California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by izacus » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

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.

> I wouldn’t say that Germany has a great track record of avoiding that.

Can you please explain this statement? Can you point at immoral dictatorial laws in Germany which do not exist in USA?

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

#112

Post by brigandish » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 2:59 PM UTC

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.

As an aside, this for me has always been the glaring difference between continental Europe which is largely under a civil law system, and Britain, which has a common law system (and hence, the US, Canada, Australia…)

The different systems are completely at odds philosophically and require a completely different attitude, which explains so much - Brexit and the antipathy of many Brits towards the EU, and the EU itself are the current exemplar of this - but pick any of the contested parts of the US constitution (like freedom of speech or right to bear arms) and you can gauge support either way by answering the question "do you understand/prefer common law or civil law?"

If you don't trust the citizenry to make decisions for themselves then paternalistic authoritarianism is your preference, and we all know where that leads.

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

#113

Post by izacus » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

bufferoverflow wrote: post #56

elchief wrote: post #39

If you served your time, you served your time. If not, shoulda got more time

Would you let a pedophile who served his time babysit your children?

> Would you let a pedophile who served his time babysit your children?

Is USA so full of paedophiles that all felons are paedophiles? Or why are you trying to establish this equivalence?

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

#114

Post by crazygringo » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 3:02 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #52

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you served your time, you served your time. Seriously, so much this. The thing should be stateless. You made a mistake, there were consequences - but once that's over, you ought to be good as new. Eternal punishment only ought to have a place in dumb mythology.

Though I see that point, I think there's a counterpoint which is, "We can choose to release felons at the earliest moment when they no longer represent a serious threat to a peaceable society" but that by releasing them at that earlier moment, we give them many freedoms but don't trust them with certain things we trust other citizens with (gun ownership, voting, jury duty, working with children, commercial trucking/a…

The thing is, most of the things you've listed already has certain standards (though some need to be tightened).

If you have any kind of likely violent history or mental illness, you shouldn't get a gun period, regardless of whether you were arrested and convicted or not. If you can't pass a commercial driving test or ever showed up drunk to the job, you shouldn't get a license. You can't vote until you're 18. And so on.

So I think the right way to frame this isn't "felons won't get back X rights" but rather "nobody gets X right who has relevant evidence they can't handle it responsibly".

Except for voting, which is such a fundamental right it arguably shouldn't be denied to anyone unless they're below a certain age or mentally incompetent.

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

#115

Post by robsinatra » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 3:06 PM UTC

They should require a former felon on every jury

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

#116

Post by crazygringo » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #54

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you served your time, you served your time. Seriously, so much this. The thing should be stateless. You made a mistake, there were consequences - but once that's over, you ought to be good as new. Eternal punishment only ought to have a place in dumb mythology.

> You made a mistake, there were consequences - but once that's over, you ought to be good as new. The consequences for being found guilty of a crime are more nuanced than this suggests, although not so much in the US which is very focused on vengeance. Let's take an example a sentencing example I sat in on: The man had forged paperwork purportedly showing he'd paid a bunch of money for supplies, because he had alrea…

> they will also have a lifetime ban on standing as candidate in any election and from participating in any way, including as an ordinary voter. No more democracy for you motherfucker.

This I can't agree with.

Punishment can be a deterrent and preventative and also retributive, but there's no reason it needs to be "eye for an eye" retributive. A prison term and fine is enough.

In my eyes, voting remains a fundamental right no matter what you've done, the very basis of our entire system. After all, the state can abuse its prisoners (denying medical care is a common one, but the list goes on) and they can have legitimate needs which require representation. There is no reason they should be denied a political voice as long as they are still citizens, no matter what they've done. To claim otherwise is to deny their fundamental humanity.

And convicting political opponents falsely or under slim evidence so they can't stand for office is a tried and true technique for silencing opposition in many countries. (See Lula in Brazil most recently.) If someone has committed a crime, you shouldn't make it illegal for them to run. Let voters make the determination.

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

#117

Post by brigandish » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #96

lacker wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Maybe if they'd had their white nationalists cleared out by outside influence it would have. That's what it took with Germany, they should thank the Americans for their part in that.

Regardless, the foolproof is the enemy of the good. I doubt whataboutery based on whose deeply immoral and harmful behaviour is worse, of all things, is the way to win that argument.

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

#118

Post by leetcrew » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

Cougher wrote: post #41

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #3

I’m normally automatically skeptical of anything passed by our legislature here (which passes laws to ban plastic straws and water in restaurants but couldn’t care less about feces and mental illness all over the streets). For this, I’m totally 100% behind the decision. A jury of our peers is as good as it gets, folks. Even with the drawbacks it will never get better. We need to protect it and honor it, and that incl…

"A jury of our peers is as good as it gets, folks. Even with the drawbacks it will never get better." I'm never understood such blind chauvinism, particularly here in light of all that's been said in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21710564

these stories of wrongful conviction seem to indicate a problem with public defenders more than the concept of jury trial itself.

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

#119

Post by TheSoftwareGuy » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

bufferoverflow wrote: post #56

elchief wrote: post #39

If you served your time, you served your time. If not, shoulda got more time

Would you let a pedophile who served his time babysit your children?

That is not the question at hand though...

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

#120

Post by maxlybbert » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #102

maxlybbert wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to have a very low opinion of the jury system. I can’t imagine how a system designed to be swayed by emotional or ignorant but opinionated people would look any different from what we already have. After I served on a jury, I had to admit that, whatever its faults, there is some value to occasionally explaining the law to random citizens and asking them to apply it in a given case. It should put a limit on how…

The whole point of the jury is determining whether or not these laws are even reasonable in the first place.

The courts do their best to discourage jury nullification, but it is important to remember that after Colonial American juries regularly failed to convict people for particular crimes, the British government would instead charge people for those crimes in Britain. That was listed in the Declaration of Independence as one of the king’s abuses: “For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.”