4 ms·
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 ques
by 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 agoIf 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 agoYes, 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.