Drop the charge of rape. It's now a joke.

[mistermack]

I agree with Mr. Jonno

Having a jury of blithering idiots selected at random from the general unwashed off the street is totally ludicrous. You would not run a company that way. To get effective decision making, you need trained, experienced, educated, and intelligent people. In other words, you choose them really, really carefully, and then you train them to within an inch of their lives. The current court system does the opposite. Duh!

That sounds ok in theory. But in practice, it means that you get a bunch of people who are very much part of the system. They see villains day after day, and end up believing that if the police or DPP saw fit to bring a case, you are just another villain, like all the others.

It happens, I've seen it happen to me. I got found guilty in a magistrates court, even though the police completely fucked up, and everyone in the court but the magistrates could see that I had to be found not guilty. Not only that, I saw a little ''nod'' go between the head magistrate, and the prosecutor, when they got up to go out and ''consider'' the case.

When they came back and said guilty, you could hear amazed whispering go round the court, and my solicitor said ''you have to appeal this straight away, it's ridiculous''.
And I did appeal it, and it was thrown out before my defence had said a word.

That's what you get with magistrates, or professional full time jurors. They get cosy with the police and prosecutors. That's why proper juries are better.

[Svartalf]

Professional juries are a complete contradiction with the basic idea behind juries... remember, it's judgment by 'the people', or by your peers depending on your legal tradition. So a bunch of random morons is what's called for... if you don't like it, then switch to a 3 judge panel, but not to a bunch of legal professionals... who are likely too busy with their job to serve jury duty anyway.

[cronus]

Professional juries are a complete contradiction with the basic idea behind juries... remember, it's judgment by 'the people', or by your peers depending on your legal tradition. So a bunch of random morons is what's called for... if you don't like it, then switch to a 3 judge panel, but not to a bunch of legal professionals... who are likely too busy with their job to serve jury duty anyway.

Would trust a specialist in a case dependant on written testimony against written testimony(word of mouth). So long as they were a 'truth wizard' but they are very, very rare and likely to avoid rape trials like the plague.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

I agree with Mr. Jonno

Having a jury of blithering idiots selected at random from the general unwashed off the street is totally ludicrous. You would not run a company that way. To get effective decision making, you need trained, experienced, educated, and intelligent people. In other words, you choose them really, really carefully, and then you train them to within an inch of their lives. The current court system does the opposite. Duh!

More bullshit.
Companies are run for with their own interests in mind and not the public's.

Anyone who believes the police, IPCC, CPS and judiciary can be trusted to look after the public interest need to look up "Michael Doherty" who is currently(?) bringing a private prosecution against a police worker. He has been stymied, stitched-up, lied to and generally treated with utter contempt merely for seeking justice he is obviously entitled to.

Here's a start:-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 90313.html
Keep digging. This story in the Independent merely scratches the surface of his ordeal. It's a fucking disgrace.

That sounds ok in theory. But in practice, it means that you get a bunch of people who are very much part of the system. They see villains day after day, and end up believing that if the police or DPP saw fit to bring a case, you are just another villain, like all the others.

It happens, I've seen it happen to me. I got found guilty in a magistrates court, even though the police completely fucked up, and everyone in the court but the magistrates could see that I had to be found not guilty. Not only that, I saw a little ''nod'' go between the head magistrate, and the prosecutor, when they got up to go out and ''consider'' the case.

When they came back and said guilty, you could hear amazed whispering go round the court, and my solicitor said ''you have to appeal this straight away, it's ridiculous''.
And I did appeal it, and it was thrown out before my defence had said a word.

That's what you get with magistrates, or professional full time jurors. They get cosy with the police and prosecutors. That's why proper juries are better.

Probably fucking freemasons. There's something else that needs addressing. As long as these dickheads are allowed anywhere near the judiciary then nobody can be assured of a fair trial.

This shit makes my fucking blood boil!!

