partially overturned? Remanded to the lower court for retrial?

Yeah, basically. The problem is that this can be anything from "the plaintiffs were right in two of their three claims" to "lower court made a mathematical error. Fine is 20.000 instead of 20.500". Generally, the last one is more prevalent.

3.08% where the plaintiffs (those who brought the appeal?) decided they had no case and withdrew?

Yeah, or where the judgement did not matter anymore (like the guy in question dieing and his estate not wanting to continue with the trial because they don't care about the honor or the potential risk of cost if they lose). Still, the plaintiffs deciding they have no case and withdrawing is the vast majority.

Do you happen to have access to US stats for comparison? I can run statistical tests (Using a poisson distribution) on the data, also, are there relevant differences in our appeals process which man impact the outcome and reflect difference in appellate outcome?

For example, is the legal standard for an appeal higher or more difficult to obtain in the US vs the German system?

Lower, cases that have no case can still be brought up for appeal, but will then get dismissed out of hand (these are included in the statistic).

However, keep in mind that this is the final review authority there is, kinda like a super appeals court (whereas cases from the american circuits courts of appeals go directly to the USSC).

[Alyrium Denryle]

Lower, cases that have no case can still be brought up for appeal, but will then get dismissed out of hand (these are included in the statistic).

Well, I mean that in the event that it does not get dismissed and arguments are actually heard, is the success rate higher in germany because there are for example, more things that warrant a successful appeal? I have been looking things up, and the success rate is very very low as far as I can tell, but I also know that appeals are very very difficult to win in the US because to a large extent the jury verdict is considered sacred.

[Thanas]

Lower, cases that have no case can still be brought up for appeal, but will then get dismissed out of hand (these are included in the statistic).

Well, I mean that in the event that it does not get dismissed and arguments are actually heard, is the success rate higher in germany because there are for example, more things that warrant a successful appeal? I have been looking things up, and the success rate is very very low as far as I can tell, but I also know that appeals are very very difficult to win in the US because to a large extent the jury verdict is considered sacred.

No idea, really.

[Elfdart]

How do I reply to such sketchy information? You show 586 overturned convictions. Out of how many cases? What kind of cases were these? Misdemeanors? Felonies? Murder? Rape? Traffic tickets? You don't say.

*Sigh*

newest version

2950 cases in total
all criminal cases (felonies and misdemeanors)
In 69 cases complete overturning of the lower court judgement
in 343 cases it was partially overturned
In 91 cases the plaintiffs decided to withdraw
In all other cases judgement was maintained in full.

Better now?

So you have about 17% of cases before the highest court where the conviction is overturned in one way or another. However, if you only count the 69 cases where the verdict was completely rejected and assume that in those cases the person was in fact innocent rather than not guilty due to a technicality, you end up with about a 2.3% wrongful conviction rate in cases that reach the highest court alone. I'm also assuming that lower courts in the German system weed out at least as many wrongful convictions, if not more. Correct me if I'm wrong.

According to The Innocence Project:

Q. How many innocent people are there in prison?

A. We will never know for sure, but the few studies that have been done estimate that between 2.3% and 5% of all prisoners in the U.S. are innocent (for context, if just 1% of all prisoners are innocent, that would mean that more than 20,000 innocent people are in prison).

The Innocence Project deals with cases where DNA and other scientific methods prove the innocence of the defendant who was wrongfully convicted -in other words, they aren't looking for an undotted i here or an uncrossed t there.

The ABA estimates that at least .5% of all people convicted of serious crimes (for which they end up in prison) are in fact innocent:

