4 ms·

Something I'm clueless about, but why aren't jurors allowed to know prior convictions? That seems like highly relevant information. If a person has robbed ten b

Something I'm clueless about, but why aren't jurors allowed to know prior convictions? That seems like highly relevant information. If a person has robbed ten banks before why not tell the jury in the trial for the eleventh? Sure if a person had a multitude of driving convictions in a child abuse case I can understand the court denying it as irrelevant, but that isn't what's happening here.

sho 8y ago
To flip your question around, should a prosecutor have the power to, upon an 11th bank robbery occurring, simply drag in the guy who did the last 10 and present him as "probably" the guilty party? This has happened any number of times in the past. It's important that each case stand on its own merits, to the standard of "beyond reasonable doubt". That said, judges have a lot of latitude to allow evidence of prior conviction if they feel it is in aid of a fair trial. They wield this power in order to keep all parties honest and unbiased as best they can. In this case - rightly or wrongly - the judge has decided that knowledge of the outcome of the first case would prejudice the second case, especially due to the emotional nature of the allegations. That's why the order was made. While I have nothing but contempt for Cardinal Pell, who represents pretty much everything I dislike about the church, he has as much right to a fair and unbiased trial as any other person. Months of media saturation might indeed prejudice that, so I reluctantly support the intent of this kind of power, appropriately limited and temporary. It certainly is more complicated in the age of global media, however, and I really don't know what the answer is, if there even is one.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  I personally feel like the best way to be persecuted in this world... Is to be persecuted in the first place. I know this all too well, personally. A history of misfortune or injustice is basically a recipe, and in fact a justification, for future injustice. Probably most tyrannies of peoples in the history of the world falls under this category.
rlayton2 8y ago
Whether there is a prior conviction or not has no impact on the truth of this instance. Prior convictions are taken into consideration during sentencing
jstarfish 8y ago
This question gets asked a lot. Prior criminal history isn't relevant at all to a criminal trial. Just because he robbed 10 banks before doesn't mean he robbed this one. It's prejudicial and really problematic any time a repeat offender is on trial-- the mentality becomes "well, the evidence is weak and nobody saw him do it, but he must be guilty...he's a criminal!" Convictions are supposed to be made after considering the facts of the case as presented, not speculation based on past behavior.
- oliwarner 8y ago
  It certainly seems relevant when character witnesses are used to portray the accused as incapable of committing a crime. A criminal history is the antithesis of this. It is useful to the same degree.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    Does anyone really put much faith in character witnesses though? One possible point: someone who can’t produce anyone to say something positive about them is clearly guilty.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  Yet in judge-only trials the judge is allowed to know the defendants criminal history. How are they able to overcome this bias? The whole reason for the need of this rule is we actively select the dullest of our communities to sit on juries. As the saying goes if you are guilty you want a jury trial and if innocent a judge-only trial.
- Rainymood 8y ago
  I totally agree with your point and I'm setting a dangerous precedent by arguing the point I'm going to argue for in a second. Please note that I am fully against what I'm going to argue now but I'm going to argue it for the sake of playing the devil's advocate. That being said ... >Convictions are supposed to be made after considering the facts of the case as presente The fact that someone robbed 10 banks is a fact. You're literally witholding (relevant) facts from the case. How is a person's history not a fact? I mean, the robbery happened in the past, which is also a fact. How are the two different. So we rob a bank at T=10, Imagine that person robbed a bank at T=1, not relevant, what if person robbed a bank at T=2, T=3, .. etc. Even if we rob a bank at T=9.999... it is suddenly not relevant anyore? I realize the absurdity of the point I'm making but how is previous crime not a valid feature? If we train a machine learning algorithm to predict guilty/not guilty (I'm going into dangerous territory here, I realize this) and the training set contains criminals that are repeat offenders, wouldn't "repeat offender" get a high feature weight in say a random forest?
scarface74 8y ago
The prosecutor has the burden to prove guilt based on the evidence. Prior convictions isn’t “evidence”.

sho 8y ago

To flip your question around, should a prosecutor have the power to, upon an 11th bank robbery occurring, simply drag in the guy who did the last 10 and present him as "probably" the guilty party? This has happened any number of times in the past. It's important that each case stand on its own merits, to the standard of "beyond reasonable doubt". That said, judges have a lot of latitude to allow evidence of prior conviction if they feel it is in aid of a fair trial. They wield this power in order to keep all parties honest and unbiased as best they can. In this case - rightly or wrongly - the judge has decided that knowledge of the outcome of the first case would prejudice the second case, especially due to the emotional nature of the allegations. That's why the order was made. While I have nothing but contempt for Cardinal Pell, who represents pretty much everything I dislike about the church, he has as much right to a fair and unbiased trial as any other person. Months of media saturation might indeed prejudice that, so I reluctantly support the intent of this kind of power, appropriately limited and temporary. It certainly is more complicated in the age of global media, however, and I really don't know what the answer is, if there even is one.

wallace_f 8y ago
I personally feel like the best way to be persecuted in this world... Is to be persecuted in the first place. I know this all too well, personally. A history of misfortune or injustice is basically a recipe, and in fact a justification, for future injustice. Probably most tyrannies of peoples in the history of the world falls under this category.

rlayton2 8y ago

Whether there is a prior conviction or not has no impact on the truth of this instance. Prior convictions are taken into consideration during sentencing

jstarfish 8y ago

This question gets asked a lot. Prior criminal history isn't relevant at all to a criminal trial. Just because he robbed 10 banks before doesn't mean he robbed this one. It's prejudicial and really problematic any time a repeat offender is on trial-- the mentality becomes "well, the evidence is weak and nobody saw him do it, but he must be guilty...he's a criminal!" Convictions are supposed to be made after considering the facts of the case as presented, not speculation based on past behavior.

oliwarner 8y ago
It certainly seems relevant when character witnesses are used to portray the accused as incapable of committing a crime. A criminal history is the antithesis of this. It is useful to the same degree.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  Does anyone really put much faith in character witnesses though? One possible point: someone who can’t produce anyone to say something positive about them is clearly guilty.
danieltillett 8y ago
Yet in judge-only trials the judge is allowed to know the defendants criminal history. How are they able to overcome this bias? The whole reason for the need of this rule is we actively select the dullest of our communities to sit on juries. As the saying goes if you are guilty you want a jury trial and if innocent a judge-only trial.
Rainymood 8y ago
I totally agree with your point and I'm setting a dangerous precedent by arguing the point I'm going to argue for in a second. Please note that I am fully against what I'm going to argue now but I'm going to argue it for the sake of playing the devil's advocate. That being said ... >Convictions are supposed to be made after considering the facts of the case as presente The fact that someone robbed 10 banks is a fact. You're literally witholding (relevant) facts from the case. How is a person's history not a fact? I mean, the robbery happened in the past, which is also a fact. How are the two different. So we rob a bank at T=10, Imagine that person robbed a bank at T=1, not relevant, what if person robbed a bank at T=2, T=3, .. etc. Even if we rob a bank at T=9.999... it is suddenly not relevant anyore? I realize the absurdity of the point I'm making but how is previous crime not a valid feature? If we train a machine learning algorithm to predict guilty/not guilty (I'm going into dangerous territory here, I realize this) and the training set contains criminals that are repeat offenders, wouldn't "repeat offender" get a high feature weight in say a random forest?

scarface74 8y ago

The prosecutor has the burden to prove guilt based on the evidence. Prior convictions isn’t “evidence”.