At Stardate 200326.0034, Bryon Daly wrote:
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.
I think it *is* necessary. In the end, the jury must not decide if the defendant has committed a certain act, but if the defendant *broke a law* when he committed that act. And to be able to make that decision, they must *know* the law -- and that's what separates the judge from Joe Average. The judge has actually *studied* the law, Joe Average has not.
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
But how can a judge know if the jury did in fact not consider certain information? After all, whatever happens in the jury room is secret. A judge's motives for a decision are public.
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.
That's not necessarily a benefit. If a defendant is guilty but one member votes "not guilty" for whatever reason (like, FREX, he shares the defendant's radical political views) then the criminal will walk out of the courtroom a free man.
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?
Yes. I can't speak for other countries of course, but in The Netherlands only the lowest court has only one judge, higher courts have more judges.
- 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.
That is in fact an argument *against* trial by jury. A jury is supposed to only consider the *facts* of the committed crime, it's not supposed to be influenced by the economic standing of the defendant.
- 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).
Yet another argument against trial by jury. Just like with a physician, experience is of *benefit* to the judge. A jury doesn't have that experience.
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.
There is however ample protection against incompetence of a judge: an incompetent judge will lose his job, and the cases he handled will be appealed. In fact, given that you can't exactly become a judge right out of Law School, it's highly unlikely that an incompetent person will be given that job in the first place.
Jeroen van Baardwijk
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