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The whole point of jury deliberations is to discuss and debate the case. It would be counterproductive to keep one’s position secret during the process. Multipl
by munchler 3y ago
The whole point of jury deliberations is to discuss and debate the case. It would be counterproductive to keep one’s position secret during the process. Multiple votes, including informal straw polls, are often necessary.
- eru 3y agoIt would perhaps be useful to run some experiments to see whether having a jury of 12 discuss is more accurate than having 12 independent jurors that don't communicate. (Or only communicate in very formally prescribed ways, but never meet.) You could run those experiments by constructing cases, or re-constructing known cases.
- skissane 3y agoThe problem with measuring the accuracy of juries, is what do you measure them against? Whether the person is really guilty? In the general case, you can't actually know that. Even for people who are wrongfully convicted, we can't always say the jury made the wrong call. In many of those cases, the conviction is overturned due to new evidence being discovered, or because the police or prosecution wrongly hid exculpatory evidence from the jury, or because the defendant's lawyer was grossly incompetent – in those cases, it is entirely possible the jury made the right call given the evidence actually presented to them, even if it turned out ultimately to be the wrong one.
- devmor 3y agoFor this hypothetical comparison process, I imagine that real cases could be used and re-presented with actors in place of the defendants and witnesses?
- rrr_oh_man 3y agoWhat would be the thing you test in this case?
- pests 3y agoIf 12 communication jurors vs 12 non communicating jurors make different decisions.
- eru 3y ago> The problem with measuring the accuracy of juries, is what do you measure them against? Whether the person is really guilty? In the general case, you can't actually know that. Yes, in the general case you can't know that. That's why you need to construct artificial cases where you do know. Very similar to getting labelled training data for your machine learning.
- timv 3y agoIt would also be interesting to consider smaller groups for discussion. Break the jury into 2 groups of 6, or 3 groups of 4 people. I wonder whether you could get the benefits of weighing the evidence collectively but reduce the influence that 1 or 2 dominant jurors might have. If 2 or 3 independent groups reached the same conclusion, does that increase the chances of them being correct?
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoThey can debate the case all they want. The arguments a juror makes might imply how they're planning to vote, but deliberations are over when each juror has made up their mind. You don't have to say how you've made up your mind for deliberations to end, you just declare that you have and when the last one has then everyone marks their ballot and packs up their things.
- Cacti 3y agoThe why is kind of incredibly important though in law.
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoJuries don't have to explain why as it is.
- awb 3y agoThat would probably create a lot of hung juries which wouldn’t be ideal from a very time and cost perspective.
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoOnly if you allow the prosecution to retry the case in that event.
- friend_and_foe 3y agoWho cares?
- Gunax 3y agoI suppose it is for discussing, but does the discussion actually promote justice? Afterall, that's why we have juries. I am not sure whether the deliberation actually increases or decreases false verdicts.
- kergonath 3y agoOn the contrary. They can have all the deliberation they want but the votes need to be secret to avoid peer pressure, bullying, blackmail or coercion. In all these cases, the juror is not following their conscience, which is supposed to be the whole point. It has been known for centuries that public voting is ripe for abuse.