It is important to acknowledge that there is no certain way of knowing how many innocent persons have been wrongfully convicted of crimes. Although criminologists routinely discuss the underreporting of crime and have developed alternate measures that better capture the true rate of crime, we have not developed systematic methods of reporting and measuring wrongful conviction. To address this issue, our survey respondents were asked to estimate, based on their experiences, the frequency with which wrongful conviction occurs. Based on the responses to our survey, we used 0.5 percent as our estimate. If our "panel of judges" is correct, this means that the U.S. criminal justice system might be accurate in about 99.5 percent of the cases of felony conviction. That suggests, perhaps, a level of accuracy that might inspire great confidence. However, one’s perspective on the magnitude of the problem might change when one considers the overall volume of cases processed through the U.S. criminal justice system. For example, in the year 2000 there were 2.2 million arrests in the United States for index crimes alone. We also know that about 70 percent of those arrested for felonies are ultimately convicted of either a felony or a misdemeanor. This means that if we assume that the system was 99.5 percent accurate in those cases and made errors in only one-half of 1 percent (0.5 percent) of those convictions, that rate of error would have produced about 7,500 wrongful convictions among those 2.2 million arrested for index crimes. So a small error rate in a very large system can result in thousands of miscarriages of justice and allow many of the criminals who actually committed those crimes to remain free to victimize others.

So it appears that the rates of wrongful conviction in the U.S. and Germany are about the same. Leaving aside the fact that a number of criminal cases in the U.S. are not heard by juries and in any event, juries have no say in the appeals process, how exactly does this show that juries do worse at dispensing justice than judges?

[Netko]

The protection of professional juries argument is a red herring if you require (as you should really if you want a sane system since at that point it really is a branch of the government that is making the decision on guilt) that they publish the reasoning that led to the decision since there is no point in jury intimidation if their decision is transparent and appealable. Jury intimidation is only meaningful when the reasoning for a decision isn't published and as such there is no oversight of the conclusion process. The fact that the US doesn't allow the prosecution to appeal a not guilty verdict also adds value to jury intimidation since if you do manage to intimidate them there is no way to correct the abnormality. With transparent judgements and an equality of arms in appeals the only people that are really worth targeting for intimidation are Supreme Court justices since they are the final appeals authority (and one would hope they are already sufficiently protected against realistic threats). Well, maybe some lower judges as well that decide on things like bail during appeals and such (ie. opportunities for escape), but it certainly loses it point for juries.

[Thanas]

So it appears that the rates of wrongful conviction in the U.S. and Germany are about the same. Leaving aside the fact that a number of criminal cases in the U.S. are not heard by juries and in any event, juries have no say in the appeals process, how exactly does this show that juries do worse at dispensing justice than judges?

We have already talked about this in great detail, Elfdart.

Juries are not professionals, they do not know the law, they do not know how to weigh evidence, they can make gut decisions and nobody ever knows.


That said, how about some numbers of the US justice system:

Link 1

The study, an examination of appeals in all capital cases from the time the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, in 1976, to 1995, also found that 75 percent of the people whose death sentences were set aside were later given lesser sentences after retrials, in plea bargains or by order of a judge. An additional 7 percent were found not guilty on retrial.

Eighteen percent were given the death penalty on retrial, but many of these had their convictions overturned again in the appeals process.

The study, to be released today, is based on a search of state and federal court records. It was conducted by a team of lawyers and criminologists at Columbia University led by James S. Liebman, a professor of law who has served as a defense lawyer in a number of death penalty trials and appeals.

The rate of error found in appeals in death penalty cases ranged from 100 percent in three states -- Kentucky, Maryland and Tennessee -- and 91 percent in Mississippi, to 18 percent in Virginia, by far the lowest of any of the 34 states with the death penalty, raising questions about whether Virginia's court system is unusually fair or works to make it hard to detect errors.

[...]
As for the cause of so many errors in death penalty cases, the study found that 37 percent were the result of incompetent defense attorneys, who are often poorly paid or inexperienced in capital trials. An additional 19 percent of the errors were caused by misconduct by the police or prosecutors in suppressing evidence that would have helped the defendant.

In addition, 5 percent of the errors were the result of bias by the judge or jury, such as a judge telling the news media what he thought about the defendant during the trial. A further 20 percent were errors caused by faulty instructions given to juries by the judge. And the remaining 19 percent were in a miscellaneous category that included coerced confessions, prosecutors keeping African-Americans off the jury when a black defendant was on trial or the police planting informers in jails to listen to conversations between defendants and their lawyers.

Such a rate has never ever been reached in the German court system. What is even more, the link above proves that at least 15-25% of the errors were made due to the jury, by the jury or due to instructions to the jury being faulty.

