Juries

[alex_antonin]

The jury system is completely fucking ridiculous, a stupid fucking idea. Twelve people get chosen randomly to have their lives turned upside down for some shit they don't care about, often chosen by racist, sexist, and other bigoted lawyers, the jurors will just vote whatever gets them back to their lives the fastest. It's no wonder that all the actual democracies in the world have given up on juries in full or in part.

I'm glad to find out that the accused can refuse a jury trial, except apparently in cases involving the death penalty. Oh joy! So not only do they not want to be there in the first place, these twelve random people get to have the death of a human being on their conscience as well. What kind of moron thought this system was a good idea?

Honestly, if I ever get picked for a jury, I'm just going to keep quiet til the last moment before consensus, then tell everyone about that thing where you can declare someone not guilty by reason of "this shouldn't be a crime," and make them have to do the whole thing over again. I think everybody who gets picked for a jury should sabotage the system in a similar way so maybe the lawmakers will put an end to this ridiculous bullshit.

Comments

[kengr]

You *are* aware *why* juries came to be? So that people of the same "class" as the accused could judge whether the accused was getting railroaded?

Extending it from nobles to commoners came later.

In modern times, it works out that the judge rules on matters of law. So after the jury has heard the trail, he explains what the law says the possible verdicts are (often it not just guilty or not guilty, but guilty of which of several possibilities or not guilty of any of them).

It's up to the jury to determine whether or not the prosecution's evidence meets the requirements. Which includes whether or not the defense's arguments/evidence throw enough doubt on things.

I'd like to see a few cites about places "giving up" on juries. It's more likely that the countries in question never had them in the first place.

Places that got their legal system from (or greatly influenced by) Britain have juries (or at least used to have them).

Places that got their legal system from France (Code Napoleon) don't. That because they got that "guilty until proven innocent" thing. Which is actually a lot more complex, but basically, the system is *supposed* to work such that the authorities don't bring things to trial withoput fairly hard proof (ie the cops are supposed to nail down the facts first).

Not sure about places with Spanish derived legal systems.

That covers most of the colonial powers.

Also, there are darn few (if any) "true democracies" out there.
btw they usually ask you a question or two during jury selection that's intended to weed out folks who know about jury nullification. So if you pipe up with it after getting selected, they can **legally* go after you for perjury.

Or sometimes it's in the instructions to the jury and the oath to obey said instructions.