I don't want to get involved in the "which is better" debate, but I'd like to insert some replies here...
From: Jeroen van Baardwijk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
At Stardate 20030625.2102, Jan Coffey wrote:
I trust an average person taken from the street far more than I would trust someone who does it for a living.
So, when you feel ill, you ask a not-medically-trained average person from the street for a diagnosis, rather than go see a physician (a trained professional who does this for a living)?
When someone allegedly broke a law, do you really believe that uneducated Joe Average is more qualified to determine whether a law really was broken than someone who has actually *studied* the laws?
I think that a large part of the judgement of a case is not in how to
interpret the laws themselves, but in how to judge the facts and evidence
of the case: Things like "is that witness credible?", "was that testimony
truthful?", "is the evidence presented convincing enough?", "does the degree
of the crime match the charges?", "were the defendant's actions reasonable?",
etc. Certainly, expert knowledge of the law can be helpful in regards to these
questions, but it isn't really necessary. Where more technical points of law are
involved, the judge is involved, and he/she can dismiss the case, declare a
mistrial, exclude evidence, instruct the jury on the points of law, order the jury
not to consider certain information while making its decision, and even at times
override/reverse the jury's decision completely. (This last notably happened in
the british nanny baby-abuse trial here in Boston). All this gives the judge a
HUGE amount of power even though they do not make the verdict.
The benefits I see of trial by jury are:
- There are 13 people who must be convinced of your guilt. Even one dissent
vote will void the trial. Having a larger voting group helps eliminate some hidden
biases that might otherwise influence the decision unfairly. I'm curious, is there
more than one judge deciding the guilty/innocent verdict in non-jury systems?
- I'm guessing most judges belong to the upper class or close to it. (Law
school isn't cheap, and judges get paid fairly well.) A poor defendant might have
a better chance of understanding from a mixed jury of common people than
from a weathy judge. And a rich defendant might have less chance of "getting away
with it" for the same reason.
- There is less chance that a jury would become jaded (and hence biased) because,
unlike a judge, they haven't "seen/heard it all before". Jurors won't have the extensive
previous experience of other cases that might color their perception of the current one.
(This can be a mixed blessing, I think).
The downsides I see of a jury trial are:
- It's possible to get some very _un_intelligent people on the jury. (See the OJ trial)
There is not much protection against juror incompetency.
- The jurors have very little, if any, accountability. One moron or bad egg can
ruin things (though usually in the direction of innocence, so these failures
don't tend to put innocent people in jail).
- You get lawyers specializing in jury psychology and assorted other games like that.
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