So this is a pretty good argument for abolishing the jury system right there. If the people cannot be trusted to do a good job in the most important of cases (where one would think they would pay extra attention) then I fail to see how the Jury system is a plus.

Besides, even if there is no legal benefit to having a jury, there is a great benefit to having a judge - it saves a lot of time (no 1 or 2 trial days wasted with voir dire).

[Formless]

(as you should really if you want a sane system since at that point it really is a branch of the government that is making the decision on guilt)

Call this nitpicking if you will, but the whole point of using professional juries is that they do not have to be government officials at all, but can still be held legally and professionally responsible. Just like lawyers.

So this is a pretty good argument for abolishing the jury system right there. If the people cannot be trusted to do a good job in the most important of cases (where one would think they would pay extra attention) then I fail to see how the Jury system is a plus.

Excuse me, that statistic is taken from only two states in one single country that does jury trials where the kind of punishment being appealed is highly controversial. You really think all juries are going to be that incompetent, especially once you take public idiocy out of the equation?

[Elfdart]

So it appears that the rates of wrongful conviction in the U.S. and Germany are about the same. Leaving aside the fact that a number of criminal cases in the U.S. are not heard by juries and in any event, juries have no say in the appeals process, how exactly does this show that juries do worse at dispensing justice than judges?

We have already talked about this in great detail, Elfdart.

Juries are not professionals, they do not know the law, they do not know how to weigh evidence, they can make gut decisions and nobody ever knows.

And yet the results are about the same.

That said, how about some numbers of the US justice system:

First of all, death penalty cases are automatically sent to the appeals courts, who are expected to search for any kind of error. Second, most errors are not cause for a reversal of the verdict. Third, death penalty cases make up a tiny percentage of criminal cases, and are the one sort of criminal case where every detail is nitpicked. Using this one particular kind of case as representative of the whole system is the worst kind of cherry-picking.

Such a rate has never ever been reached in the German court system.

Which isn't saying much since Germany doesn't have a death penalty.

What is even more, the link above proves that at least 15-25% of the errors were made due to the jury, by the jury or due to instructions to the jury being faulty.

So a judge giving bad instructions to the jury is evidence that juries aren't qualified to hand out justice? This is the best part:

As for the cause of so many errors in death penalty cases, the study found that 37 percent were the result of incompetent defense attorneys, who are often poorly paid or inexperienced in capital trials. An additional 19 percent of the errors were caused by misconduct by the police or prosecutors in suppressing evidence that would have helped the defendant.

In addition, 5 percent of the errors were the result of bias by the judge or jury, such as a judge telling the news media what he thought about the defendant during the trial. A further 20 percent were errors caused by faulty instructions given to juries by the judge. And the remaining 19 percent were in a miscellaneous category that included coerced confessions, prosecutors keeping African-Americans off the jury when a black defendant was on trial or the police planting informers in jails to listen to conversations between defendants and their lawyers.

According to the article you cited, a defendant is many times more likely to get an undeserved death sentence because of the police and/or prosecutors and/or judges than because of a biased jury. Incompetent defense attorneys are also much more likely to send a client to death row. But it's juries that are the problem.

So this is a pretty good argument for abolishing the jury system right there.

No, it's an argument for abolishing judges. The judge instructs the jury and can overrule the jury. They can even order directed verdicts of not guilty. But then, judges are above the Great Unwashed, so when their mistakes, stupidity, corruption, apathy and incompetence lead to a wrongful conviction, it's the jury's fault and the jury system needs to be abolished.

If the people cannot be trusted to do a good job in the most important of cases (where one would think they would pay extra attention) then I fail to see how the Jury system is a plus.

Fine, but by that standard judges aren't a plus either.

Besides, even if there is no legal benefit to having a jury, there is a great benefit to having a judge - it saves a lot of time (no 1 or 2 trial days wasted with voir dire).

If you're so concerned with efficiency, even more time can be saved by dispensing with trials altogether.

