Juries..are you for them or against them?

[melanie2]

Washington Irving once said that there should be no juries..Jury members are supposedly peers of the defendant..I'm re-reading To Kill a Mocking Birdby Harper Lee..the jury found Tom Robinson guilty..not of committing the act, but because a black man had the audacity to feel sorry for a white woman..a crime in those days in the south..a crime that would send Tom to the electric chair..the jury was made up of all white males..were they peers of the defendant..in reality, the jury should have been made up of at least half the members being black..

Take the case of the dog mauling trial in California a few years back..the jury found the female guilty of second degree murder...the Judge in the case later over-turned that ruling..thereby making what the jury had decided null and void..

Are juries fair and un-biased?

 

[tklmaestro]

I suppose all juries are fallible just like people. Karma is the only true justice in the world and it doesn't take a court system to enact it. 😉

 

[TKLVR181]

Looks like the jury's still out on juries....:laughing:

~K

 

[dentrag1231]

I'm for them if it's not a complex subject that the average person (who somehow always has below average intelligence) will need explained.

 

[FeatherDaemon1]

I support the jury system. Both sides in a case can challenge jury pool members. In addition jury members are required by law to be neutral. We all know that those jury members are human and have their inclinations, but that is why there is a pool and a vote. All those factors are supposed to cancel each other out and I suppose that they do in a great majority of cases.

I would feel more concerned if only a judge had the final say.

I have sat on two cases and I loved the experience. You learn quite a bit about law in the court case and in deliberations. I feel like any other human system it has faults, but I support it.

 

[melanie2]

In the case of the dog mauling trial, the Judge did end up having the final say..so what was the point of a jury? I found that totally unfair, as i believed the woman was indeed guilty of second degree murder, for not controlling those vicious dogs better..and they tore that poor lady apart..

and Karen...*spanks* lol

 

[TKLVR181]

and Karen...*spanks* lol

Owie! C'mon, not even a lighthearted groan? Even a poke would have sufficed! :stickout

On a more serious note, the system is flawed, there's no doubt.

I might be biased since I have jury duty in May....>_<

~K

 

[FeatherDaemon1]

In the case of the dog mauling trial, the Judge did end up having the final say..so what was the point of a jury? I found that totally unfair, as i believed the woman was indeed guilty of second degree murder, for not controlling those vicious dogs better..and they tore that poor lady apart..

and Karen...*spanks* lol

I don't know the specifics of that case, but a judge can overrule a jury. However, the judge truly needs legal justification to do it. In addition, I believe a defendant can waive their right to a jury trial.

 

[melanie2]

I would love to serve on a Jury..and yet i'm never called..and hubby has served twice now since we moved here..I'm the one who used to be an avid courttv viewer..ah well.

 

[milagros317]

I don't trust juries, but I trust a single judge (who may be a political appointee) even less.

 

[Violetta]

I'm totally against juries. I think the accused should be hooked up via electrodes to a gigantic brain incased in an immortal robotic floating head that has the artificial wisdom to discern justice and truth. Its word will become gospel and its sentences carried out to the letter, lest we incur its righteous wrath and burn in the fires of the unholy.

Amen.

 

[Big_Dogg85]

Traditionally, when people were accused of a crime, their peers were the ones who decided the fate of the accused. In most cases this turns out to be members of the community, only then the community was far tighter knit and far more fragile than it is now. The decision of the jury could mean nothing, through small reprimands such as paying back costs or working for the victim, to greater reprimands such as death or exile: perhaps a fate worse than death because when you were exiled you were completely on your own without the warmth and protection of the community settlement... Today the jury does not have as profound an effect on trials as it did historically but that is not to say that it isn't effective. I understand the need for juries to determine verdicts for crimes of a great magnitude, such as murder, but I also understand the right of any person accused of a crime to appeal the decision.

Izzy: I don't know the specifics of your case, but I know that there are few instances where the guilty party wins their appeal. It would take either a fault in the decision itself, (if the facts were more distorted than "black and white") the administration of the law or the argument that the first trial was not a fair trial.

