Jury Duty • Hacker News Board

Re: Jury Duty

#111

Post by agiamas » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 8:59 AM UTC

geomark wrote: post #103

ketralnis wrote: post #101

I sat on a civil jury trial between a boilermaker in the Navy that had been exposed to asbestos and developed mesothelioma, and a company that made asbestos insulation. Neither side could actually put the man and the company or its insulation in the same room at any point in the past. Lots and lots of companies made this type of insulation. (In an "accidental" outbust from one of the attorneys that we were instructed…

I feel the same way. The three times I served on a jury were all the same. Very few people bothered to read or try to understand the jury instructions. Few considered the evidence that was presented. Most were utterly clueless, totally lacking the ability to perform any logical reasoning. Most just voted their biases. Although, if you have a sharp attorney he could very well get a hung jury for you even if the eviden…

these same people are voting for your president or prime minister or MP. If anything, the (unfortunately, long term..) solution is to educate these people, not to abolish jury duty.

Re: Jury Duty

#112

Post by geomark » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 9:00 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #106

geomark wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That very well could be the case. But even if we knew the demographics of the community the sample size is too small to draw any conclusions.

really? There are places in Texas or California, for example, where the population is over 50% latino. In that case having only 1 of 12 Latino jurors would be sign of something, right?

A single jury is still too small of a sample size to be statistically significant. If you have more than two groups in the population (races in this case) then you need at least 5 expected cases of each in order for analysis of the actual versus expected proportions to be meaningful, which you can't get with 12 jurors. The closest you can get to it is if there are 3 groups evenly divided in the population, which gives you 4 expected cases each. If you had only 2 groups in the population that were each 50% then you would have 6 expected cases each. However, when analyzing sample proportions of 2 groups you need at least 10 cases each.

Those minimum case numbers are needed in order for the central limit theorem to be applicable in the statistical analysis.

Re: Jury Duty

#113

Post by simula67 » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 9:01 AM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #72

simula67 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trained professional judges who understand these matters. This is called 'Bench Trials'.

In Japan lay judges (citizens) were re-introduced into trials in order to offer defendants a possibly more sympathetic audience. In Japan, due to quite a few idiosyncrasies[1], prosecutors achieve upwards of 95% conviction rates. An imperfect jury system is likely better, in criminal cases, than having cozy professionals decide cases. [1] often no attorneys during interrogation, forced confessions, detentions without…

My apologies, but I find your comment somewhat confusing.

> In Japan lay judges (citizens) were re-introduced into trials in order to offer defendants a possibly more sympathetic audience. In Japan, due to quite a few idiosyncrasies[1], prosecutors achieve upwards of 95% conviction rates.

> often no attorneys during interrogation, forced confessions, detentions without charges, taking up only choice cases, declaring "accidents" rather than pursuing murder, etc...

How are any of these problems solved by introducing lay judges ? Aren't they attacking the wrong part of the problem ?

> An imperfect jury system is likely better, in criminal cases, than having cozy professionals decide cases.

I find it hard to believe that professionals would be more incapable of sympathy.

Re: Jury Duty

#114

Post by tzs » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 9:17 AM UTC

cgm616 wrote: post #56

snowwrestler wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would you trust to make the right decision? The prosecutor? The defense attorney? Like other aspects of republican democracy, it's not the best system, but it beats all known alternatives.

In this article, and apparently this happens a lot, jurors are not allowed to research the laws they are supposed to reach a verdict on. Also, the jurors cannot get the court transcript or ask the prosecution to repeat the charges. How is this the best alternative? Why can't jurors learn what they are incarcerating for?

> In this article, and apparently this happens a lot, jurors are not allowed to research the laws they are supposed to reach a verdict on

The judge includes the law the defendant is charged with violating and an explanation of what must be proved and what legal defenses that are (with advice from both the prosecution and defense on what to include and on the wording) in the jury instruction material given to the jury before deliberation. Unless the judge and the defense attorney seriously screw up, that should give the jury everything they need to know about the relevant laws.

Re: Jury Duty

#115

Post by rtpg » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 9:20 AM UTC

geomark wrote: post #112

rtpg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

really? There are places in Texas or California, for example, where the population is over 50% latino. In that case having only 1 of 12 Latino jurors would be sign of something, right?