[Alyrium Denryle]

First of all, death penalty cases are automatically sent to the appeals courts, who are expected to search for any kind of error. Second, most errors are not cause for a reversal of the verdict. Third, death penalty cases make up a tiny percentage of criminal cases, and are the one sort of criminal case where every detail is nitpicked. Using this one particular kind of case as representative of the whole system is the worst kind of cherry-picking.

You are an idiot. You have failed to take into account the directions of the bias you are pointing out. Here we go:

German appeals: Only those appeals which the defendant their their solicitor think they have a chance at winning go to appeal. This means that of the cherry picked cases, that low a number have errors. Our death penalty cases, even in the best case scenario are worse than the entire german system.

Seven percent is three times the percentage of convictions overturned in toto in the german system. The legal burden of an appeal is the same in the US for a death penalty case as it is for grand theft auto, so there is no bias there.

If you knew anything about statistics or the law you would be singing a different tune.

Which isn't saying much since Germany doesn't have a death penalty.

I wonder why

So a judge giving bad instructions to the jury is evidence that juries aren't qualified to hand out justice? This is the best part:

Yes. Because instructing a jury what they may or may not consider is harder than just knowing what you should or should not consider.

Lets put it this way: If you have to carefully instruct a group of people in what it is they are giving a verdict on, what they should use to reach that verdict, and what the law is regarding the subject, maybe you should not be using that group of people.

According to the article you cited, a defendant is many times more likely to get an undeserved death sentence because of the police and/or prosecutors and/or judges than because of a biased jury. Incompetent defense attorneys are also much more likely to send a client to death row. But it's juries that are the problem.

Oh no! We have multiple causes for the fucked up nature of our criminal justice system

Lets see, 2.5% (we will say Jury/Judge bias is an even split)+20% because the jury is too fucking stupid to know the law properly or know how to weigh evidence to the point that a judge has to spell it out for them and failure to be so exacting that even the retards allowed on juries can understand is sufficient cause for appeal. That is 22.5% multiplied by 68% which is the state-averaged error rate in death penalty cases is.... 15.3% of all death penalty cases are wrong because of the stupidity of juries. What a sobering number. Remember, that is just because of legal error. It says absolutely nothing about the adequacy or inadequacy of the evidence presented at trial to actually sustain a conviction. If the jury fucked that up and were instructed properly... well the verdict stands and an innocent person is executed.

Lets take a look at the german system:11.9% of cases in their entire system are found to be in error. Our jury error is larger than the error in their entire system. Combined.

The judge instructs the jury and can overrule the jury.

It is harder to teach than to do. If the jury needs such careful instruction then they dont need to be there. They can also only overrule the jury if there is an error in law that would prevent the charge from being sustained IIRC (Thanas can you clarify?)

But then, judges are above the Great Unwashed, so when their mistakes, stupidity, corruption, apathy and incompetence lead to a wrongful conviction, it's the jury's fault and the jury system needs to be abolished.

What a wonderful false dichotomy you have discovered...

[Thanas]

German appeals: Only those appeals which the defendant their their solicitor think they have a chance at winning go to appeal. This means that of the cherry picked cases, that low a number have errors. Our death penalty cases, even in the best case scenario are worse than the entire german system.

Small correction: Once can always file appeals, but the court will not allow them to go to trial if they are obviously unwinnable due to a sort of efficiency clause in the requirements for a case going to trial. This also applies to first trials as well - for example, if I were to sue the man in the moon for more moonlight, that case would be dismissed out of hand without ever seeing trial.

Lets put it this way: If you have to carefully instruct a group of people in what it is they are giving a verdict on, what they should use to reach that verdict, and what the law is regarding the subject, maybe you should not be using that group of people.

Best argument for Jury abandonement so far.

Note that in Germany we also have a sort of Jury - meaning usually it will be 1 professional and 2 laypersons or 3 professionals and 2 laypersons for some criminal and civil cases. However, the people selected are done so according to lists and selection processes. For example, in a case about labour law you would have one professional and two laypersons, who are usually either employers or labor activists (usually 1 from each side). These people know the law due to them living with it, even if they are not lawyers.