I still feel that juries are an integral part of the judicial process but I also realize that the position of jury member is met with great disdain as it means a fair amount of time away from work and family and I think that disdain automatically presents bias.

Who knows what will happen 30-50 years from now, heck even 5-10 years: the law is never static, it changes to represent the direction society is in and heading.

 

[FeatherDaemon1]

Drink some water before you go to bed Bella. You'll never get a hangover that way. LOL.

As for typing, my typing is crappy in both states of drunkenness and sobriety.

 

[Ninjaboo]

Juries are a very important part of the legal system... As far as I can think, a jury is as fair as the system can get at the moment. How else would we decide guilt or innocence? Leave it to the judge? That's far too much power for one person.

 

[Violetta]

Drink some water before you go to bed Bella. You'll never get a hangover that way. LOL.

As for typing, my typing is crappy in both states of drunkenness and sobriety.

Got a glass of ice water right now. I should put vodka in it.

'Sides, only ever had two hangovers in my entire drinking life. It's been a good 8 years.

 

[kopfhorer1]

That's it - since jury trials are largely dead, dull boring, do what they did in the old west and hold trials in a local watering hole. Of course, there might be some problems with this approach, such as inebriated jurors recommending the death penalty for shoplifting, but Court TV will never be the same again!

Or, hold trials in a bank. The whole legal system is driven by money anyway.

 

[MistressValerie1]

The most important function of a jury might be jury nullification, the ability to acquit a guilty defendant if the jury feels that conviction would be a gross miscarriage of justice.

 

[N/A]

In the US, we do not have a "jury of ones peers" but an "impartial jury".
I only served on one trial, for a minor drug offense, but we took it seriously and finally acquitted him because the state did not have enough evidence: they had not bothered to check the evidence (not found on the defendant's person) for fingerprints when they lab-tested for chemistry, and the ID was only by one man. Enough to arrest someone, but not to prove the case.

 

[Big_Dogg85]

The most important function of a jury might be jury nullification, the ability to acquit a guilty defendant if the jury feels that conviction would be a gross miscarriage of justice.

The issue there though is that it would take one heck of a set of exigent circumstances for jury nullification to come into play and it's not easy to commit a gross miscarriage of justice, much less define what constitutes it. I do not believe Canada has jury nullification, at least through my readings, but juries here can recommend a lighter sentence in light of such exigent circumstances... in the end it is the sentencing judge who decides the fate of the guilty party.

Jury nullification seems to be a good function but in the grand scheme of every single trial by jury in recorded history: it's a function that needs to exist but is almost never used since such exigent circumstances rarely surface.

 

[MistressValerie1]

The issue there though is that it would take one heck of a set of exigent circumstances for jury nullification to come into play and it's not easy to commit a gross miscarriage of justice, much less define what constitutes it. I do not believe Canada has jury nullification, at least through my readings, but juries here can recommend a lighter sentence in light of such exigent circumstances... in the end it is the sentencing judge who decides the fate of the guilty party.

Jury nullification seems to be a good function but in the grand scheme of every single trial by jury in recorded history: it's a function that needs to exist but is almost never used since such exigent circumstances rarely surface.

What I had in mind was cases where someone has been charged with violating a law that is probably unconstitutional or misapplied, such as certain victimless crimes that are, in the eyes of the jury, rightfully none of the government's business, or cases where a defendant faces a draconian mandatory penalty for a minor crime.

An example would be when a defendant is charged with marijuana possession under federal law but is a legal medical user under state law. In that case, a jury might (ideally) nullify a conviction to keep a seriously ill patient out of federal prison. Unfortunately, lawyers have no right to mention jury nullification during a trial, and judges often warn jurors not to nullify. Only a layperson acting in his own defence is allowed to mention nullification, and even then, only obliquely.