A single jury is still too small of a sample size to be statistically significant. If you have more than two groups in the population (races in this case) then you need at least 5 expected cases of each in order for analysis of the actual versus expected proportions to be meaningful, which you can't get with 12 jurors. The closest you can get to it is if there are 3 groups evenly divided in the population, which give…

Huh, interesting, thanks for the explanation. Is there a nice summary/term I can search for that explains your needed sample side for things to be statistically significant?

Re: Jury Duty

#116

Post by visakanv » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 9:31 AM UTC

ketralnis wrote: post #101

I sat on a civil jury trial between a boilermaker in the Navy that had been exposed to asbestos and developed mesothelioma, and a company that made asbestos insulation. Neither side could actually put the man and the company or its insulation in the same room at any point in the past. Lots and lots of companies made this type of insulation. (In an "accidental" outbust from one of the attorneys that we were instructed…

> This type of civil trial only required a 9/12 majority and the other jurors really only saw this as a chance to stick it to the company. "Of course this man should be repaid for the damage done to him!" Any sort of nuance like, "okay sure but should this company be the one to pay it?" was totally lost. He's hurt, so somebody should pay up. That was it. That was their justice. The jury instructions like the actual claims to damages were totally ignored.

Most "justice systems" on Earth are really just thinly-veiled vengeance systems, unfortunately.

Re: Jury Duty

#117

Post by tzs » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 9:35 AM UTC

SolarNet wrote: post #7

bluedino wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latinos aren't men of color?

There were two men of color, one black and one latino. All the other people of color were women.

There were no black men: "Every black man had a story: police harassment, spurious arrests, intimidation. They were all eliminated".

Re: Jury Duty

#118

Post by RyanZAG » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 9:35 AM UTC

As a non American, the USA justice system honestly sounds like the worst possible system for justice imaginable. I don't think I could design a worse system if I tried. Do you all just keep the system because it keeps so many people employed following the pointless bureaucracy of it all?

The people making the decisions have no training in law at all, yet they have to decide if the law was broken. They get a brief spoken explanation of the law, but only after they have been given the testimony. Why would you not have someone trained in the law decide if the law was broken? Why would you not allow the jury to interrogate the witnesses when they must bear the responsibility of the decision? The idea seems to be that random people off the street will somehow be more willing to consider all angles and if they disagree, you get another random sampling and try again. Try enough times and eventually you'll get a bunch of people who are annoyed enough by being forced into jury duty to just agree so they can go home. Real justice right there.

You might say that the jury system allows for a justice even if the judge is compromised. But obviously it doesn't - the judge controls what information can be fed to the jury and the jury must make the decision based off that evidence. If the judge is biased, the jury will be forced into a particular decision anyway. Why not just have the judge do their job and have an appeals system and punishments on the judge for bad decisions? And yes, that system works fine. See the current Oscar Pistorius trial for a working system (imo).

Re: Jury Duty

#119

Post by geomark » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 9:41 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #115

geomark wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single jury is still too small of a sample size to be statistically significant. If you have more than two groups in the population (races in this case) then you need at least 5 expected cases of each in order for analysis of the actual versus expected proportions to be meaningful, which you can't get with 12 jurors. The closest you can get to it is if there are 3 groups evenly divided in the population, which give…

Huh, interesting, thanks for the explanation. Is there a nice summary/term I can search for that explains your needed sample side for things to be statistically significant?

Comparing proportions is the general topic. You are typically comparing a sample proportion (like the demographics of a jury) to a population proportion (like the demographics of a community from which jurors are drawn).

Re: Jury Duty

#120

Post by ptaipale » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 9:44 AM UTC

simula67 wrote: post #113

mc32 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Japan lay judges (citizens) were re-introduced into trials in order to offer defendants a possibly more sympathetic audience. In Japan, due to quite a few idiosyncrasies[1], prosecutors achieve upwards of 95% conviction rates. An imperfect jury system is likely better, in criminal cases, than having cozy professionals decide cases. [1] often no attorneys during interrogation, forced confessions, detentions without…

My apologies, but I find your comment somewhat confusing. > In Japan lay judges (citizens) were re-introduced into trials in order to offer defendants a possibly more sympathetic audience. In Japan, due to quite a few idiosyncrasies[1], prosecutors achieve upwards of 95% conviction rates. > often no attorneys during interrogation, forced confessions, detentions without charges, taking up only choice cases, declaring…

> How are any of these problems solved by introducing lay judges ?

Haven't studied this, but I would expect that it's in order to break the cozy (word used above) inner-circle relationship of professional lawyers who work in courts, switching roles between judge and prosecutor. The problem being isolation of the legal profession from "lay people".