However, even that does not prevent them from screwing up sometimes and the two laypeople overruling the single professional. A trick used by some judges in that instance is for them to write the verdict is: "Sitting on XX.XX.XXXX, the court composed of Judge Y and Jury members XXXX and XXXX found" to indicate they got overruled. Which means the judgement will get overruled in appeal.

None of the professionals I know like the Jury, except for those in specialized areas like the aforementioned labor law.

And yet the results are about the same.

The discovered results are the same. Given that jury decisions are not public and therefore not able of being rationally reviewed (unlike every case in the German system)....I really do not see your point about the results.

I mean, don't you see the huge transparency issue here?

Which isn't saying much since Germany doesn't have a death penalty.

So only death penalty cases get incompetent juries now?

If you're so concerned with efficiency, even more time can be saved by dispensing with trials altogether.

[Thanas]

Excuse me, that statistic is taken from only two states in one single country that does jury trials where the kind of punishment being appealed is highly controversial. You really think all juries are going to be that incompetent, especially once you take public idiocy out of the equation?

Yes. Ask Stofsk.

I really doubt the average Briton, the average Australian or the average Canadian are smarter than the average American.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Small correction: Once can always file appeals, but the court will not allow them to go to trial if they are obviously unwinnable due to a sort of efficiency clause in the requirements for a case going to trial. This also applies to first trials as well - for example, if I were to sue the man in the moon for more moonlight, that case would be dismissed out of hand without ever seeing trial.

Sure. Even so however, we have mandatory appeal for capital cases, the germans dont have mandatory appeal for anything. As a result, capital cases go to appeal automatically, the german cases are, seemingly, cherry picked at least somewhat by the fact that the people doing the appeal think they may have something that looks like a case.

[Formless]

Yes. Ask Stofsk.

Because Stofsk has absolutely no reason to harbor irrational contempt for the system at all... oh, sorry, I was being sarcastic. Statistics are superior to anecdote, Thanas, especially when said anecdotes have emotional baggage attached to them. And yes, I would like to see statistics that take into account the non-anglosphere if possible. If somewhere out there a country managed to solve these problems and get superior results I would like to know about it, and know what they did right.

Besides, for all this talk about how much you don't like the jury system, you have yet to actually propose an alternative solution to the problem that juries solve. Namely the fact that judges in the US are elected officials, and thus simultaneously are at the mercy of not only the government but the people as well. Its not really the number of failures people are worried about, its the magnitude of failures when they do happen. Like a seat belt; on any given day you aren't that likely to get into a car accident, but if it happens you will be glad someone thought to engineer such a simple safety mechanism. One bad judge (or one bad administration) can do a lot of damage before he's gone. Like it or not, people are cynical about the government (just look at this thread), and the government does not always live up to that whole "by the people, for the people, of the people" motto. So its not inconceivable that a judge may not always make his decisions in the interest of the law rather than the interests of his constituency or the interests of the current regime (either way would be bad). So, given that you are opposed to juries period, how do you expect to solve this conundrum?

I like the professional jurors solution because it simultaneously takes away the idiocy of laypeople while also removing the incentives for corruption/abuse of power that a judge has. Granted, a tyrannical government could always just abolish the jurors and set up their own system and no one could stop them. But the simple fact that it would require a blatant show of power to corrupt such a system is a good thing. It means its more robust.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Besides, for all this talk about how much you don't like the jury system, you have yet to actually propose an alternative solution to the problem that juries solve. Namely the fact that judges in the US are elected officials, and thus simultaneously are at the mercy of not only the government but the people as well.

have them be non-elected. Very simple. Ideally we would have an a-political body such as the Bar Association doing the placement of judges. Perhaps have criminal law professors do rotations. Barring that, have the local sitting executive for whatever state jurisdiction is relevant appoint them for a set term equal to their term in office from a list of willing and suitable candidates put forth by said state bar association. Federal judges may only be appointed from the combined state pools.

One bad judge (or one bad administration) can do a lot of damage before he's gone.

Which is why they should be restricted to a candidate pool.

So, given that you are opposed to juries period, how do you expect to solve this conundrum?

Frankly, I think it better to risk that than have the systemic cancer is the lay-jury system.

