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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

#121

Post by gnicholas »

leetcrew wrote: post #95
thenewewb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perjury requires that the person be under oath, which potential jurors (in my experience) are not.

Also, it’s pretty much impossible for a prosecutor to prove that you are lying about what your prejudices and beliefs are. Prosecutors know this and wouldn’t waste their time trying.

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

#123

Post by akimball »

fenomas wrote: post #78
thenewewb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a good chance OP is lying on the Internet.

Assume good faith please.

Said every abuser and con artist ever. Yours is often a good reaction, which corrects for pervasive and insidious distorting cynical biases, but you should also be alert to it's hazards.

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

#124

Post by GhettoMaestro »

izacus wrote: post #111
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.

> 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?

> Can you point at immoral dictatorial laws in Germany which do not exist in USA?

He mentioned track record - as in a reference to the past. Does the Nuremberg Laws ring any bells for you?

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

#125

Post by user5994461 »

andrewnicolalde wrote: post #36
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.

And whoever was in charge of ensuring an unbiased jury was willing to take that chance?

They pick jurors trying to guess who will go their way or help rally other jurors. Nothing to do with removing bias, if anything they want bias the direction that suits them.

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

#126

Post by user5994461 »

gnicholas wrote: post #121
leetcrew wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perjury requires that the person be under oath, which potential jurors (in my experience) are not. Also, it’s pretty much impossible for a prosecutor to prove that you are lying about what your prejudices and beliefs are. Prosecutors know this and wouldn’t waste their time trying.

Well, it can't be that difficult to find out whether the worked as a bank teller 20 years or not.

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

#127

Post by samatman »

Chathamization wrote: post #106
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…

> It should put a limit on how weird or explicitly unfair the law can be. The defense isn't allowed to tell jurors about jury nullification and there's an effort to keep out any potential jurors who are aware of it. In general there seems to be a big effort to not have jurors think to much on their own. Once during selection I mentioned how unreliable eye witness testimony can be (they were trying to weed out anyone…

The incarceration rate is irrelevant to your argument, because it depends on both the base rate of criminality and the conviction rate.

The conviction rate is what you're looking for, and consulting Table 5 and Table 6 of this document:

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/gap.pdf

We see that Germany has a higher conviction rate than the US.

What we'd really like to see is the rate of false conviction, but this is difficult to determine, for obvious reasons.

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

#128

Post by akimball »

brigandish wrote: post #112
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.

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…

There isn't a lot of contest about free speech in the US. Some, yes, but not much. The objections to getting shot are much more motivating than the objections to being spoken to or even about.

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

#129

Post by wongarsu »

brigandish wrote: post #117
wongarsu wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Maybe if they'd had their white nationalists cleared out by outside influence it would have. That's what it took with Germany

I don't think "cleared out" is the right word. The war killed indiscriminately, and only 200 or so were sentenced to prison. Removing those people from power, let alone the country, would have left to few competent people to run a government. What happened was showing people why Nazis are bad (I think everyone is thankful for that).

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

You started with "your system is bad because of the one thing that happened 80 years ago". I think "your alternative failed as well and shows no evidence of preventing the thing it's supposed to prevent" is a perfectly valid counter argument.

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

#130

Post by leetcrew »

gnicholas wrote: post #121
leetcrew wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perjury requires that the person be under oath, which potential jurors (in my experience) are not. Also, it’s pretty much impossible for a prosecutor to prove that you are lying about what your prejudices and beliefs are. Prosecutors know this and wouldn’t waste their time trying.

you're right, it's not perjury. it's contempt of court. it's perjury if you lie on the mail questionnaire, which is what I was thinking of.
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