Found not guilty, then judge says he may be guilty

[MrJonno]

I'm all in favour of random pools of juries I just don't think the pool should be random from the public. Have a group of trained professionals and select a random group from them.

The trained professionals will not be elected and will not be judged on whether they find someone guilty or not guilty. They would also be required to justify their decisions.

Richard Dawkins suggested an interesting experiment, have 2 set's of public juries of 12 and see how often they agree. Would be interesting to see if its really 12 people deciding or just one or two with the charisma/authority to control the rest

[pErvinalia]

One thing about juries is that they don't get the chance to get chummy with prosecutors, or defence lawyers, unlike judges and magistrates.

I was once convicted in a magistrates court on unbelieveably contrary evidence. When they stood up to retire, I thought there was no possible way they could convict me on the evidence, but I caught just the SLIGHTEST of nods, that went from the leading magistrate to the prosecutor.

They came back after ten minutes and said guilty. My lawyer couldn't believe it.
I appealed immediately, and got a quick appeal because of a cancellation.

The judge threw the case out less than a quarter of the way through.
Basically, when you have permanent people doing the job, they get bent by relationships.

That's not to say that juries are perfect either, just that the alternative has many flaws.

True. But there must be a way of coming up with a system where accountable and independent legally qualified people can determine guilt/innocence.

[pErvinalia]

I still prefer judges that are law professionals to the American elected ones, whose competence and dedication to anything else than the next election is often doubtful.

Me too, times ten.
Having elections to law jobs is just ludicrous.

Yep.

[pErvinalia]

I'm all in favour of random pools of juries I just don't think the pool should be random from the public. Have a group of trained professionals and select a random group from them.

The trained professionals will not be elected and will not be judged on whether they find someone guilty or not guilty. They would also be required to justify their decisions.

Richard Dawkins suggested an interesting experiment, have 2 set's of public juries of 12 and see how often they agree. Would be interesting to see if its really 12 people deciding or just one or two with the charisma/authority to control the rest

[Cormac]

n the issue of consent, you say that if the jury acquits then they are saying that she consented. No, they're not. Like any other crime, they're saying that the particular element of the crime could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. They're saying they have reasonable doubts. Having reasonable doubts is not the same thing as saying "she consented."

Another way to look at it is that the jury can even be of the mind that she "probably" did not consent, but they would still have to acquit if they could not erase all "reasonable" doubts. i.e. -- something might have "probably" happened, but one may still find that it may not have happened and that the doubt about whether it did happen is "reasonable." Reasonable does not mean that they have to find the defendant's story is more probable than the accuser's story. Reasonable just means that there is a significant possibility.

Those are legal technicalities in the real world if a man is found innocent of rape the world will see the woman as a lying bitch

Just as they have in this case where the judge, the Daily Fail, and several commentators here have decided he is guilty, despite being. found not guilty.

[Seth]

The whole jury system is an abomination anyway and most democracies don't use it, I trust a random bunch of 12 untrained members of the public to decide someone fate about as much as I trust them to carry a gun.

Comes from a time when people feared the government more than the public, I will the public far far more

yeah, I don't think it's a very good idea. Guilt should be judged by people who understand the law.

The law should not require experts to understand it. As far as I'm concerned, any law which requires a lawyer to "interpret" it should be void for vagueness. Moreover, I'd ban any lawyer from EVER serving as a judge. Judges should be drawn from the community of non-legal professionals precisely so that they can toss out laws that a person of ordinary and average intelligence cannot understand.

[Audley Strange]

I thought you'd be more for judges being like this one Seth...

[Seth]

I thought you'd be more for judges being like this one Seth...

Nah. I believe in trial by a jury of one's peers...so long as it actually IS a jury of one's peers and not a jury made up of the most brain-dead disconnected dependent-class idiots the lawyers can manage to empanel.

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm all in favour of random pools of juries I just don't think the pool should be random from the public. Have a group of trained professionals and select a random group from them.

The trained professionals will not be elected and will not be judged on whether they find someone guilty or not guilty. They would also be required to justify their decisions.

Richard Dawkins suggested an interesting experiment, have 2 set's of public juries of 12 and see how often they agree. Would be interesting to see if its really 12 people deciding or just one or two with the charisma/authority to control the rest

The Devil is in the Details with these kinds of suggestions. Trained how? By whom? We do have something like that going on right now -- it's called "arbitration." Where matters are tried before a panel of "trained professionals" (usually from 1 to 3 persons) who judge the matter. Are the decisions any more just or appropriate? Not that I've seen.

The jury of commoners is the one foot the little guy has in the door, really. Judges side with banks and big business, and prosecutors. Trained professionals tend to look askance at the untrained, and it is the untrained that are at the most risk in the justice system.

Let's not forget that the jury system helps the little guy, more often than not.

Dawkins is probably right in wondering if they would agree. I bet they would agree around 2/3 of the time. A jury of 12 is a good size, and requiring unanimity is helpful too. I don't like juries of less than 12. Some civil matters have six jurors, and I don't like that. And, I don't like non-unanimous verdicts.

[Audley Strange]

I thought you'd be more for judges being like this one Seth...

