# Better alternatives to a jury of peers **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 4, 2025, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765 "2025-09-04T23:32:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/81 "2025-09-07T18:56:17Z")
> [@Zoobi](#): > > I though this an interesting comment. It really isnt. Many people WANT to serve on Juries, I volunteered to serve on the County Civil Grand Jury for a year- along with 20+ others (not all were selected of course). Great experience. Not to mention, if you are gonna quote someone, give their name- in this case Norm Crosby- a comedian, not a political expert.” It was a JOKE son, a joke.” (Foghorn Leghorn). Dont base political opinions on jokes. So Babale should have mentioned that was a joke by Norm Crosby. Now the defendant can ask that just a judge try his case. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/82 "2025-09-07T19:02:30Z")
I did quote who posted that message, I don’t understand what you are complaining about. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/83 "2025-09-07T19:05:16Z")
That poster didnt name who said it. Yes, you did quote that poster correctly. **“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”** is by FDR, not DrDeth. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/84 "2025-09-07T19:08:43Z")
I guess I just don’t get it, but I don’t know what I did wrong. I’ll wait to see if the moderators comment on what I needed to do differently. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/85 "2025-09-07T19:10:02Z")
> [@Zoobi](#): > > I guess I just don’t get it, but I don’t know what I did wrong. You did nothing wrong. Nor did i say so. The poster you quoted did not give the proper attribution for his quote. Got that? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/86 "2025-09-07T19:12:43Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > You did nothing wrong. Nor did i say so. The poster you quoted did not give the proper attribution for his quote. Huh, I had no idea it was a specific quote from a specific person - just a sentiment I’ve aloften heard expressed. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/87 "2025-09-07T19:18:14Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Why is _one_ judge the only only alternative? A panel of judges has the same spread of bias as a jury, _and_ legal training. Aside from the high salaries of judges and the burden that would bear on the court system, the assumption that judges would have “the same spread of bias as a jury” is probably not true; judges are either elected (in county and most state systems) or appointed by political interests (in federal and some state systems). It is pretty easy to see how this could create biases in a ‘judges pool’ that would be somewhat mediated in twelve pseudorandomly-selected members of the public. Outside of financial crimes, most criminal cases are not complex with respect to the legal aspects or interpretation of the law applicable to the commission of the crime, and in most of the technical aspects of forensics and other science used to interpret evidence judges are not especially more conversant than the average citizen. Juries are asked to make a decision largely based upon the strength of the evidence and testimony and to guide the jurors on the applicable points of law the presiding judge provides a series of instructions which summarize the applicable aspects of common and statute law, with judges directing jurors to disregard arguments or instructions from counsel which contradict their directions. Where interpretations of caselaw or other non-statute precedent is argued, a judge makes decisions on admissibility of evidence or testimony, and arguments over that are referred to an appellate court in the case of a conviction obtained upon questionable legal basis. This is not to saw that the jury system is in any way perfect, and perhaps having a pool of semi-professional jurists who are conversant with the finer points of criminal law and civil rights, court and police procedure, and at least a background knowledge in forensics would be a better option, but then you’d have to find and train those people, pay them a living wage (since this presumably a full-time job or at least something they could do between other gigs), and assuring a representation of viewpoints to prevent bias would be a very difficult problem. As @engineer_comp_geek notes, when people see on juries and deliberate the peer pressure and group dynamics tends to make people take the job of weighing someones’s fate seriously (not withstanding jurors on celebrity trials sometimes using their position to get publicity, albeit usually after the conclusion of the trial). Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/88 "2025-09-07T19:28:34Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > judges are either elected (in county and most state systems) or appointed by political interests (in federal and some state systems) In the US. As I mentioned above, in my country of residence, judges are insulated from these influences. The judicial branch entirely self-selects its own membership based on its own professional criteria. Just saying, there _are_ other approaches. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/89 "2025-09-07T19:30:08Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Aside from the high salaries of judges That’s not a necessity of the system e.g. you _could_ make x hours of minimum-wage judge duty a requirement for all lawyers to maintain legal accreditation. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > judges are either elected (in county and most state systems) or appointed by political interests (in federal and some state systems). Or it could be just a professional qualification, like being lawyer is. Like, the Masters equivalent of a law degree. Or, as above, something all lawyers can do - or all lawyers with sufficient experience, maybe, and possibly only in their sub-field. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > twelve pseudorandomly-selected members of the public. Except they’re not - jury _selection_ is part of the system, where jurors get evaluated and rejected. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Outside of financial crimes, most criminal cases are not complex with respect to the legal aspects or interpretation of the law applicable to the commission of the crime That’s not my understanding. I’m mostly familiar with environmental law when it comes to criminal cases, and those are decidedly complex. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Where interpretations of caselaw or other non-statute precedent is argued, a judge makes decisions on admissibility of evidence or testimony, i.e. have control over what the the jury will see anyway. Our way cuts out the middleman. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > when people see on juries and deliberate the peer pressure and group dynamics tends to make people take the job of weighing someones’s fate seriously Peer pressure in juries is _not_ a positive. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/90 "2025-09-07T19:40:29Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > In the US. As I mentioned above, in my country of residence, judges are insulated from these influences. The judicial branch entirely self-selects its own membership based on its own professional criteria. Which can lead to an insular or unconscious bias even if the judges are intent upon selecting against obvious prejudice. > [@Cervaise](#): > > Just saying, there _are_ other approaches. Oh, sure. As I noted, it isn’t as if selecting twelve laypersons to pass judgement is in anyway free of errors, prejudices, manipulation, et cetera. I don’t think a perfect system can or does exist, and maybe professional jurists or judges who are accountable for biases that they show is a better way of going about it. But the invective against “Entrusting twelve random idiots” cited from in the o.p. is quite evidently wrong. I know people critical of the jury system like to present a high profile case where the jury ‘obviously’ got the decision wrong, e.g. the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, but it is really easy to watch the news highlights and see the obvious culpability of Simpson and assume that the jury were just a bunch of morons that ignored evidence, but if you actually delve into the trial and read the transcripts, you can see what a fundamentally terrible job the prosecution did in putting forth their argument and how the jury basically didn’t have any choice but to conclude that there was reasonably doubt in the evidence and testimony about the investigation such that they couldn’t justify a guilty verdict. Juries more often convict an innocent person because of poor defense, shoddy evidence that isn’t adequately challenged, and forced confessions, but I’m not convinced that a judge or a panel of jurists would be able to consistently see through a bad defense and overzealous prosecution, either. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/91 "2025-09-07T19:41:25Z")
Please do not break up my post into sentence fragments to respond to it. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/92 "2025-09-07T19:42:04Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Aside from the high salaries of judges and the burden that would bear on the court system, the assumption that judges would have “the same spread of bias as a jury” is probably not true; judges are either elected (in county and most state systems) or appointed by political interests (in federal and some state systems). It is pretty easy to see how this could create biases in a ‘judges pool’ that would be somewhat mediated in twelve pseudorandomly-selected members of the public. Isn’t this assuming that the _jury_ is a randomly selected collection of your peers? In reality, the jury selection process allows both the defense and prosecution to try and stack the deck as much as possible in their side’s favor. If you have a public defender, you may already be at a distinct disadvantage here. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/93 "2025-09-07T19:42:30Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > But the invective against “Entrusting twelve random idiots” cited from in the o.p. is quite evidently wrong. Well that and that anyone who disagrees with them and prefers a jury system is “beyond stupid”. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/94 "2025-09-07T19:44:06Z")
> [@Zoobi](#): > > Well that and that anyone who disagrees with them and prefers a jury system is “beyond stupid” That is, of course, not what the quote in the OP says. Not anyone who takes an action which is stupid is necessarily a stupid person. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/95 "2025-09-07T19:44:17Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > If you have a public defender, you may already be at a distinct disadvantage here. This is a common lay person’s misunderstanding. Many public defenders know more about criminal law, the judges, their court practices and preferences than their more highly paid private defense counterparts. They don’t have time to hand-hold, but a lot of them do a better job than the paid ones. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/96 "2025-09-07T19:47:40Z")
Fair enough, but the side with better lawyers can still stack the jury in their favor during Selection. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/97 "2025-09-07T19:49:08Z")
I believe the implication was quite clear. But for your sake I’ll change it to: Disagreeing with the quote in the OP and preferring a jury system is beyond stupid. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/98 "2025-09-07T19:49:16Z")
Did I misquote you somehow or change the meaning of your words? If not (and I don’t believe i did), then no, I will respond in the manner of my choosing. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/99 "2025-09-07T19:51:55Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Fair enough, but the side with better lawyers can still stack the jury in their favor during Selection. Not really. Judges area there to guard against this. Both sides will be trying to gain an advantage, but judges know how to keep things even, for the most part. One thing worth mentioning is that highly publicized cases with unjust outcomes are exactly why they are news. Cases that go as they are meant to are rarely covered. It creates a skewed perspective of how the jury process works. For the most part, it works well. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765/100 "2025-09-07T20:00:33Z")
You broke it into fragments to respond to each part independently of the context of the full sentence. That makes it awkward to respond coherently and results in a bunch of nonsensical back-and-forth as posts continue to be more fragmented. The sentences you responded to were not inordinately long or run-on sentences with multiple separate concepts. Please do me and others the courtesy of quoting full sentences instead of chopping them into fragments. Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-alternatives-to-a-jury-of-peers/1022765.md?page=6)