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Does trial by Jury still work?
Mainestategop ^ | 7/11/11 | Mainestategop

Posted on 07/12/2011 10:06:07 AM PDT by mainestategop

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To: mainestategop

Every time I start to rail against the jury system and the morons who get put on juries, I stop and think about what trial by judge means—and get a cold chill up my spine.

To paraphrase the old quote: the jury system is the worst system in the World for determining guilt, except for all the others.


21 posted on 07/12/2011 10:28:22 AM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: mainestategop

Who is Medgar Evens? Perhaps he meant Medgar Evers?


22 posted on 07/12/2011 10:30:56 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: mainestategop
Jurors must be educated, skilled, and must have excellent judgment. The jurors must put aside their biases personal and political and focus only on the issue of guilt or innocence in a criminal or civil trial. Jurors must also have in possession morality and virtue. Add to this, they must be good citizens. Liberals unfortunately are incapable of morality and patriotism and cannot be good citizens.

It is important to note that it only takes 8 to 16% of jurors to have these qualities for a successful jury system, and knowing that Liberals are unfit (correct conclusion) contradicts the political bias exclusion.

My conclusion: the Jury system works, is absolutely necessary and may be our last defense against Marxist tyranny.

23 posted on 07/12/2011 10:31:49 AM PDT by Navy Patriot (Holy flippin' crap, Sarah rocks the world!)
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To: mainestategop

Ten messed up cases vs how thousands of cases that worked out just fine.

You’re going to get the occasional messed up case.
That’s life.

You don’t tear up a system that has a failing rate of 0.0000000000000% or about that much.


24 posted on 07/12/2011 10:32:38 AM PDT by Jonty30
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To: laweeks

Germany has a judge and two professional lay jurors, and all three work together to reach a decision and sentence.

But here I’d just be happy with a complete overhaul of voir dire. We should have consistently intelligent jurors, not the dumbest common denominator that we often end up with. For example, I know a lot about copyright law, and that is exactly why I will never be allowed to serve on a jury on a copyright case.


25 posted on 07/12/2011 10:36:03 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: mainestategop
No system can get things right 100% of the time, I don't understand why anyone would believe otherwise.

It is better to allow some of the guilty to walk than to punish the innocent, and the system is slanted that way.

26 posted on 07/12/2011 10:48:20 AM PDT by SWAMPSNIPER (The Second Amendment, A Matter of Fact, Not a Matter of Opinion)
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To: mainestategop

Trial by jury never worked.

If our age ceases to believe in trial by jury, than another fiction will be concocted to take its place, to create the illusion of justice to placate a restive citizenry by allowing their resentments from their private injuries, to be vicariously satisifed in the morality play called the Justice System.


27 posted on 07/12/2011 11:08:35 AM PDT by Age of Reason
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To: mainestategop

The jury system was never intended to be correct 100% of the time. No system of justice is, or can be. The Founders recognized this, and so they structured the system with a presumption of innocence, and provided enough protections to criminal defendants that the process, in many ways, errs on the side of innocence (that is, the system is designed to create more incorrect not guilty verdicts than incorrect guilty verdicts).


28 posted on 07/12/2011 11:28:49 AM PDT by Conscience of a Conservative
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To: mainestategop
I also believe you're wrong about the "Fat Nick" case.

He was never charged with intent to carjacking or with trying to rob Minucci.

"Intent to [commit] carjacking" is not a crime, and there was no evidence that the guys had taken any steps towards carjacking or auto theft that night. They went to Howard Beach with the intent of doing so, sure, but had not yet done anything criminal.

Nick was not given a jury of peers but a multi ethnic jury

That's an absurd statement. The fact that the jury was "multi ethnic" does not mean it wasn't a jury of his peers.

29 posted on 07/12/2011 11:32:49 AM PDT by Conscience of a Conservative
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To: antiRepublicrat
The voir dire is the problem, as you correctly perceive. The selection should be far more random; among other things the defense and prosecution should be denied peremptory challenges. Allowing lawyers to build the kind of jury they want denies the right of the People and the defendant to a trial by actual peers, and in high profile cases denies the People and the defendant the right to a speedy trial.

Twelve random people might still have been as stupid on the facts and as clueless about the law as the Anthony Jury, but it is significantly less likely.

30 posted on 07/12/2011 11:38:18 AM PDT by FredZarguna (If you believe that only eyewitness to murder constitutes proof, you are being unreasonably stupid.)
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To: FredZarguna

Judges also like dumb-down voir dire because they want their absolute power to decide matters of law. They don’t want knowledgeable jurors being able to call BS on the judge’s instructions.


31 posted on 07/12/2011 11:44:26 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: treetopsandroofs

“However, our entire trial/jury system is designed to be better to free a guilty person than to punish an innocent one...It was the prosecution’s case to lose and they did.”

Well put.


32 posted on 07/12/2011 11:57:16 AM PDT by Veritas_et_libertas (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. ~Burke)
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To: MeganC

Exactly. Casey is guilty of crimes, but the prosecutor failed to prove murder. IIRC he did manage to prove several others.

It would be a hell of thing if people could be sent to prison or death just because a screaming mob demanded it.


33 posted on 07/12/2011 12:19:33 PM PDT by Little Ray (Best Conservative in the Primary; AGAINST Obama in the General.)
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To: Little Ray

>>>It would be a hell of thing if people could be sent to prison or death just because a screaming mob demanded it.<<<

Scott Peterson comes to mind. He was sentenced to death on circumstantial evidence with the prosecutors actively suppressing exculpatory evidence and testimony so I fully expect he’ll walk on appeal.


34 posted on 07/12/2011 1:17:17 PM PDT by MeganC (Are you better off than you were four years ago?)
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To: MeganC

Circumstantial evidence is often better than eyewitness testimony. Humans are weird that way.
But a prosecutor sitting on exculpatory evidence should be criminal.


35 posted on 07/12/2011 1:27:40 PM PDT by Little Ray (Best Conservative in the Primary; AGAINST Obama in the General.)
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To: mainestategop

Now I see what blacks mean by ‘’Is it justice or ‘’just us?’’.


36 posted on 07/12/2011 6:05:43 PM PDT by jmacusa (Political correctness is cultural Marxism. I'm not a Marxist.)
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