6 ms·

"are not allowed to educate themselves about legal facts or the facts of the charges" Because they're not trained lawyers, and they haven't passed the bar. It'

"are not allowed to educate themselves about legal facts or the facts of the charges" Because they're not trained lawyers, and they haven't passed the bar. It's to keep them impartial and prevent them from presuming they know the law better and therefor enter with a conclusion without all of the facts. That's why the judge (who, depending on the level, is either directly-elected or appointed by the person you elected) is there, not to determine guilt, but to be the impartial legal expert and identify the points of law to be decided on, and act as umpire to respect the rights of the plaintiff and accused. These are tasks that just cannot be given to the jury without establishing some sort of certification on them, which would remove from ordinary people the ability to determine justice.

astrafoo 11y ago
So a jury being lied to by the state attorney is better than a jury which did their own research (with all the faults this includes)?
- ckozlowski 11y ago
  That's the job of the defense, who's trained and has done the research. It's their job to call bullshit on the prosecution in your presence. So you have two sides who are trained and have (hopefully!) done the research i.e, the facts of the case. Provided they have (and the judge can and will throw out cases where this hasn't been done), then the judge will instruct on the points of law being decided here, which the jury will then decide on. It's far from perfect, because people aren't perfect. But it's a degree better than the State simply deciding your guilt. Sometimes the parties show up with half a case, the jury can't agree, and the foreman throws up their hands and says "This is all bollocks", and everyone goes home. Which is what happened in the article.
  - astrafoo 11y ago
    > That's the job of the defense Which might not exist depending on the jury's job. See a few recent of the recent cases were a jury decided to not indict police officers for killing blacks based on citations from the law given by the DA/SA which were "accidentally" wrong. No defense involved.
    - ckozlowski 11y ago
      Indictments are different. There's no defense because no one's been charged. (high profile cases aside, this is to keep the potential accused from even being mentioned because no charges have been given.) So it's entirely a matter of determining if there's enough cause to go to trial. Once at that stage, then the person becomes an accused, and defense becomes involved.
ethbro 11y ago
That's rebutted by the Janet Malcolm quote the author includes. The absences of knowledge isn't impartiality: people don't render decisions from ignorance + logic. They simply fabricate their best attempt at knowledge and apply that to the situation. So in this respect, it's not a choice between "relying on legal experts to provide legal information" and "using your own amateur legal knowledge" but rather "bastardizing legal experts' explanations to fit your own views" and "using your own amateur legal knowledge." From that perspective, the latter seems a lot more preferable...
- ckozlowski 11y ago
  I think the intent is to have people "relying on legal experts to provide legal information". What often happens is "bastardizing legal experts' explanations to fit your own views". I suspect there's a fear that trying to apply the law on one's own leads to the latter happening more. But one could argue that it happens anyways, as you point out. I wouldn't argue the absence of bias, we seem to be in agreement there, and I think that's the real point of the article. A lot of the arguments on this thread seem to be aimed at the jury system in general. In my opinion, it's not a fault of the jury system, but a fault of people. The jury system, and the instructions given (that we're debating now) are meant to try and minimize that, but they're far from perfect. The question then becomes, "how do we best get jurors the information they need, while preserving their impartiality?" And I think that's a hard thing to do.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    I think a start would be to have a truly impartial legal consultation system that jurors could avail themselves of at any point. The responses would be given with a minimum of contextual information about the case necessary to answer the question. In practice, the judge is supposed to serve this role, no? But I think it's readily apparent from the variances in judge activism that judges are people too. In hearing all the details about the case they can't help but form an opinion and are in a position to act on that opinion to varying degrees should they so choose.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
I sat on a jury once. The way the judge explained to us how we should decide which evidence to consider or not consider, especially with regards to evidence that is 'clear and convincing' was extremely convoluted. And this is from someone who works in very convoluted systems, has read significant amounts of law, worked with lawyers, and who has taken classes in law. I can only imagine how other jurors who haven't had any significant experience with legal matters felt.

astrafoo 11y ago

So a jury being lied to by the state attorney is better than a jury which did their own research (with all the faults this includes)?

ckozlowski 11y ago
That's the job of the defense, who's trained and has done the research. It's their job to call bullshit on the prosecution in your presence. So you have two sides who are trained and have (hopefully!) done the research i.e, the facts of the case. Provided they have (and the judge can and will throw out cases where this hasn't been done), then the judge will instruct on the points of law being decided here, which the jury will then decide on. It's far from perfect, because people aren't perfect. But it's a degree better than the State simply deciding your guilt. Sometimes the parties show up with half a case, the jury can't agree, and the foreman throws up their hands and says "This is all bollocks", and everyone goes home. Which is what happened in the article.
- astrafoo 11y ago
  > That's the job of the defense Which might not exist depending on the jury's job. See a few recent of the recent cases were a jury decided to not indict police officers for killing blacks based on citations from the law given by the DA/SA which were "accidentally" wrong. No defense involved.
  - ckozlowski 11y ago
    Indictments are different. There's no defense because no one's been charged. (high profile cases aside, this is to keep the potential accused from even being mentioned because no charges have been given.) So it's entirely a matter of determining if there's enough cause to go to trial. Once at that stage, then the person becomes an accused, and defense becomes involved.

ethbro 11y ago

That's rebutted by the Janet Malcolm quote the author includes. The absences of knowledge isn't impartiality: people don't render decisions from ignorance + logic. They simply fabricate their best attempt at knowledge and apply that to the situation. So in this respect, it's not a choice between "relying on legal experts to provide legal information" and "using your own amateur legal knowledge" but rather "bastardizing legal experts' explanations to fit your own views" and "using your own amateur legal knowledge." From that perspective, the latter seems a lot more preferable...

ckozlowski 11y ago
I think the intent is to have people "relying on legal experts to provide legal information". What often happens is "bastardizing legal experts' explanations to fit your own views". I suspect there's a fear that trying to apply the law on one's own leads to the latter happening more. But one could argue that it happens anyways, as you point out. I wouldn't argue the absence of bias, we seem to be in agreement there, and I think that's the real point of the article. A lot of the arguments on this thread seem to be aimed at the jury system in general. In my opinion, it's not a fault of the jury system, but a fault of people. The jury system, and the instructions given (that we're debating now) are meant to try and minimize that, but they're far from perfect. The question then becomes, "how do we best get jurors the information they need, while preserving their impartiality?" And I think that's a hard thing to do.
- ethbro 11y ago
  I think a start would be to have a truly impartial legal consultation system that jurors could avail themselves of at any point. The responses would be given with a minimum of contextual information about the case necessary to answer the question. In practice, the judge is supposed to serve this role, no? But I think it's readily apparent from the variances in judge activism that judges are people too. In hearing all the details about the case they can't help but form an opinion and are in a position to act on that opinion to varying degrees should they so choose.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

I sat on a jury once. The way the judge explained to us how we should decide which evidence to consider or not consider, especially with regards to evidence that is 'clear and convincing' was extremely convoluted. And this is from someone who works in very convoluted systems, has read significant amounts of law, worked with lawyers, and who has taken classes in law. I can only imagine how other jurors who haven't had any significant experience with legal matters felt.