I like the professional jurors solution because it simultaneously takes away the idiocy of laypeople while also removing the incentives for corruption/abuse of power that a judge has. Granted, a tyrannical government could always just abolish the jurors and set up their own system and no one could stop them. But the simple fact that it would require a blatant show of power to corrupt such a system is a good thing. It means its more robust.

Agreed. I would also prefer this system over the current one, where you have individuals educated in the law (at least to the standards of a paralegal) as well as logic, ethics, and forensic science. Hell, make a BS or BA degree out of it.

[Formless]

have them be non-elected. Very simple. Ideally we would have an a-political body such as the Bar Association doing the placement of judges. Perhaps have criminal law professors do rotations. Barring that, have the local sitting executive for whatever state jurisdiction is relevant appoint them for a set term equal to their term in office from a list of willing and suitable candidates put forth by said state bar association. Federal judges may only be appointed from the combined state pools.

That could work (well, in Theoretical Land, at least). It sounds like its basically the same solution as the body of professional jurors solution, but applied to judges.

[Thanas]

Yes. Ask Stofsk.

Because Stofsk has absolutely no reason to harbor irrational contempt for the system at all... oh, sorry, I was being sarcastic. Statistics are superior to anecdote, Thanas, especially when said anecdotes have emotional baggage attached to them. And yes, I would like to see statistics that take into account the non-anglosphere if possible. If somewhere out there a country managed to solve these problems and get superior results I would like to know about it, and know what they did right.

You are completely out of luck then, because the anglosphere is pretty much the only one using juries to that extent. That you do not know this just shows that you have limited knowledge of the subject.

Besides, for all this talk about how much you don't like the jury system, you have yet to actually propose an alternative solution to the problem that juries solve. Namely the fact that judges in the US are elected officials, and thus simultaneously are at the mercy of not only the government but the people as well. Its not really the number of failures people are worried about, its the magnitude of failures when they do happen. Like a seat belt; on any given day you aren't that likely to get into a car accident, but if it happens you will be glad someone thought to engineer such a simple safety mechanism. One bad judge (or one bad administration) can do a lot of damage before he's gone. Like it or not, people are cynical about the government (just look at this thread), and the government does not always live up to that whole "by the people, for the people, of the people" motto. So its not inconceivable that a judge may not always make his decisions in the interest of the law rather than the interests of his constituency or the interests of the current regime (either way would be bad). So, given that you are opposed to juries period, how do you expect to solve this conundrum?

Have professional judges, selected by a professional body. I honestly do not see how this is such an insurmountable task, given that you will not see elected judges in Europe.


Here's how it goes in Germany, btw:

- Only the top 12-15% of lawstudents are eligible for the job (exceptions being made if a candidate excels in a particular area or if not enough people apply)
- Choices are made by the relevant government body (usually, a panel in which all political factions get their say) and then submitted to the legislature for confirmation
- The courts will grumble in the press if they do not like the choice, which usually leads to a withdrawal of the nomination.

I fail to see the problem with such a system.

[adam_grif]

Quasi-related hypothetical: How would you people feel about advanced AI systems being used to replace Juries or possibly even Judges eventually?

[Serafina]

Quasi-related hypothetical: How would you people feel about advanced AI systems being used to replace Juries or possibly even Judges eventually?

That pretty much depends on what you mean by "advanced AI".
In other words, it's a pure hypothetical that can only derail the thread.


On the actual topic:
What advantages do juries actually have?
I understand that they had a valid use once upon a time - where judges could rule out of cruelty or personal bias and there was next to no way to appeal such a judgment. But this is not the case any more, if such a thing happens you can appeal it pretty well. Actually, it seems like juries are a blockade to such an appeal, since their working is not visible. Thus, if the jury rules based on prejudice etc.
Therefore, juries are actually furthering what they are intended to prevent.

I simply see no advantage in juries.

[Elfdart]

First of all, death penalty cases are automatically sent to the appeals courts, who are expected to search for any kind of error. Second, most errors are not cause for a reversal of the verdict. Third, death penalty cases make up a tiny percentage of criminal cases, and are the one sort of criminal case where every detail is nitpicked. Using this one particular kind of case as representative of the whole system is the worst kind of cherry-picking.

