A Conversation for Talking Point: Trial by Jury

Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 1

J

If one group of jurors would make a different decision than another group of jurors, doesn't that make one of those groups wrong, and does that make it a miscarriage of justice?

Quite bothers me that a simple selection can result in an innocent man being put away...

smiley - blacksheep


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 2

Bez (arguaby the finest figure of a man ever found wearing Bez's underwear) <underpants>

It's one of those things though.

Either you have selection or you do it totally randomly.

You do it by selection, and you can get rid of all the biased people, but it just becomes a game of the two sides playing off each other as to who they select.

You do it randomly and you could end up with 9 out of the 12 being BNP, or related to the defendent or something else that would unfairly tip thing in their balance.

Selection means how good the lawyers are at selection affect the result of the case, whereas random doesn't.
But randomness adds a lot more luck to the outcome of the case.

Would you rather your fate was left to the skill of the defence versus the skill of the prosecution, or on simply being lucky?


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 3

BreadStick Assassin

But the initial point of two separate juries coming to two different conclusions is still valid. If you have a good lawyer (and you usually do), he/she/it will try to sway the jury with emotion and other such. I don't really care if mommy didn't give the poor serial killer enough attention growing up. If there's evidence that he killed a dozen people, then he's going to be put in prison (or put to death if he's in a state that so warrants) for the appropriate amount of time. Just because he and his lawyer can put together a good sob story doesn't mean that he should go free, or spend some time in a state institution until he's "cured, what a miracle" and released.
We'd have to find some way to eliminate the sympathy for both sides. I don't want a prosecution groupie handing out maximum sentences because they like hearing bars click shut either.


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 4

Dengarm

Lawyers on each side automaticly pick off the people the other side would want on thier jury. They have a unspoken agreement to let as many stupid or gullable people on thier jury as possible. This makes thier job much easier because whatever they say will be believed by the jury unless the opposing lawyer somehow pokes a hole through that arguement. If you don't want to be selected for jury duty appear as smart as possible. Sit and wait with a good book and your odds of being selected go down greatly.


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 5

Lightman

I wore a suit and that what they wanted!

If I remember corectly each side can only reject two persons.


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 6

HappyDude

I've done Jury service twice, the English selection system is quite unlike the US. If I remember right 14 jurors would go up to the court room 12 + 2 reserves. Every jury I was on but one the first 12 were sworn in with out any problems, the one exception was when I drew attention to the fact I knew one of the Barristers at which point the Judge excused me.

*please note, I'm willing to answer questions of a general nature about my experience of being a juror but nothing case specific as that would put me in breech of the law*


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 7

CMaster

The problem with juries is that Lawyers have learned how to make them ask 'How high' when the lawyer says jump. The problem with other systems is that it comes down to one or three unaccountable persons making descisions about guilt (not normally innocence) on their own opinions.
Both juries, judges and magistrates are often essentially lied to through forensics and statisitcs as they dont have the traiuning to nderstand what it really means.


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 8

HappyDude

I think you underestimate the intelligence jurors smiley - erm


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 9

Pandapig

Well, I've served as foreman on two juries and most of the jury members weren't rocket scientists but just decent, sensible members of the public who were prefectly capable of understanding the evidence and coming to the right conclusion (we ended up with one acquittal and one conviction BTW so it's not like we were all knee-jerk liberals or hang-em-all types). In fact we had some pretty vociferous discussions over the evidence, asked the judge lots of questions about points of law and made sure that the whole issue was thoroughly covered. If the trial had been held by 3 magistrates instead of a jury, I'll bet it would have been over in half the time and a routine conviction would have been handed down. If I were ever on trial I would want it to be in front of a jury of fellow citizens who I could trust to take their time and consider all the evidence.

All these proposals about doing away with jury trials are all about saving money and have nothing to do with justice.


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 10

CMaster

I can give you loads of cases where the evidence presented to the Jury was very misleading.


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 11

HappyDude

That's down to the system, the same barristers would present the same evdidence to magistrates smiley - erm


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 12

A Super Furry Animal

I sat on the jury of a financial case once, many years ago. I don't think it was hugely complex (not one of the Guiness/Blue Arrow year-long affairs), but, to my mind, a relatively simple "was the guy being actively dishonest or not"-type questions.

At the outset, the judge explained the law and what the prosecution would have to prove to gain a conviction. I estimate that 4 members of the jury used this as the basis of their decision.

I don't think it is necessary to be a "trained professional" lawyer or accountant to be competent to try a case like this. An IQ test would have done the trick.


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 13

CMaster

More common is in cases involvin forensic - it will be explained to a jury that the chances of this DNA not belong to the accussed is 1 in 10^20 or similar, ignoring all the potenetial problems, accidednts and innacuarcies etc. that reduce thhe odds to merely 1 in 1000s


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 14

Al Johnston

DNA testing tends to lead to the jury asking themselves the wrong question.

The standard DNA procedure identifies people to 1 in a million, so in GB, any given DNA pattern will be shared by 55 people. The question that juiries ought to be asking is "Is the defendant the right one of those 55 people?"


smiley - devilsmiley - pirate


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 15

HappyDude

erm... we were told 1 in 30,000 for DNA when I did Jury service.


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 16

Al Johnston

Which would increase your pool of potential perpetrators to about 2,000...

smiley - devilsmiley - pirate


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 17

HappyDude

yes which is why I don't think any jury would convict on just a single element of evidence.


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 18

Al Johnston

Hope not smiley - smiley


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 19

CMaster

The tequnique itself is very accurate - however contaminations, mistakes, error in the way DNA is compared reduce it to something of the figure Happydude mentioned.


Jury Selection Bothers Me

Post 20

logicus tracticus philosophicus

these days dna evidence can be manufactured i:e any competent scientist would be able to manufacture synthetic dna resembleing defendent a or b cloneing techniches ect all any one would need would be sample dna fron "host" culter some in lab and bobs your uncle so to speak, ok it may seem elaborate and expensive but technoligy is fast advanceing to a stage where more and more relience is made on "suposed" irefuteable evidence such as dna and less and less on investagive evidence gathered by talking and obsevational unscientific means,the jury system may be unscientific but in most jury trials "body lanquage" will give a better picture in most cases and for the most part we humans inturpet signals automaticly without knowledge of the whys or wherefores.On occaisions you will get strange verdicts but on closer examination i feel individual prejudices held by a small proportion of jurors wether knowillingly or unknowillingly would have swayed the resultsmiley - devil well thats how i see it


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