I was just picking something radically different from juries, which was declared as “beyond stupid”. If something is that idiotic and only seriously stupid people would support it, then why not go for a moonshot? I had no idea what would be a big enough change.
So rather than looking to the system that most of the rest of the world uses to great effect, (or if you had no idea that the rest of the world has a different system, asking) you jumped to a totally ludicrous strawman? Fascinating.
Sorry, I mean that a defendant has a right to waive jury if they think it will help them. (There was an argument that the prosecution has a right to a jury, but I haven’t seen how that played out).
I didn’t mean to imply the right to jury varied (although it does somewhat for misdemeanors)
The issue I see with the jury system is the judges instructions. The judge consults with others in forming the instructions but not with the jurors. The jurors are the finders of fact. The judge defines the laws that apply. The jurors should influence what aspects of the law pertain to the case. In example:
The issue in the Kyle Rittenhouse case was proportionality and whether he could have reasonably avoided the attack. Assault rifle against skate board was the issue, not whether he was afraid.
The same is true of Zimmerman. He had stalked the unarmed Trayvon Martin after having been told, by the police, not to pursue him. He had many opportunities to avoid contact. And did he fear for his life once he had the weapon aimed at Martin cannot be determined as a matter of fact.
The judge largely removed the purpose of the Jury by instructing them to decide only on the irrelevant issue of fear at the moment of contact, which is not an issue of fact. I believe jury input to the instructions would be very productive.
The information they’re not given is information that would be unfairly prejudicial, irrelevant, or otherwise inappropriate. For good reason.
We would need actual roughly-human capability AI, not the glorified chatbots people keep insisting are AI; something we are nowhere near creating despite what the techbro types keep claiming. And we’d need to somehow make them unbiased, which I’ve no idea how to pull off.
The “get a perfect unbiased superhuman AI to do it” solution to problems suffers the same issue as the “create a dictatorship run by a perfectly competent and moral dictator” solution to government; first, you have to have your perfect entity. Something that the world is in short supply of.
In most, but not all, criminal cases, you can waive your right to trial by jury and request a bench trial where the judge decides your guilt or innocence.
So maybe this is why we have experts on the law making some decisions about what gets introduced as evidence. You say the police told Zimmerman not to pursue Martin. Are you sure it wasn’t a 911 operator who provided him with those instructions? You say the issue of fear at the moment of contact was irrelevant. Can you explain why under Florida law it was irrelevant?
that is exactly what it is. Maybe you don’t think it should be relevant issue of fact, but that is a separate thing entirely
The jurors are finders of fact. They cannot determine the mind set of any individual as a fact in evidence.
However fear is not the only concern of the law. So is proportionality and avoidance of contact. The judge picked one. One that could not be determined.
Florida law allows for the use of deadly force where a reasonable person believes it necessary to prevent great bodily harm or death. Zimmerman’s defense revolved around his fear of great bodily harm or death. That’s exactly what the jury was supposed to decide.
I absolutely disagree. There are a few threads here about jury nullification. I get it has its problems. But, as a juror, I definitely want to know if the kid being prosecuted for having a joint is three strikes and will be in jail for 20 years if I convict.
Did he have a joint?
Yes.
Does he deserve a life sentence for it?
No.
As a juror why should I not know what sentence will be imposed?
The issue that should have been discussed with the judge is that Trayvon Martin was attacked by Zimmerman. Zimmerman was not acting in defense, he was the aggressor. Martin went to the store and bought snacks then returned toward his home. Zimmerman prepared a weapon for quick access. Zimmerman selected Martin and pursued him for a period of time while carrying a weapon that a reasonable person would know could inflict serious harm (definition of depraved mind). When confronted Martin saw the weapon and took action to defend himself.
Re the OP - I believe these issues would have been better clarified for the jury if a part of the process provided for an input from the jury regarding the jury instructions.
Under Canadian law, a criminal defendant often (not always) has a choice of trial by jury or trial by judge alone. My anecdotal observation is that trial by judge is more likely to deliver justice according to a strict interpretation of the law, whereas jury verdicts may be more influenced by subjectivity like emotion. Trial by judge is not necessarily beneficial to the defendant, but it can be.