You are an idiot.

And you're a walking, talking genital wart.

You have failed to take into account the directions of the bias you are pointing out. Here we go:

German appeals: Only those appeals which the defendant their their solicitor think they have a chance at winning go to appeal. This means that of the cherry picked cases, that low a number have errors. Our death penalty cases, even in the best case scenario are worse than the entire german system.

Seven percent is three times the percentage of convictions overturned in toto in the german system. The legal burden of an appeal is the same in the US for a death penalty case as it is for grand theft auto, so there is no bias there.

Defendants were acquitted in seven percent of the death penalty cases that were sent back for re-trial, you fucking moron. That's 7% of the 68%, which adds up to less than 5% of these cases being wrongful convictions. The issue, which you are too much of a fucking imbecile to grasp is how many people are wrongly convicted. When, out of that 68% of cases where the conviction is overturned, 93% are convicted it means the court (judge, attorneys and jurors) got it right 93% of the time.

If you knew anything about statistics or the law you would be singing a different tune.

You know nothing about either subject and it hasn't stopped you yet.

Which isn't saying much since Germany doesn't have a death penalty.

I wonder why

Because at Nuremberg, the right people received it for a change?

So a judge giving bad instructions to the jury is evidence that juries aren't qualified to hand out justice? This is the best part:

Yes. Because instructing a jury what they may or may not consider is harder than just knowing what you should or should not consider.

Lets put it this way: If you have to carefully instruct a group of people in what it is they are giving a verdict on, what they should use to reach that verdict, and what the law is regarding the subject, maybe you should not be using that group of people.

You will provide evidence that it's the fault of the jurors when the judge gives erroneous instructions. The authors of the study (at least as it was described in the NYT) made it a point to draw a distinction between the state's suppression of exculpatory evidence on one hand, and other forms of misconduct on the other. So there's no reason to assume that when the cause of wrongful conviction is listed as "errors caused by faulty instructions given to juries by the judge", it really means "juries are too stupid to understand the judge" (aside from unjustified feelings of superiority by those who have little or no cause to consider themselves superior to anyone). When the judge tells the jury that the defendant's state of mind when he killed so-and-so is not relevant in deciding premeditated murder when by law it is, and the jury does as the judge instructs, that's the fault of the judge. The same goes for when a judge disallows testimony about the defendant's state of mind when the defense attorney tries to bring it up. It's not the defense lawyer's fault, either.

For example, in the case of the man who assassinated Dr. George Tiller the judge said he was going to let the jury consider manslaughter instead of premeditated murder since Scott Roeder claimed that he believed he was stopping infanticide by killing the doctor. Now the judge realized that he had fucked up (to be charitable) and told the jury differently later in the trial and the jury convicted Roeder of murder anyway, but if the judge hadn't corrected himself and the jury did give manslaughter instead of first degree murder, it's not the fault of the jury and it's certainly not evidence that the jury is stupid since jurors are told from Day One that they must follow the instructions given by the judge.

Oh no! We have Alyrium Denryle, who can't reason his way out of a wet paper bag!

You stand corrected.

Lets see, 2.5% (we will say Jury/Judge bias is an even split)+20% because the jury is too fucking stupid to know the law properly or know how to weigh evidence to the point that a judge has to spell it out for them and failure to be so exacting that even the retards allowed on juries can understand is sufficient cause for appeal. That is 22.5% multiplied by 68% which is the state-averaged error rate in death penalty cases is.... 15.3% of all death penalty cases are wrong because of the stupidity of juries.

Speaking of paper bags, watching you attempt to make a point while doing grade school-level math is even more pathetic than watching a hobo under a bridge huffing nail polish remover out of one.

Feel free at any time to offer evidence that out of the 20% of cases overturned because of bad jury instructions it was in fact the fault of the jurors. Otherwise your little rant is as utterly worthless as you are.

What a sobering number.

I found it somewhat amusing actually, watching you do a one-man circlejerk based on the baseless assumption that when lawyers and criminologists describe something as "errors caused by faulty instructions given to juries by the judge", they really mean "the jurors were too stupid to know what they were doing".

