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Unanimous Jury Verdicts Required For Serious Criminal Convictions -- Supreme Court Rules

Wes Mantooth said:
You’re hung up on this idea of people being utterly qualified as if listening to information presented and making an informed decision is rocket science. Listen, there are tons of morons out there. There are also tons of corrupt judges.
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Seriously.

Five year old kids know right from wrong.

Do jurors get it wrong? Absolutely.

However...

Again, what's a better system?
 
JimLes said:
You don't see how legal experts making a decision is better than random people making a decision?

Remember, every normal country expect America, judges are appointed in a non-partisan process. They're subject to reviews and censure by their own organizations, and can be removed. Higher courts can also vacate sentences, if they believe a judge was bought off, or has "certain awful biases, prejudices or motivations."

I mean, all of continental Europe has trials by judge(or again, a team of judges) and I would assume you're much more likely to see miscarriages of justice occur in the states than say Norway or Netherlands.
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Do you have research that shows this is better? I'm asking because I don't know.
 
Wes Mantooth said:
Listen, there are tons of morons out there. There are also tons of corrupt judges.
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There are also lots of corrupt NBA referees out there, but I don't think picking 12 people and letting them decide if Harden was fouled would make things any better.
 
JimLes said:
Having judges decide because they actually have legal training. It's like how surgeons operate because they have training.
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Comparing judges to surgeons, imo, isn't comparable. I get what your saying and all, but I think like studies have shown, experts in their field of study become less effective because of biases.

A judge could know the law better than anyone and still hate black, brown, white or purple people.

What if the judge was super Christian and discredited muslims, 7th Day Adventists, Mormons, Satanic worshippers?

Knowing the law doesn't mean you can judge alone. That would be a really ****** world imo.

You're not gonna find that with 12 jury members.
 
Archie Moses said:
What if the judge was super Christian and discredited muslims, 7th Day Adventists, Mormons, Satanic worshippers?
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In Canada, we have multiple mechanisms to prevent that happening. Just like there are mechanisms during jury selection to prevent that happening.
 
Archie Moses said:
Like what? Lol
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They're not elected. They're appointed by provincial and federal governments, based on recommendations and advice from special committees. Case in point, in our biggest province of Ontario, there's a 13-member council made up of 7 lay members, 2 judges, 1 member appointed by the Ontario Judicial Council, and 3 from the legal community. So if you absolutely have to have the average person be involved, this is one of the ways. Notice that 7 lay people make up a simple majority of this council. They recommend 3-4 candidates, after doing interviews and other research. The candidates have to submit an extensive Personal History Form and references from both legal and lay communities.

Once in a while, sure, people slip through the cracks. This was a well known case in my province. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Camp

The judge in question had some antiquated and certainly not legal views on consent and decided to apply them in a case he heard. First, our provincial court vacated the verdict and ordered a retrial, and then the Canadian Judicial Council recommended that our Parliament remove him, which they have the power to. I didn't happen because Camp knew what was up and resigned and saved us all some time and money.

It's not a perfect system, but to suggest(at least in Canada) that a judge could have obvious biases and keep making verdicts based on them is ludicrous. In this day and age, a single post on social media a decade ago could disqualify someone at the first hurdle. Especially since there are plenty other candidates.
 
JimLes said:
They're not elected. They're appointed by provincial and federal governments, based on recommendations and advice from special committees. Case in point, in our biggest province of Ontario, there's a 13-member council made up of 7 lay members, 2 judges, 1 member appointed by the Ontario Judicial Council, and 3 from the legal community. So if you absolutely have to have the average person be involved, this is one of the ways. Notice that 7 lay people make up a simple majority of this council. They recommend 3-4 candidates, after doing interviews and other research. The candidates have to submit an extensive Personal History Form and references from both legal and lay communities.

Once in a while, sure, people slip through the cracks. This was a well known case in my province. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Camp

The judge in question had some antiquated and certainly not legal views on consent and decided to apply them in a case he heard. First, our provincial court vacated the verdict and ordered a retrial, and then the Canadian Judicial Council recommended that our Parliament remove him, which they have the power to. I didn't happen because Camp knew what was up and resigned and saved us all some time and money.

It's not a perfect system, but to suggest(at least in Canada) that a judge could have obvious biases and keep making verdicts based on them is ludicrous. In this day and age, a single post on social media a decade ago could disqualify someone at the first hurdle. Especially since there are plenty other candidates.
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Thank you for sharing. I'm not against this at all.

Ignorance is bliss, right?
 
No system is perfect, but I like the jury system for many reasons one of which is the connections it makes between citizens and the law.

The headline caught my attention because I thought a unanimous jury was already required to convict. Seems obvious to me it should be required.
 
JimLes said:
There are also lots of corrupt NBA referees out there, but I don't think picking 12 people and letting them decide if Harden was fouled would make things any better.
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We’re not asking a jury to interpret law. It’s fairly cut and dry. Reasonable doubt and all that. We’re asking them to listen to all the evidence and make an informed decision based off of it.
 
Wes Mantooth said:
We’re not asking a jury to interpret law. It’s fairly cut and dry. Reasonable doubt and all that. We’re asking them to listen to all the evidence and make an informed decision based off of it.
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Yeah, they get very specific instructions. They basically just need to agree to a series of essentially yes or no questions. If they are not sure about something they can ask the judge for more specific instructions or explanations. If they need to review specific testimony or evidence they can ask for it.

It's a way of telling citizens that we are all part of this system. Criminal justice is not something that is imposed on us by our masters but something we do as a society.
 
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mellow said:
I like the jury system for many reasons one of which is the connections it makes between citizens and the law.
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I guess that's my main issue here. I hate things that allow laypeople to participate in what should be experts' work. Like referendums.
 
My god, how anyone would feel better having members of law enforcement deciding your fate. It’s like a ref missing an obvious pass interference call in a football game. The coach throws the red flag because it’s obviously wrong, and the refs upstairs or whatever still end up waving it off. Give me my moronic peers every day of the week, idiots.
 
JimLes said:
I guess that's my main issue here. I hate things that allow laypeople to participate in what should be experts' work. Like referendums.
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If it weren't for referendums Utah would never have been able to pass medical MJ or push our state to accept expanded Medicare.
 
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