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Norway just removed jury duty, and if I remembered correctly the last case that had jury duty the actual judges put the jury verdict aside as they all agreed th

Norway just removed jury duty, and if I remembered correctly the last case that had jury duty the actual judges put the jury verdict aside as they all agreed the jury had misunderstood the law. Of course judges are not always good as well. In the US they are often elected by a blood thirsty population. If they are not elected that has other issues in that the will of the people is not held by the judges.

bzbarsky 5y ago
Why was the jury required to understand the law? That's not a reasonable expectation for random people off the street. In the US, juries typically decide questions of _fact_ that are not already agreed upon by both parties (i.e. are in dispute). Judges handle questions of law.
- kazinator 5y ago
  If a fact is known, you don't need the contribution of a random person. If a fact is not known, how can some random person produce it? Out of what. E.g. in the situation of a crime: only activities like crime scene investigation, and interviewing of witnesses can produce anything that can be called a fact. Now so from all that have some collection of real facts from the investigation which do not add up to an absolute proof that some particular defendant "dun it". The next best thing you could do is use some sort of probabilistic reasoning. Well, what training in probabilistic reasoning do the these random people off the street have? Probabilities should be quantified in concrete numbers. Instead of some flaky "shadow of a doubt" nonsense, there should be some 99.99% (or whatever standard level) confidence which is somehow calculated.
  - bzbarsky 5y ago
    Yes, the definition of "fact" in "findings of fact" is "there is a factual answer, but we do not know what it is, so we have to guess". Yes, it might be better if jurors were all acquainted with Bayesian reasoning and it would definitely be better if things like expert testimony and so forth came with confidence estimates. And yes, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is pretty qualitative. My point was that if you are expecting your jurors to have a deep understanding of the law, you are definitely doing it wrong.

bzbarsky 5y ago

Why was the jury required to understand the law? That's not a reasonable expectation for random people off the street. In the US, juries typically decide questions of _fact_ that are not already agreed upon by both parties (i.e. are in dispute). Judges handle questions of law.

kazinator 5y ago
If a fact is known, you don't need the contribution of a random person. If a fact is not known, how can some random person produce it? Out of what. E.g. in the situation of a crime: only activities like crime scene investigation, and interviewing of witnesses can produce anything that can be called a fact. Now so from all that have some collection of real facts from the investigation which do not add up to an absolute proof that some particular defendant "dun it". The next best thing you could do is use some sort of probabilistic reasoning. Well, what training in probabilistic reasoning do the these random people off the street have? Probabilities should be quantified in concrete numbers. Instead of some flaky "shadow of a doubt" nonsense, there should be some 99.99% (or whatever standard level) confidence which is somehow calculated.
- bzbarsky 5y ago
  Yes, the definition of "fact" in "findings of fact" is "there is a factual answer, but we do not know what it is, so we have to guess". Yes, it might be better if jurors were all acquainted with Bayesian reasoning and it would definitely be better if things like expert testimony and so forth came with confidence estimates. And yes, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is pretty qualitative. My point was that if you are expecting your jurors to have a deep understanding of the law, you are definitely doing it wrong.