Remember, that is just because of legal error. It says absolutely nothing about the adequacy or inadequacy of the evidence presented at trial to actually sustain a conviction. If the jury fucked that up and were instructed properly... well the verdict stands and an innocent person is executed.

Who says it's the jury that fucked up? Oh, you do. One problem: You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

The judge instructs the jury and can overrule the jury.

It is harder to teach than to do. If the jury needs such careful instruction then they dont need to be there. They can also only overrule the jury if there is an error in law that would prevent the charge from being sustained IIRC (Thanas can you clarify?)

The judge can overrule and acquit a defendant or declare a mistrial or order a directed verdict of not guilty. At least they can in my state. It may be different in other jurisdictions.

But then, judges are above the Great Unwashed, so when their mistakes, stupidity, corruption, apathy and incompetence lead to a wrongful conviction, it's the jury's fault and the jury system needs to be abolished.

What a wonderful false dichotomy you have discovered...

That whole logic thing is just too much for you, isn't it? If the smaller percentage of wrongful convictions that are the result of jury error are reason enough to abolish the jury system entirely, then the much larger numbers resulting from errors or misconduct from judges and attorneys makes it that much more logical to abolish them as well.

The discovered results are the same. Given that jury decisions are not public and therefore not able of being rationally reviewed (unlike every case in the German system)....I really do not see your point about the results.

I mean, don't you see the huge transparency issue here?

Defense attorneys and prosecutors can interview jurors after they hand down a conviction. Prosecutors can interview jurors after an acquittal, but jurors are under no obligation to answer them. On top of that, most jurors can't wait to spill their guts about the case once they're released. Transparency is not a problem.

[Serafina]

Because at Nuremberg, the right people received it for a change?

Wow. What a fucktard answer.
Perhaps because we know that the death penalty is easily abused, and that any errors made can not be reversed.
And juries would have done nothing to prevent that.
Indeed, you have juries doing just exactly that - in your country. Because layman can, by definition, not decide based on knowledge and only of gut feeling.

[Ford Prefect]

Namely the fact that judges in the US are elected officials, and thus simultaneously are at the mercy of not only the government but the people as well.

I'm only really familiar with the US Supreme Court, but in that case isn't this basically totally untrue? Supreme Court justices are selected by the President, and then confirmed by the Senate ... at which point they're tenured. At that point, they're not actually at the will of the people: it's basically the biggest argument against judicial review as set down by Marshall CJ in Marbury v Madison.

[Zed]

There've been some speculations on this thread about what would happen if jury verdicts had to be motivated - it's probably possible to determine that empirically, as jury verdicts have to be motivated in all states that accept the juridiction of the European Court of Human Rights. The State of Belgium has been condemned precisely for not having motivated decisions by juries, and a number of verdicts have been nullified due to that.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Namely the fact that judges in the US are elected officials, and thus simultaneously are at the mercy of not only the government but the people as well.

I'm only really familiar with the US Supreme Court, but in that case isn't this basically totally untrue? Supreme Court justices are selected by the President, and then confirmed by the Senate ... at which point they're tenured. At that point, they're not actually at the will of the people: it's basically the biggest argument against judicial review as set down by Marshall CJ in Marbury v Madison.

That only applies to the Supreme court. At all posts below Supreme Court judges are varying flavors of elected officials and/or appointed by elected officials without a lifetime seat, in a patchwork system varying by level and locality.

[Thanas]

The discovered results are the same. Given that jury decisions are not public and therefore not able of being rationally reviewed (unlike every case in the German system)....I really do not see your point about the results.

I mean, don't you see the huge transparency issue here?

Defense attorneys and prosecutors can interview jurors after they hand down a conviction. Prosecutors can interview jurors after an acquittal, but jurors are under no obligation to answer them. On top of that, most jurors can't wait to spill their guts about the case once they're released. Transparency is not a problem.

Yeah, it is, because you still do not know what happened. People can bleat to the press what they won't, doesn't make it true. And really, all you have so far is voluntary hearsay. No evidence, no transcript, nothing....