4 ms·

It's the mode of the trial that is flawed, if compromising it is this trivial.

by fwn 8y ago

tomhoward 8y ago
Not really. The point of the gag is to reduce the number of people who hear the news of his conviction, or who are influenced by full-blown emotionally charged commentary and public discussion about it. From what I can see the gag has been successful at ensuring it will be possible to find a group of competent jurors who haven't been tainted by the news or the commentary.
- fwn 8y ago
  I personally never lived in a country with jury trials for more than a few month, so it could very well be that I just don't get the culture behind it. Either you're assumed to be capable of judging a specific case despite media coverage or you shouldn't be judging anything at all. Because if something as trivial as reading news makes you incapable of forming an independent opinion, I really can't think of any environment that would allow you to form one. Again: maybe there's more behind this. Maybe some specific anglo-saxonian take on intellectual independence that requires censoring the news.
  - tomhoward 8y ago
    > Because if something as trivial as reading news makes you incapable of forming an independent opinion No, that's not the correct reading of this. It's that if the news were published, the coverage and public discussion would be highly sensationalist and emotionally charged, and everyone would be made to feel like they have to have an opinion on the topic. It's specific to the nature of this case, given that it involves a highly prominent figure in the Catholic Church, and sexual contact with children. So it's not "something as trivial as reading news", it's something as serious as everyone's opinion being unavoidably influenced by the sensationalist media/public discussion of an inherently emotionally-charged case. I don't know where you live, but the importance of ensuring jurors are free of bias or prejudice is a core tenet of the British legal system and all those derived from it, of which Australia's is one.
    - fwn 8y ago
      I spend most of my time in Germany; hence my unfamiliarity with this idea. > ensuring jurors are free of bias or prejudice This looks like a futile undertaking. A person using a language, behaving in the context of time and culture is breathing bias in every action they perform. But - with my very limited knowledge about jury trials - I would assume that objective judgement is precisely not the intent of using a jury. Here's what I read about it on Wikipedia: > [...] it provides a means of interjecting community norms and values into judicial proceedings [...] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_trial#Pros_and_cons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_trial#Pros_and_cons Apart from that, you seem to make it sound as if news coverage would have a negative impact on decision making, which I believe is pretty controversial. > everyone would be made to feel like they have to have an opinion on the topic Participation in the latest media outrage is a choice, it is not mandatory. Many people exercise the concept of picking their own interests, views and arguments just fine. I can see, however, how such mechanistic ideas about the effects of content make concepts around censorship plausible beyond what I anticipated.
      - tomhoward 8y ago
        Heh, I mean, I didn't choose the norms that have been established over the several hundred years of the British legal system, I'm just trying to explain them :)

It's the mode of the trial that is flawed, if compromising it is this trivial.

by fwn 8y ago

It's the mode of the trial that is flawed, if compromising it is this trivial.

Not really. The point of the gag is to reduce the number of people who hear the news of his conviction, or who are influenced by full-blown emotionally charged commentary and public discussion about it. From what I can see the gag has been successful at ensuring it will be possible to find a group of competent jurors who haven't been tainted by the news or the commentary.

fwn 8y ago
I personally never lived in a country with jury trials for more than a few month, so it could very well be that I just don't get the culture behind it. Either you're assumed to be capable of judging a specific case despite media coverage or you shouldn't be judging anything at all. Because if something as trivial as reading news makes you incapable of forming an independent opinion, I really can't think of any environment that would allow you to form one. Again: maybe there's more behind this. Maybe some specific anglo-saxonian take on intellectual independence that requires censoring the news.
- tomhoward 8y ago
  > Because if something as trivial as reading news makes you incapable of forming an independent opinion No, that's not the correct reading of this. It's that if the news were published, the coverage and public discussion would be highly sensationalist and emotionally charged, and everyone would be made to feel like they have to have an opinion on the topic. It's specific to the nature of this case, given that it involves a highly prominent figure in the Catholic Church, and sexual contact with children. So it's not "something as trivial as reading news", it's something as serious as everyone's opinion being unavoidably influenced by the sensationalist media/public discussion of an inherently emotionally-charged case. I don't know where you live, but the importance of ensuring jurors are free of bias or prejudice is a core tenet of the British legal system and all those derived from it, of which Australia's is one.
  - fwn 8y ago
    I spend most of my time in Germany; hence my unfamiliarity with this idea. > ensuring jurors are free of bias or prejudice This looks like a futile undertaking. A person using a language, behaving in the context of time and culture is breathing bias in every action they perform. But - with my very limited knowledge about jury trials - I would assume that objective judgement is precisely not the intent of using a jury. Here's what I read about it on Wikipedia: > [...] it provides a means of interjecting community norms and values into judicial proceedings [...] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_trial#Pros_and_cons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_trial#Pros_and_cons Apart from that, you seem to make it sound as if news coverage would have a negative impact on decision making, which I believe is pretty controversial. > everyone would be made to feel like they have to have an opinion on the topic Participation in the latest media outrage is a choice, it is not mandatory. Many people exercise the concept of picking their own interests, views and arguments just fine. I can see, however, how such mechanistic ideas about the effects of content make concepts around censorship plausible beyond what I anticipated.
    - tomhoward 8y ago
      Heh, I mean, I didn't choose the norms that have been established over the several hundred years of the British legal system, I'm just trying to explain them :)