If you need 12 or 11 members of a jury to agree to convict, and only 30% of the jury population of the USA believes Snowden has committed any crime - nevermind crimes on this scale:
doesn’t it make the extradition situation seems a little awkward, perhaps esp. for a liberal president?
Argh, I’m so sorry; just saw this at the bottom of the article:
My apologies.
Doesn’t matter. OJ was found not guilty when the general public overwhelming thought otherwise. A jury is going to see and experience things differently from the generally uneducated public.
Also, jury selection exists in part to weed out people with fixed preconceptions about the case.
Don’t they have a similar jury system in the UK? They don’t just poll twelve good men and true from the mob hanging around outside the courthouse, do they? Because otherwise, I’m not sure the OP understands how a trial works.
I’d still quite like to see a poll of US citizens.
What does it matter? Is your thesis that popular criminals shouldn’t be subject to arrest?
…the legal system is not a popularity contest. And thank goodness for that.
Despite all the efforts of Nancy Grace to change it…
There is no jury selection in the UK. It is random selection and unless you can be shown to have a compelling reason for not serving (connection to the case in some way, or massive personal inconvenience) then you are in.
The USA method of cross-examination of jurors is alien to us.
The thought people put into answering polling questions is pretty minimal. I don’t think they’re that useful a gage of even finding out what public opinion is on an issue, nevermind how twelve poeple would feel once a lawyer spelled out what the actual charges are and the evidence against the defendant.
Doesn’t seem much question of Snowden being innocent, he’s basically confessed. A jury would certainly find him guilty of at least some charges if he stood trial, regardless of what answers people with little knowledge of the case spit out to make the pollsters go away and stop asking questions.
This was an online poll which means that for all intents and purposes its useless.
Not quite (unless it has changed radically in the 20 years since I was on a jury - always possible). In the UK the prosecution and defence are allowed to object to up to 3 jurors, or in trials with multiple defendants each defence team gets 3 objections. They may not, however, question any juror. The whole selection process takes less than an hour, including swearing in, rather than the whole circus that can occur in the US system.
It’s not “cross-examination”*. Cross-examination is questioning of an adverse party’s witness. Questioning of a juror is called voir dire.
Also, English jury selection is not entirely random. Jurors are generally disqualified if they know the parties or advocates, and can be challenged for cause, just like in the US. The only major distinctions are the lack of questioning and lack of peremptory challenges (and that only since 1988.)
ETA: ticker, peremptory challenges were prohibited by the Criminal Evidence Act of 1988.
I think that, if polled, most Americans would agree that they are unfamiliar with most of the evidence in Snowden’s case, so their beliefs on whether he’s guilty of a crime or not are pretty meaningless.
bit of a nitpick for us non-legal people. “cross-examination” to me just means being questioned by both prosecution and defence. (and that doesn’t happen in the UK)
only major distinctions? 
that was my whole point. They don’t get grilled.
shrug It’s a term of art, with no meaning independent of its legal sense, so it’s not really a nitpick.
I think pulling legal dictionary definition rank over common usage is pretty much the epitome of nitpick but…as you say…shrug
There is no such common usage. The definition you ascribed is peculiar to you.
I think there’s no point in asking anyone this question who has not read the NDA this fellow signed. Because the NDA spells out the charges and penalties if one violates said NDA. The Judge will make this information quite clear to the jury.