There was a case here a few years ago where a prominent radio host was charged with sexual assault. Rumours quickly surfaced that his proclivities had been known for years in the entertainment community, and public sentiment against him became very strong. He wisely chose trial by judge. He was eventually acquitted when some of the testimony of two key witnesses against him didn’t jibe with known facts and it turned out that they had conspired to coordinate their testimony because they badly wanted to see him “taken down”. The judge ruled that the witnesses had so damaged their credibility that there was insufficient evidence to convict. I can easily see a jury convicting anyway, given the sentiment against him at the time.
I don’t know enough about Florida statute and case law to know if Zimmerman’s acquittal was correct according to law, but it may have been because Florida’s law is absolutely asinine. Under more rational criminal law in Canada, Zimmerman would absolutely have been convicted of murder because he provoked the confrontation, contrary to the legal duty of a citizen to retreat if possible and avoid confrontation, and if not possible, to only use proportional force in self-defense. Zimmerman egregiously violated all these conditions, but Florida law apparently doesn’t care.
While the famous phrase about jurors being too dumb to get out of jury duty makes for a fun comment, I don’t think it is all that accurate or reflects the bigger problem. Jurors are less likely to be idiots than to be vengeful. Some of the most evil comments you will ever hear in your life are from people responding to the question, “What would you like to see happen to the person that committed this crime?” Many people are vengeful, and we disguise this bad human quality by calling it “justice.”
Do I have a better solution than jury duty? Not really. It would be better if we lived in a society more focused on reducing crime (in part by having the primary focus of prosecution be rehabilitation of the person that committed the crime), rather than a society, as is the case for the USA, that is mostly focused on punishment.
I don’t care at all to see someone punished, but then I’m not a vengeful person in general. The goal should always be simply to reduce crime as much as is reasonable. The punishment aspect is an unnecessary “bonus” that I am not personally okay with. People that are okay being on a jury are at least willing to tolerate the punishment aspect of our justice system if not revel in the suffering it causes. I have been scolded and removed from a jury during the selection process by more than one judge when I informed them that I would not be willing to find the person guilty because I disapproved of what would happen to the person after they were convicted.
Changes I would make to the Jury system:
- A foreman should be selected as soon as the jury has been seated.
- At the end of each day the jury should meet, and the foreman submit a list of questions to the judge.
- After final arguments the judge should meet with the foreman to discuss what is to be decided.
The point is to avoid self inflicted wounds. A jury charged with using the reasonable person standard for either Rittenhouse or Zimmerman poses an immediate dilemma. No reasonable person would have put himself in their situations.
what are you even trying to say here? “Definition of a depraved mind”? You are really all over the place on what you are saying, and very little of it has any legal significance.
All over the place because I had just read the jury instructions for both Rittenhouse and Zimmerman. The instructions define the law but are often qualified by the term ‘reasonable’. Reasonable being the judgement of a reasonable and prudent person(from Zimmerman):
The law of self- defense allows the defendant to threaten or intentionally use force against another only if:
The defendant believed that there was an actual or imminent unlawful interference with the defendant’s person;
and the defendant believed that the amount of force the defendant used or threatened to use was necessary to prevent or terminate the interference;
and the defendant’s beliefs were reasonable.
So, it actually comes down to the jurors judgement of the overall situation. But, the complicated set of instructions imply that it is otherwise. When, as a foreman, I made and inquiry for clarification, the response was that the instructions are self explanatory.
I believe the jury system is a social benefit. The judges instructions need work.
Yes, I’m pretty sure the problem with the Zimmerman case is Florida law, and not that the case happened to be heard by a jury. Similarly, the problem with finding a guy guilty of carrying a joint and thus sending him to prison for life is a problem of bad law. This particular bad law has the added feature of leaving a group of jurors feeling guilty for the rest of their lives, for doing what the law completed them to do.
There are downsides to both a determination by a jury and to a determination by a panel of judges. The former is more apt to be swayed by emotion, the later more apt to be weaponized by the state.
One alternative I’ve considered is to continue using jurors for criminal trials, where the state is prosecuting an individual, but to use judges (or professional jurors) for liability cases, where one person is suing another.