5 ms·

I sat in court once for 3 days as a potential juror. I was the last person that was not selected for the jury. There is a process like what you describe called

I sat in court once for 3 days as a potential juror. I was the last person that was not selected for the jury. There is a process like what you describe called voir dire. Both sides have an opportunity to interview jurors and can ask to eliminate some. In the case I watched there was a potential juror that had recently become a citizen and was very interested in being a juror, but she was also not a native English speaker and was clearly not following everything that was going on - both sides wanted her gone right away. You still get a jury of citizens from the local community, which is the point.

zamadatix 5y ago
The process is a good one but it's not like what was described. Each side gets a chance to remove some jurors, not a chance to insure all jurors in the pool meet a criteria, and removal is based on how much the attorney thinks you'll hurt their chances not based on if you'll be able to accurately interpret the case. I was also the last person struck in a case involving IT once the prosecuting side found out I worked in IT. Looking at the case results the prosecution lost the case for reasons that would be apparent to anyone that understood how IT systems worked. To be clear I think the selection process is a good one (or at least I think it's better than other options I've heard) it's just not the same thing as the GP was proposing.
- annoyingnoob 5y ago
  I disagree, both sides have the opportunity to ask potential jurors a lot of questions. The answers to those questions can clearly illuminate someone's comprehension and reasoning - they definitely did in my experience. Now each side does not necessarily get all of the eliminations that they want but that is part of the process. The case I watched was a domestic violence case. Both sides were asking potential jurors about their knowledge of bruising and the way bruises change/develop over time. One of the potential jurors was an older Engineer from an aerospace company you've heard of, his answer included explaining that the most interesting problems that he deals with include how one handles the unknowns of a given project/situation. He gave a clear indication of his reasoning and thought process, the prosecution dropped him like a hot rock. Its not a jury of your peers if its a jury of only the sharpest or most educated people.
  - taneq 5y ago
    > Its not a jury of your peers if its a jury of only the sharpest or most educated people. I think the ‘jury of your peers’ thing is meant to be in the sense of ‘all men are created equal’. They don’t, I presume, intelligence test the defendant and if they score lowly, screen the jury to admit only dumbasses.
    - annoyingnoob 5y ago
      The op was advocating for 'basic comprehension and reasoning test' which I think voir dire covers and in my experience did cover. The current process is more about eliminating bias than screening for intelligence, which seems right. I think a jury should be representative of the community, all of the community.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        If the case is engineering-heavy, I’d expect [at least] one side to bias the jury away from containing engineers/scientists. If it’s heavily reliant on medical testimony, at least one side will try to exclude doctors, etc. I think that’s inherent in the adversarial system (where each lawyer is advocating for their client’s interests), but I also think it sucks.
        taneq 5y ago
        I’d be interested in seeing a stats about key evidence type vs. juror preferences on each side vs. eventual case outcome. I bet you could predict guilt reasonably well by looking at what sort of jurors the defence tries to exclude.
      - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        "I think a jury should be representative of the community, all of the community." But you are getting a random, not a balanced sample of the community - one person might get a jury of stock brokers, the other might be stuck with 13 guys that are local drunks and never finished school.
  - 5y ago
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > Looking at the case results the prosecution lost the case for reasons that would be apparent to anyone that understood how IT systems worked. Can you share any details, even in a very abstract way, on what it was? I'm curious as to how weak their case was - because if it was something as asinine as thinking that filesystem file modification dates are trustworthy or that any activity in the Windows Event log proves that a human user was physically sat at the machine then I'd like to know why the prosecution didn't have someone on their side to tell them they didn't have a case so they wouldn't waste time with a trial?
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    LOL. Two things here. If this is a criminal case the prosecutor will have an expert who testifies that these things are immutable, and then as a defendant you will not have enough money to have your own expert to refute it. And anyway you'll never find a lawyer that knows anything technical about computers to even come up with these sorts of technical challenges. Plus the judge hates nitpicky challenges to evidence like this, so he'll fuck you for even bringing them up.
nobodyandproud 5y ago
> In the case I watched there was a potential juror that had recently become a citizen and was very interested in being a juror, but she was also not a native English speaker and was clearly not following everything that was going on Trust the system. Give her a few more years. The good ol’ US of A will make her a jury-duty dodging, full-blooded American out of her. Tongue-in-cheek aside I’ve disappointed not to be selected for jury duty thus far.

