Jury Duty • Hacker News Board

Re: Jury Duty

#211

Post by ethbro » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 3:57 PM UTC

ckozlowski wrote: post #177

ethbro wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's rebutted by the Janet Malcolm quote the author includes. The absences of knowledge isn't impartiality: people don't render decisions from ignorance + logic. They simply fabricate their best attempt at knowledge and apply that to the situation. So in this respect, it's not a choice between "relying on legal experts to provide legal information" and "using your own amateur legal knowledge" but rather "bastardizi…

I think the intent is to have people "relying on legal experts to provide legal information". What often happens is "bastardizing legal experts' explanations to fit your own views". I suspect there's a fear that trying to apply the law on one's own leads to the latter happening more. But one could argue that it happens anyways, as you point out. I wouldn't argue the absence of bias, we seem to be in agreement there,…

I think a start would be to have a truly impartial legal consultation system that jurors could avail themselves of at any point. The responses would be given with a minimum of contextual information about the case necessary to answer the question.

In practice, the judge is supposed to serve this role, no? But I think it's readily apparent from the variances in judge activism that judges are people too. In hearing all the details about the case they can't help but form an opinion and are in a position to act on that opinion to varying degrees should they so choose.

Re: Jury Duty

#212

Post by JoeAltmaier » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 3:59 PM UTC

ckozlowski wrote: post #177

ethbro wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's rebutted by the Janet Malcolm quote the author includes. The absences of knowledge isn't impartiality: people don't render decisions from ignorance + logic. They simply fabricate their best attempt at knowledge and apply that to the situation. So in this respect, it's not a choice between "relying on legal experts to provide legal information" and "using your own amateur legal knowledge" but rather "bastardizi…

I think the intent is to have people "relying on legal experts to provide legal information". What often happens is "bastardizing legal experts' explanations to fit your own views". I suspect there's a fear that trying to apply the law on one's own leads to the latter happening more. But one could argue that it happens anyways, as you point out. I wouldn't argue the absence of bias, we seem to be in agreement there,…

Juries are weird. Supposed to inject mercy into the system, right? They are your 'peers' and supposed to know better than the lawyers about your situation. Deliberately not experts in law, and not supposed to be. I'm not sure 'impartiality' and legal information are what Juries are about.

Re: Jury Duty

#213

Post by bababouy33 » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #52

kiba wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really trust jury/layman to make the correct decision. I mean, you're taking ordinary people, untrained to probe the gobbyspeak of lawyers or matters of science And you're expecting them to render guilty or innocent verdicts?

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.

A deep neural net that has access to all data pertaining to the case (not a joke).

Re: Jury Duty

#214

Post by voxic11 » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #173

michaelt wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an oil company CEO on trial for a crime got tried by a jury of other oil company CEOs, I agree the conviction rate would drop. I'm not sure how much it would improve the outcomes for society, though.

Yes, but the counterpoint is that if they let their buddy off the hook and this is later found to be the case, they all end up on a considerably pointier hook. Speaking of, "the hook" was what you got in the Ottoman Empire instead of a jury trial. You'd be sat upon a large metal hook until you confessed or died.

Why would they? Jury nullification is legal.

Re: Jury Duty

#215

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 6:47 PM UTC

geomark wrote: post #168

icebraining wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was he charged with?

"Distribution of harmful matter to minors." The law requires a warning that says it shouldn't be sold to minors. Instead, they put on a sticker with a snarky remark about how some people might find the contents objectionable, "but life is like that" (something like that). So kids were buying the album and parents were freaking out when they found the poster hanging in their bedrooms. There was never really any notion…

[deleted]

Re: Jury Duty

#216

Post by superuser2 » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 7:48 PM UTC

_pmf_ wrote: post #174

RyanZAG wrote: post #118

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 spo…

> As a non American, the USA justice system honestly sounds like the worst possible system for justice imaginable. You just have to love a justice system where the police chief, the district attorney and the judge are political offices and must appeal to the masses.

Who would you rather they appeal to, and why is it more legitimate than the will of the governed?

