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Ugly defendants 'more likely to be found guilty than attractive ones'
thisislondon.co.uk ^
| 21.03.07
| Staff
Posted on 03/22/2007 9:04:23 AM PDT by null and void
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To: bicyclerepair
"Bath Spa University" who the h3ll goes to a school named that? Clean people with crinkly skin? (Just a surmise.)
41
posted on
03/22/2007 9:52:51 AM PDT
by
Lonesome in Massachussets
(When I search out the massed wheeling circles of the stars, my feet no longer touch the earth)
To: Lonesome in Massachussets
42
posted on
03/22/2007 9:56:02 AM PDT
by
null and void
(To Marines, male bonding happens in Boot Camp, to Democrats, it happens at a Gay Pride parade...)
To: null and void
43
posted on
03/22/2007 10:12:26 AM PDT
by
VaBthang4
("He Who Watches Over Israel Will Neither Slumber Nor Sleep")
To: VaBthang4
If it didn't affect me, personally, I'd druther ban Ugly.
44
posted on
03/22/2007 10:14:59 AM PDT
by
null and void
(To Marines, male bonding happens in Boot Camp, to Democrats, it happens at a Gay Pride parade...)
Comment #45 Removed by Moderator
Comment #46 Removed by Moderator
To: mewzilla
"And I will never understand why just the prospect of facing a "jury of one's peers" isn't enough to keep more folks on the straight and narrow."
Nationwide, only about 2.5% of all felony cases ever make it to jury trial. Almost all the rest are resolved by plea bargain, often with prison being part of the plea deal. Facing a jury of one's peers is a frightening prospect. Hardly any criminal defendants want to do it. Even cases where one is innocent of all or part of the charges levied against him, facing a jury is a big roll of the dice that is frightening enough to make a fairly reasonable plea offer seem not so bad, even if taking it means one will have to plead guilty or no contest to things he did not do. In almost every case where plea offers are made the final offers at least will have somewhat of a "plea discount," meaning the defendant will get significantly less punishment than the prosecutor believes he'll be able to get from the judge or jury if the case proceeds to trial. The plea discount in weaker cases is almost always going to be a lot more significant than it would be in an open and shut case, and there is no doubt in my mind that occasionally a completely innocent defendant will take a really "good" offer rather than face a jury. More often than that one who is guilty of some of what he is charged with but not all of it, or who may be overcharged (guilty of a lesser crime but not of the more serious charge filed against him), will go ahead and plead to everything he charged with rather than face a jury. People are afraid of jury trials...but of course that's obviously not enough to stop deviants from deviating from the laws in the first place.
47
posted on
03/22/2007 10:18:56 AM PDT
by
TKDietz
(")
To: bicyclerepair
"Bath Spa University" who the h3ll goes to a school named that?"
Bill Clinton.
48
posted on
03/22/2007 10:29:18 AM PDT
by
popdonnelly
(Our first responsibility is to keep the power of the Presidency out of the hands of the Clintons.)
To: spuriusferox
==How do you explain the results of the study, then?
Personally I don't believe that such experiments reflect the real world. If the experiment were repeated on "jurors" who believed they were involved in real trials I would also like to make sure things such as the way the defendents were dressed and the way they behaved was held constant.
49
posted on
03/22/2007 10:33:25 AM PDT
by
bkepley
To: bkepley
"I think its crap. I've been on juries before and I've never heard any jurors arguing anything except the facts in the case"
you completely missed the point of the story.....
no one says that jurors sit there and talk looks....but they subconciously give the benefit of the doubt to the beautiful people, and the nod of suspicion to the not so beautiful.....
50
posted on
03/22/2007 10:39:58 AM PDT
by
cherry
To: null and void
"The study showed that while the jurors were swayed by attractiveness, they did not let race cloud their judgment. Black and white suspects were treated equally. When black suspects were convicted, however, they were given longer sentences."
I wonder if the conviction rate for blacks would have been higher if this study was done in the U.S., especially in the South. I am a criminal defense attorney is a Southern state practicing in an area where blacks make up less than half of one percent of our population. Maybe we're all just wrong, but it sure looks to those of us in the business that black defendants are much more likely to be convicted and face harsher punishments when they take their cases before our generally all white juries. Our few black clients certainly seem to have the same perception too and rather than face a jury will often begrudgingly take worse offers than whites would get in the same types of cases with similar facts. Our jury pools come solely from our voter registration lists and the twelve people that make it to the box tend to be all white, much more "silver haired" (lots of senior citizens) than the general population, and with a much greater saturation of fundamentalist Christian law and order types than you would find in our overall local populace. They decide whether the defendants are guilty and then they are also responsible for sentencing the defendants after making a determination of guilt. The punishments they hand out tend to be quite severe, especially on sex cases and drug cases, and especially it seems for blacks and Hispanics regardless of the underlying charges.
51
posted on
03/22/2007 10:46:05 AM PDT
by
TKDietz
(")
To: cherry
==you completely missed the point of the story.....
No I got the point exactly I just think it's silly. For one thing the awful fact is that most people convicted are acually guilty. Any effect of beauty of the defendent would get burried in the noise of the other factors.
52
posted on
03/22/2007 10:49:12 AM PDT
by
bkepley
To: pissant
Helen Thomas best be walkin' the straight and narrow...
53
posted on
03/22/2007 10:50:36 AM PDT
by
ErnBatavia
(...forward this to your 10 very best friends....)
To: null and void
"Do I look guilty of anything?"
Comment #55 Removed by Moderator
To: AmericaUnited
100% innocent. (What were the charges again?)
56
posted on
03/22/2007 11:06:36 AM PDT
by
null and void
(To Marines, male bonding happens in Boot Camp, to Democrats, it happens at a Gay Pride parade...)
To: null and void
57
posted on
03/22/2007 11:09:54 AM PDT
by
onedoug
To: null and void
It's hell to be ugly. I've had a rough life.
To: mewzilla
Classic movie ! What is the terminal velocity of an unladen swallow ? European or African ?
To: JZelle; mewzilla
Just watched that with my kids. They liked the Black Knight.
They better! He always triumphs.
60
posted on
03/22/2007 11:28:14 AM PDT
by
Xenalyte
(Anything is possible when you don't understand how anything happens.)
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