zamadatix 5y ago

The process is a good one but it's not like what was described. Each side gets a chance to remove some jurors, not a chance to insure all jurors in the pool meet a criteria, and removal is based on how much the attorney thinks you'll hurt their chances not based on if you'll be able to accurately interpret the case. I was also the last person struck in a case involving IT once the prosecuting side found out I worked in IT. Looking at the case results the prosecution lost the case for reasons that would be apparent to anyone that understood how IT systems worked. To be clear I think the selection process is a good one (or at least I think it's better than other options I've heard) it's just not the same thing as the GP was proposing.

annoyingnoob 5y ago
I disagree, both sides have the opportunity to ask potential jurors a lot of questions. The answers to those questions can clearly illuminate someone's comprehension and reasoning - they definitely did in my experience. Now each side does not necessarily get all of the eliminations that they want but that is part of the process. The case I watched was a domestic violence case. Both sides were asking potential jurors about their knowledge of bruising and the way bruises change/develop over time. One of the potential jurors was an older Engineer from an aerospace company you've heard of, his answer included explaining that the most interesting problems that he deals with include how one handles the unknowns of a given project/situation. He gave a clear indication of his reasoning and thought process, the prosecution dropped him like a hot rock. Its not a jury of your peers if its a jury of only the sharpest or most educated people.
- taneq 5y ago
  > Its not a jury of your peers if its a jury of only the sharpest or most educated people. I think the ‘jury of your peers’ thing is meant to be in the sense of ‘all men are created equal’. They don’t, I presume, intelligence test the defendant and if they score lowly, screen the jury to admit only dumbasses.
  - annoyingnoob 5y ago
    The op was advocating for 'basic comprehension and reasoning test' which I think voir dire covers and in my experience did cover. The current process is more about eliminating bias than screening for intelligence, which seems right. I think a jury should be representative of the community, all of the community.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      If the case is engineering-heavy, I’d expect [at least] one side to bias the jury away from containing engineers/scientists. If it’s heavily reliant on medical testimony, at least one side will try to exclude doctors, etc. I think that’s inherent in the adversarial system (where each lawyer is advocating for their client’s interests), but I also think it sucks.
      - taneq 5y ago
        I’d be interested in seeing a stats about key evidence type vs. juror preferences on each side vs. eventual case outcome. I bet you could predict guilt reasonably well by looking at what sort of jurors the defence tries to exclude.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      "I think a jury should be representative of the community, all of the community." But you are getting a random, not a balanced sample of the community - one person might get a jury of stock brokers, the other might be stuck with 13 guys that are local drunks and never finished school.
- 5y ago
DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> Looking at the case results the prosecution lost the case for reasons that would be apparent to anyone that understood how IT systems worked. Can you share any details, even in a very abstract way, on what it was? I'm curious as to how weak their case was - because if it was something as asinine as thinking that filesystem file modification dates are trustworthy or that any activity in the Windows Event log proves that a human user was physically sat at the machine then I'd like to know why the prosecution didn't have someone on their side to tell them they didn't have a case so they wouldn't waste time with a trial?
- kingcharles 5y ago
  LOL. Two things here. If this is a criminal case the prosecutor will have an expert who testifies that these things are immutable, and then as a defendant you will not have enough money to have your own expert to refute it. And anyway you'll never find a lawyer that knows anything technical about computers to even come up with these sorts of technical challenges. Plus the judge hates nitpicky challenges to evidence like this, so he'll fuck you for even bringing them up.

nobodyandproud 5y ago

> In the case I watched there was a potential juror that had recently become a citizen and was very interested in being a juror, but she was also not a native English speaker and was clearly not following everything that was going on Trust the system. Give her a few more years. The good ol’ US of A will make her a jury-duty dodging, full-blooded American out of her. Tongue-in-cheek aside I’ve disappointed not to be selected for jury duty thus far.