 

[Cbarton]

Izzy, for every "To Kill A Mockingbird" one can site a "12 Angry Men"

With a jury, the accused has a fighting chance. I trust many judges very little, since we have judges and justices such as the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals out in California that is commonly called the "9th Circus" do to the extreme lengths that this particular court of appeals has gone in 'legislating from the bench," where they ignore or re-write the Constitution or other state and federal laws to match their (often extreme) liberal agendas, rather than interpret the law as given. That scares me more.

I mean, really, when Supreme Court Justices make their ruling based on laws in other countries rather than the Constitution? The article that creates the Supreme Court authorizes them to INTERPRET, not create law. We already have legislators messing that process up. Last thing I want are judges with NO accountability creating law instead.

 

[Big_Dogg85]

I mean, really, when Supreme Court Justices make their ruling based on laws in other countries rather than the Constitution? The article that creates the Supreme Court authorizes them to INTERPRET, not create law. We already have legislators messing that process up. Last thing I want are judges with NO accountability creating law instead.

I agree with just about everything you said Hawk-man, only thing is the laws from other countries and allow me to explain. 🙂

I agree that judges shouldn't be legislating from the bench except for the most dire circumstances (and even then...) but to only create legislation from a single source would be quite narrow minded... if an aspect from a law in Canada, Great Britain, or even international law, for instance, is both appealing and properly applicable to U.S. society then wouldn't it be a good idea to amend or create legislation to reflect said aspect? Although I cannot quote any legislation that does so and my apologies for that, I'm positive there are some aspects of U.S. legislation that other countries and international law have used and applied to their articles. On top, the law is the law is the law: in terms of similar legislation between states, nations and nation-states, (i.e. criminal legislation) no law outranks another.

Oddly enough, especially here in the North, we are getting more and more "accountable politicians" demonstrating their ineptitude and yet escaping that so-called accountability... go figure eh?

 

[Wade1]

With a jury, the accused has a fighting chance. I trust many judges very little, since we have judges and justices such as the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals out in California that is commonly called the "9th Circus" do to the extreme lengths that this particular court of appeals has gone in 'legislating from the bench," where they ignore or re-write the Constitution or other state and federal laws to match their (often extreme) liberal agendas, rather than interpret the law as given. That scares me more.

Well, judges--like the rest of us--are human, and errors do occur. Though I don't think liberal justices have any more of a corner on activist "legislating" from the bench than conservative judges do. (Generally, people tend to define "legislating from the bench" as whatever decisions are coming down that they don't personally agree with.)

One of the many remarkably ingenious aspects of the U.S. system is the way it combines both juries and judges into the scheme--a notion that seems unwieldy in theory but actually does much to counterbalance each body's flaws in practice. At least some of the time.

 

[MistressValerie1]

Please see the following articles about conservative judicial activism (excerpts follow each link):

http://www.reason.com/news/show/128956.html

So it's no small matter that one of the country's most prominent conservative judges is now criticizing Scalia for being a judicial activist. In a provocative new article forthcoming from the Virginia Law Review, federal appeals court Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III surveys Scalia's recent handiwork in the landmark gun rights case D.C. v. Heller (2008) and finds it seriously lacking. "Heller," Wilkinson writes, "encourages Americans to do what conservative jurists warned for years they should not do: bypass the ballot and seek to press their political agenda in the courts."

www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0507mccainmay07,0,3516143.story

McCain also seems stunningly unaware that the justices he simplistically lauds as "judicial passivists" are nothing of the sort. William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and more recently John Roberts and Samuel Alito, have consistently voted to invalidate laws at a record clip, most notably holding unconstitutional a broad range of laws regulating commercial advertising, limiting corporate campaign expenditures and authorizing affirmative action programs to enhance educational diversity—to say nothing of Bush vs. Gore. This is not strict construction and it is not judicial restraint. It is conservative activism gone wild—in judicial robes. McCain just doesn't understand.

 

[meangry1]

Juries are fair and unbiased...and using Harper Lee and a fictional story is...well...sorta benign.