Nah. I believe in trial by a jury of one's peers...so long as it actually IS a jury of one's peers and not a jury made up of the most brain-dead disconnected dependent-class idiots the lawyers can manage to empanel.

Let's be honest though, in most criminal cases, that would be a jury of their peers.

[Coito ergo sum]

n the issue of consent, you say that if the jury acquits then they are saying that she consented. No, they're not. Like any other crime, they're saying that the particular element of the crime could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. They're saying they have reasonable doubts. Having reasonable doubts is not the same thing as saying "she consented."

Another way to look at it is that the jury can even be of the mind that she "probably" did not consent, but they would still have to acquit if they could not erase all "reasonable" doubts. i.e. -- something might have "probably" happened, but one may still find that it may not have happened and that the doubt about whether it did happen is "reasonable." Reasonable does not mean that they have to find the defendant's story is more probable than the accuser's story. Reasonable just means that there is a significant possibility.

Those are legal technicalities in the real world if a man is found innocent of rape the world will see the woman as a lying bitch

Just as they have in this case where the judge, the Daily Fail, and several commentators here have decided he is guilty, despite being. found not guilty.

I also do not believe that "reasonable doubt" is generally considered to be a "legal technicality."

Sometimes an accused rapist is innocent, of course.

What does Mr. Jonno suggest here -- that we just take the accuser's word? If not, what else other than a standard of proof of some sort can we impose? If a woman says "Mr. Jonno raped me," ought Mr. Jonno be jailed if the sum total of the evidence is her word against his? I don't think so. Does that make her a liar? No. It means that people who weren't there can't decide what happened there without evidence, and we can't jail people when the evidence either way is about equal.

[Coito ergo sum]

[Cormac]

The whole jury system is an abomination anyway and most democracies don't use it, I trust a random bunch of 12 untrained members of the public to decide someone fate about as much as I trust them to carry a gun.

Comes from a time when people feared the government more than the public, I will the public far far more

yeah, I don't think it's a very good idea. Guilt should be judged by people who understand the law.

Like lawyers?

And in any case, the jury's job is to try the defendant AS PEERS, it is not to be an expert in the law.

As a lawyer, I would not trust lawyers to operate a judicial system without their being subject to citizen oversight.

[Cormac]

I'm all in favour of random pools of juries I just don't think the pool should be random from the public. Have a group of trained professionals and select a random group from them.

The trained professionals will not be elected and will not be judged on whether they find someone guilty or not guilty. They would also be required to justify their decisions.

Richard Dawkins suggested an interesting experiment, have 2 set's of public juries of 12 and see how often they agree. Would be interesting to see if its really 12 people deciding or just one or two with the charisma/authority to control the rest

The Devil is in the Details with these kinds of suggestions. Trained how? By whom? We do have something like that going on right now -- it's called "arbitration." Where matters are tried before a panel of "trained professionals" (usually from 1 to 3 persons) who judge the matter. Are the decisions any more just or appropriate? Not that I've seen.

The jury of commoners is the one foot the little guy has in the door, really. Judges side with banks and big business, and prosecutors. Trained professionals tend to look askance at the untrained, and it is the untrained that are at the most risk in the justice system.

Let's not forget that the jury system helps the little guy, more often than not.

Dawkins is probably right in wondering if they would agree. I bet they would agree around 2/3 of the time. A jury of 12 is a good size, and requiring unanimity is helpful too. I don't like juries of less than 12. Some civil matters have six jurors, and I don't like that. And, I don't like non-unanimous verdicts.

I have a friend who is a judge who has issued judgments recently in which, while the letter of the law is followed, he has certainly found in favour of the small guy. He has ordered that loans be paid in full... on terms that would see the loan paid in a few centuries...

[Cormac]

n the issue of consent, you say that if the jury acquits then they are saying that she consented. No, they're not. Like any other crime, they're saying that the particular element of the crime could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. They're saying they have reasonable doubts. Having reasonable doubts is not the same thing as saying "she consented."

Another way to look at it is that the jury can even be of the mind that she "probably" did not consent, but they would still have to acquit if they could not erase all "reasonable" doubts. i.e. -- something might have "probably" happened, but one may still find that it may not have happened and that the doubt about whether it did happen is "reasonable." Reasonable does not mean that they have to find the defendant's story is more probable than the accuser's story. Reasonable just means that there is a significant possibility.

Those are legal technicalities in the real world if a man is found innocent of rape the world will see the woman as a lying bitch

Just as they have in this case where the judge, the Daily Fail, and several commentators here have decided he is guilty, despite being. found not guilty.

I also do not believe that "reasonable doubt" is generally considered to be a "legal technicality."

Sometimes an accused rapist is innocent, of course.

What does Mr. Jonno suggest here -- that we just take the accuser's word? If not, what else other than a standard of proof of some sort can we impose? If a woman says "Mr. Jonno raped me," ought Mr. Jonno be jailed if the sum total of the evidence is her word against his? I don't think so. Does that make her a liar? No. It means that people who weren't there can't decide what happened there without evidence, and we can't jail people when the evidence either way is about equal.

My point was that Mr Jonno was wrong. Contrary to what he says, people tend to think that "there is no smoke without fire" and assume he is guilty anyway.