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California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

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Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#91

Post by wongarsu »

rootsudo wrote: post #63
pell wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jury system seems completely corrupt to me. I am glad we do not use this method in criminal trials here in Germany where I live.

Corrupt? It's a jury of your peers, how is it corrupt? It's random people that decide your fate. In German it's judges. So a judge tries you and says you're guilty or innocent? You have to forego your right of trial by Jury in the USA for that to be the case.

I like being judged by a professional with experience. Judges are great. And if one judge or panel of judges is bad you will notice everything they do will be overturned in appeals.

The problem is selecting good judges. In Germany this seems to work great, but what I see in recent times in the US terrifies me. Voting for judges leads to populists winning, appointing them leads to very questionable people being appointed for their stance on single issues. Maybe the real problem is that the US is so divided with all sides trying to score points against the other side (whether that's Democrats vs Republicans, Feminists vs everyone else, Black vs White, Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice etc). Everything else just follows from that.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#92

Post by Tomte »

pell wrote: post #46
jedberg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's kind of random. Last time I was on jury selection, the defendant, a black man, was accused of robbing a bank at gunpoint. The woman being questioned for jury duty was asked about being a victim of crime. She said, "I've been a bank teller for over 20 years. I've been robbed at gunpoint three times, and every time it was a black man. Black men are always guilty". I was shocked she would say such a thing,…

The jury system seems completely corrupt to me. I am glad we do not use this method in criminal trials here in Germany where I live.

We do have remnants of it. In all more severe criminal trials the number of lay judges is calibrated such that they alone without the votes of the professional judges can acquit.

Unfortunately, there are many, many problems with it.

Lay judges don't get to see the court record (or even the written indictment), they stumble into the trial unprepared, and since oftentimes the oral proceedings are referring to things in the record, they can easily be overwhelmed and confused.

Additionally, court secrecy is absolute, and they must not tell anyone how they voted or why, so the professional judge can always sabotage an acquittal by introducing an error in the written judgment, which is written without the lay judges, and the lay judges never even see the written judgment.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#93

Post by lacker »

wongarsu wrote: post #91
rootsudo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corrupt? It's a jury of your peers, how is it corrupt? It's random people that decide your fate. In German it's judges. So a judge tries you and says you're guilty or innocent? You have to forego your right of trial by Jury in the USA for that to be the case.

I like being judged by a professional with experience. Judges are great. And if one judge or panel of judges is bad you will notice everything they do will be overturned in appeals. The problem is selecting good judges. In Germany this seems to work great, but what I see in recent times in the US terrifies me. Voting for judges leads to populists winning, appointing them leads to very questionable people being appoin…

Part of trial by jury is to prevent the government from pushing immoral, dictatorial laws on its citizens. I wouldn’t say that Germany has a great track record of avoiding that.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#94

Post by Operyl »

kevingadd wrote: post #73
tombrossman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if a juror is that certain, pre-trial, that a defendant is guilty, there is no way that the defendant can get a fair trial Sure they can, one nutjob juror cannot convict. I've also been seated on juries where some of my fellow jurors were quite obviously biased against the defendant, and this really hurt their credibility with me. I wasn't the only one either, other jurors challenged some of the statements they mad…

One nutjob juror cannot convict, but one person can prevent a unanimous verdict by refusing to cooperate or objectively evaluate testimony and follow the rules. The result of that in many cases is a hung jury and then a mistrial. Combine this with the concept of jury nullification (something law enforcement DESPISES) and there are lots of situations where it would make sense for a juror to refuse to align with the re…

Fuck ... I hated that so much. I loved the actual courtroom experience, I learned so much about how our legal system worked and both sides’ lawyers did an excellent job in explaining the case from their view points. By the end, it was pretty clear to the majority of us which party had the better case .... except for one old lady who wanted to “stick it to the man” and hated both parties. 4 ish days of deliberation trying to get her to put aside her biases. Eventually we were able to explain it to her and she stepped down (after we pointed out it’d be a waste of everyone’s time, including hers, if we didn’t come to a decision), but man it sucked until then. It was a complex business case, and it required a unanimous jury vote.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#95

Post by leetcrew »

thenewewb wrote: post #40
harikb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a good chance she used an explicit statement like that to get herself dismissed from the jury pool.

Also a good chance OP is lying on the Internet.

