--- Jeroen van Baardwijk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
See other post about law complexity.
> >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.
Once again you seem to be concerned more with a criminal getting away than an
inocent being punished. The Judge will know, becouse it is obvious when there
wasn't reasonable proof without somthing the judge told them to dismiss.
Remember we are not as concerned (in the way you are) about the other case.
when the Jury finds inocent, but the judge believes that the crime was
commited. Well, we are concerned. ->
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\Highly important////////////////////////////////
We are concerned that in such cases the person would be found inocent. You
are concerned in such cases that the person would be found guilty.
///////////////////////////Highly important\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Wheather or not we can convince eachother of the correctness or betterness of
one system or another, does this not iluminate why the US might not want
agree to the ICC?
It is not becouse we think we should be above some international law, but
becouse we do not agree with the system of that law.
> >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.
Yes we believe that this is better 100s of times over, than one inocent man
not leving the courtroom free.
> >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.
We want as little effect to the acused as possible. Otherwise those inforcing
the law could use it to harase people. It would take a long time (in
comparison) to reach a high enough level that would get enough people judging
to be fair.
> >- 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.
See "highly important" above.
> >- 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.
See "highly important" above.
> >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.
We in the US do not believe that the "truism" you present in the 2 paragraphs
above is actualy true.
We don't trust that, and we don't trust that the person will not change once
they recieve such power.
=====
_________________________________________________
Jan William Coffey
_________________________________________________
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