Re: Jury Duty

#217

Post by jonmb » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 8:00 PM UTC

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #197

wtbob wrote: post #187

I've served on two juries, one for murder and one for a far lesser offense. In one the defendant was a fairly wealthy young man; in the other a poor woman. One defendant was guilty; the other not. My experience in both those trials was nothing like the author's here. Indeed, I wonder how much of his experience was due to his own concern about things like race and politics instead of, y'know, guilt and innocence. Perh…

I was the foreman in a murder trial, and the experience, for me, was also inspiring and uplifting. There was only one bump in the road for us. Early on, people starting bringing up a hesitation of rendering a guilty verdict, for fear that the man would be put to death, and they didn't know if they could do that. I don't know about other districts, but we weren't voting on the sentence. The judge would do that later.…

> I don't know about other districts, but we weren't voting on the sentence. The judge would do that later.

The one time I was called to jury duty, the judge told us the same. We're not doing the sentencing. We're just there to decide if the evidence shown should render a guilty verdict.

But I found that to be sort of a half-truth. Sure, we are not giving the actual sentence. But if I give a man a guilty verdict, I can't really pretend that I had nothing to do with his sentence.

If I know someone is likely to burn down a house, and I give him a match, how can I pretend to not have anything to do with the house burning down? I knew it was likely going to happen. Likewise, if I know the judge is likely to send someone to jail for 30 years, how can I pretend to not have anything to do with it if I render a guilty verdict? My verdict gives the judge the ability to sentence, just like my hypothetical match gave the hypothetical psycho the ability to burn down the house.

Re: Jury Duty

#218

Post by surrealize » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 8:08 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #89

surrealize wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure this is a first-hand account. The author experienced the judicial system directly, as a juror. Then he wrote this first-hand account. If you told someone else about it, that would be second-hand.

Isn't it second-hand for the parent though, which I think is what he means?

In fengwick3's comment, "vicarious" modifies "account". Assuming "account" refers to the linked article, then it's first-hand, and not vicarious. fengwick3's (or your or my) experience of the judicial system through the linked article might be vicarious, but the article itself wasn't.

Sorry for the pedantry!

Re: Jury Duty

#219

Post by Lawtonfogle » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 9:15 PM UTC

ckozlowski wrote: post #157

madaxe_again wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, "peers" has had its meaning mutated beyond recognition over the ages. A jury of your peers used to mean exactly that - people who were familiar with you, the social circumstances that lead to your being in the dock, who had empathy both for you and for the law. Part of the tradition comes from the Frankpledge and tythings, which required you and your peers to collectively police one another, and endure…

"are not allowed to educate themselves about legal facts or the facts of the charges" Because they're not trained lawyers, and they haven't passed the bar. It's to keep them impartial and prevent them from presuming they know the law better and therefor enter with a conclusion without all of the facts. That's why the judge (who, depending on the level, is either directly-elected or appointed by the person you elected…

I sat on a jury once. The way the judge explained to us how we should decide which evidence to consider or not consider, especially with regards to evidence that is 'clear and convincing' was extremely convoluted. And this is from someone who works in very convoluted systems, has read significant amounts of law, worked with lawyers, and who has taken classes in law. I can only imagine how other jurors who haven't had any significant experience with legal matters felt.

Re: Jury Duty

#220

Post by Lawtonfogle » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 9:19 PM UTC

ckozlowski wrote: post #163

TheBeardKing wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read into how big a sham our grand juries are? I'm currently serving on a federal grand jury, and several times a month they pay travel and per diem for dozens of people to listen to a one-sided argument by a US Assistant District Attorney to bring a case to trial. No defense is offered, and they can withhold as much evidence as they like. It's a total waste of time, and I'm sure costs the tax payers million…

An indictment is not a successful prosecution. And it does cost money...money, in my opinion is well spent, because in brings in skeptical people such as yourself with the power to check an overzealous prosecutor with simply arresting people on flimsy charges. There's no defense because no one has been charged; and if you decided that the prosecutor is full of shit, then it means an innocent person is not disrupted o…

>An indictment is not a successful prosecution.

It can still ruin a life. The social consequences of being indited can be the worst part of some crimes. Especially for charges that people keep saying 'well better safe than sorry'.