I believe them. some people will say anything to get out of jury duty. they don't seem to understand that perjury is a serious offense. the last time I was called, I heard one woman loudly announce "I'm gonna stand up for everything!" during voir dire.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#96

Post by wongarsu »

lacker wrote: post #93
wongarsu wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like being judged by a professional with experience. Judges are great. And if one judge or panel of judges is bad you will notice everything they do will be overturned in appeals. The problem is selecting good judges. In Germany this seems to work great, but what I see in recent times in the US terrifies me. Voting for judges leads to populists winning, appointing them leads to very questionable people being appoin…

Part of trial by jury is to prevent the government from pushing immoral, dictatorial laws on its citizens. I wouldn’t say that Germany has a great track record of avoiding that.

Hitler was a populist with many popular policies and broad support in the population. Trial by jury wouldn't have slowed him down.

Apart from Hitler I can't think of any dictatorial laws in the last 150 years or so of (Western) German history. 12/150 seems better than average, so I wouldn't dismiss anything based on that. Trial by jury didn't seem to help African Americans in the first 100 years or so after slavery was abolished, so that's clearly not foolproof either

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#97

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Tomte wrote: post #92
pell wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jury system seems completely corrupt to me. I am glad we do not use this method in criminal trials here in Germany where I live.

We do have remnants of it. In all more severe criminal trials the number of lay judges is calibrated such that they alone without the votes of the professional judges can acquit. Unfortunately, there are many, many problems with it. Lay judges don't get to see the court record (or even the written indictment), they stumble into the trial unprepared, and since oftentimes the oral proceedings are referring to things in…

If there are things in the record, how do you prevent these lay judges from reading them? Do you have any insight as to why the court system prevents the lay judges from begin informed -- presumably to prevent the record from being an undue influence.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#98

Post by colejohnson66 »

RaceWon wrote: post #75
colejohnson66 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I wouldn’t, but some would. I should’ve mentioned that where they’re allowed to work should be dependent on what their crime was. A robber can’t work at a bank, etc.

> No I wouldn’t, but some would. I should’ve mentioned that where they’re allowed to work should be dependent on what their crime was. A robber can’t work at a bank, etc. However; a robber can serve as a jurist? I don't understand your logic; if it was you who were on trial, wouldn't you hope that the jury of your peers had a higher degree of ethics than a gal who robbed a bank? I know I would.

The logic is: they have served their debt to society, let them be free. Don’t continually punish them even after they’re out. If you want to punish them more, keep them in prison longer.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#99

Post by Tomte »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #97
Tomte wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do have remnants of it. In all more severe criminal trials the number of lay judges is calibrated such that they alone without the votes of the professional judges can acquit. Unfortunately, there are many, many problems with it. Lay judges don't get to see the court record (or even the written indictment), they stumble into the trial unprepared, and since oftentimes the oral proceedings are referring to things in…

If there are things in the record, how do you prevent these lay judges from reading them? Do you have any insight as to why the court system prevents the lay judges from begin informed -- presumably to prevent the record from being an undue influence.

> If there are things in the record, how do you prevent these lay judges from reading them?

As a lay judge you walk into the court building in the morning of those days you've been appointed for. You meet the professional judges, and they give you a short rundown of the day planned. Then you start the trials.

Until then you never even knew that Mr Miller was going to be tried for arson or that Mrs Johnson was going to be tried for shop-lifting.

If you walked into the judges office and asked the secretary (well, officer of records) for the indictment, she would tell you to walk away. She, the defender and the prosecutor have the only copies of the record (and in smaller cases the prosecutor does not even have the whole record, just excerpts he photocopied, because the prosecutor in the court room is not the one who worked the case).

Yes, the idea is to have totally uninfluenced lay judges.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#100

Post by leetcrew »

pell wrote: post #46
jedberg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's kind of random. Last time I was on jury selection, the defendant, a black man, was accused of robbing a bank at gunpoint. The woman being questioned for jury duty was asked about being a victim of crime. She said, "I've been a bank teller for over 20 years. I've been robbed at gunpoint three times, and every time it was a black man. Black men are always guilty". I was shocked she would say such a thing,…

The jury system seems completely corrupt to me. I am glad we do not use this method in criminal trials here in Germany where I live.

there are a lot of things that are unfair about the us legal system that are unfair, but the jury selection process is not one of them. the prosecutor and defense attorney both get an unlimited number of "strikes for cause". it's a good system for eliminating jurors with potential bias.

if you face criminal charges is the US, you can have the verdict decided by the judge if you prefer, but it's usually not a good idea. trial by jury tends to favor the defense more than a bench trial (where the judge decides).

imo trial by jury is probably the best part of the US legal system. the real issue is the imbalance in resources between state prosecutors and public defendants. a poor or overburdened attorney can fail to make use of the many advantages you have as the defendant in a jury trial.

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