Topic: Discussion about Jury vs Judge and improvements (Read 148 times)
As you may know in some countries jury service is required by law that you must attend unless you have medical condition exempting you such as pregnancy. One of my friends has recently been called up for jury duty and expressed their concern on why they would be a good person in determining what is valid evidence or not. In fact they said something along the lines of "I'm just a normal person and have no idea on how the legal system works and what to consider evidence". They also expressed that they are feeling anxious about the whole thing and they don't want to make the wrong decision.
I would like a discussion based on this event and if anyone has been called up to jury duty would they please share their thoughts on the process. Jury to my knowledge was introduced to prevent the sole decision being a burden on just one person (the judge). However the jury requires 12 people to which have no experience in analyzing evidence and deciding what is solid and what can be dismissed which I see as a far from good way to go about this. As you may know the person up on trial may ask that there's no jury involved and their outcome gets decided by the judge alone. This of course can lead to corruption and one person is generally more easily persuaded/corrupted than the majority of the jury.
So let's bring up a few points that I see that are a concern for jury service:
1. Jury service requires you to be within the geographical location of the case that's being decided. Which brings in personal feelings towards the defendant. For example if the defendant was put on trial for murdering people in the local area and people in that local area were to decide on the evidence they would likely be biased to protect their local community from this person which may result in accepting evidence which really should''t be considered evidence or may dismiss of perfectly legitimate evidence.
2. Jury service requires normal people without any experience to attend. Therefore essentially employing people to decide on something which they aren't qualified to do so. You wouldn't get a plumber to build a house the same way you shouldn't get a hospital doctor to decide what is evidence and what isn't.
3. Groups are susceptible to peer pressure. Although there are laws to prevent this any group that has a discussion with each other is susceptible to group pressure. It's often the case that the people with the strongest opinions put pressure on those who are torn between the two. I don't think this is a good way of going about it and would prefer that anyone in jury service didn't communicate between each other thus eliminating group pressure.
So let's bring up some counter arguments for judges:
1. The burden of making a decision shouldn't rest on one persons shoulders. Well this kind of happens anyway even with the jury system. They are ultimately the ones who decide whether or not the defendant is guilty or innocent. The only upside of having a judge review ALL the information instead of what was considered acceptable through jury service is that they will review everything and form an opinion on it.
2. Judges are qualified for making these decisions. Although this might be true it can also be argued that a judge is more suspect to corruption due to it being easier to corrupt one person than multiple people.
I would like to hear from others their opinions on judges, juries and any improvements that could be put into place to further better the system. Also can anyone explain why jury service uses every day people rather than a collection of judges which are more qualified to decide what's evidence or not? I'm especially interested in opinions regarding capital punishment and the involvement of juries.
I would like a discussion based on this event and if anyone has been called up to jury duty would they please share their thoughts on the process. Jury to my knowledge was introduced to prevent the sole decision being a burden on just one person (the judge). However the jury requires 12 people to which have no experience in analyzing evidence and deciding what is solid and what can be dismissed which I see as a far from good way to go about this. As you may know the person up on trial may ask that there's no jury involved and their outcome gets decided by the judge alone. This of course can lead to corruption and one person is generally more easily persuaded/corrupted than the majority of the jury.
So let's bring up a few points that I see that are a concern for jury service:
1. Jury service requires you to be within the geographical location of the case that's being decided. Which brings in personal feelings towards the defendant. For example if the defendant was put on trial for murdering people in the local area and people in that local area were to decide on the evidence they would likely be biased to protect their local community from this person which may result in accepting evidence which really should''t be considered evidence or may dismiss of perfectly legitimate evidence.
2. Jury service requires normal people without any experience to attend. Therefore essentially employing people to decide on something which they aren't qualified to do so. You wouldn't get a plumber to build a house the same way you shouldn't get a hospital doctor to decide what is evidence and what isn't.
3. Groups are susceptible to peer pressure. Although there are laws to prevent this any group that has a discussion with each other is susceptible to group pressure. It's often the case that the people with the strongest opinions put pressure on those who are torn between the two. I don't think this is a good way of going about it and would prefer that anyone in jury service didn't communicate between each other thus eliminating group pressure.
So let's bring up some counter arguments for judges:
1. The burden of making a decision shouldn't rest on one persons shoulders. Well this kind of happens anyway even with the jury system. They are ultimately the ones who decide whether or not the defendant is guilty or innocent. The only upside of having a judge review ALL the information instead of what was considered acceptable through jury service is that they will review everything and form an opinion on it.
2. Judges are qualified for making these decisions. Although this might be true it can also be argued that a judge is more suspect to corruption due to it being easier to corrupt one person than multiple people.
I would like to hear from others their opinions on judges, juries and any improvements that could be put into place to further better the system. Also can anyone explain why jury service uses every day people rather than a collection of judges which are more qualified to decide what's evidence or not? I'm especially interested in opinions regarding capital punishment and the involvement of juries.
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