[Thinking Aloud]

blithering idiots selected at random from the general unwashed off the street

Interesting. And yet last year, when I was selected at random to be one of those idiots, I wasn't on the street, had had a shower recently, and hold several educational qualifications. Strangely, very few of my co-jurors seemed to have a tendency to blither either, and took the case (which was a charge of rape, incidentally) very seriously. Easy to throw such terms around to denigrate the thing you don't like, but actually it's a long way off the mark.

Juries are a cross-section of society and it's their role to assess the evidence presented, under the guidance of the judge. Yes, we had to listen and understand expert witness testimony and what it meant, but strangely, most adults are actually capable of doing that. At the end of the day, you're making a decision about someone's future life, so you don't reach decisions casually or based on looks or first impressions.

[MrJonno]

Professional juries are a complete contradiction with the basic idea behind juries... remember, it's judgment by 'the people', or by your peers depending on your legal tradition. So a bunch of random morons is what's called for... if you don't like it, then switch to a 3 judge panel, but not to a bunch of legal professionals... who are likely too busy with their job to serve jury duty anyway.

My 'peers' are not 12 random members of the public and to be honest I'm no peer of a lot of the public. . 12 random member of the public worked when we he had a single culture where most of people in a society actually had something in common. These days we are just a bunch of tribes that agree not to kill each other and instead vote every few years

What I meant by 'legal professionals' is we would create a new paid job called jurer. That would be their sole job and they would be well trained (and paid). A random selection from a pool would be taken and they would be expected to present not just a verdict but why they came to the verdict.

It's not like the public is he ultimate authority on whether someone is guilty or not anyway, when it comes to appeals there is no jury involved just a judge

[mistermack]

To be honest, I can see a point in both sides of the jury argument, which is not like me.

The thing about justice is that it's always going to be hit and miss. Whatever system you've got, you're going to get wrong verdicts. Some of the worst ones have been upheld again and again by some of the ''best'' judges in the country, only to be finally overturned at the end. Sometimes in cases which seemed perfectly obviously miscarriages of justices, the appeal courts come back uphold the conviction, which finally gets overturned after up to twenty years. Judges and juries get it wrong, for different reasons.

If you settle for one system, you just get a different set of errors to the other. And if you combined the two, you would probably sometimes get the best of both worlds, and other times, the worst.

I think, with my suggestion in the OP, you would free the jury from just a yes or no answer to a precisely worded charge, and give them other options.
Like for rape, a lot of people might be going free, because the juries find the charge too severe for what actually happened. If they have the option of a less severe grade of offence, they might convict, where now they don't.

[MrJonno]

I disagree we ever have 'obvious' miscarriages of justice or at least not for very long in the Western world , we certainly have miscarriages no doubt about it but considering the opportunities that exist for appeals they can hardly be obvious

[mistermack]

I disagree we ever have 'obvious' miscarriages of justice or at least not for very long in the Western world , we certainly have miscarriages no doubt about it but considering the opportunities that exist for appeals they can hardly be obvious

It's not as simple as that. You can't appeal on the grounds that the original decision was just plain stupid or wrong.
It has to be significant new evidence, or judge or jury faults in the original trial.

In the event of a "perverse" verdict that involves the conviction of a defendant who should not have been convicted on the basis of the evidence presented, English law has no means of correcting this error: appeals being based exclusively upon new evidence or errors by the judge or prosecution (but not the defence), or because of jury irregularities.

When I said obvious miscarriages, I'm only referring to what you feel after watching rough justice tv programs. Sometimes they have the benefit of hindsight.
But I've seen some of them, that seem so clear-cut you feel angry that they haven't been released.
But when the appeal comes up, it's denied, and the innocent party does another five years before they appeal again.
I can't remember the actual examples, but there have been many, over the years.
Once an appeal has been denied, it seems like subsequent judges are very reluctant to overturn earlier judgments. They have to have it slapped in their faces, before they will correct a miscarriage of justice.

[Svartalf]

Professional juries are a complete contradiction with the basic idea behind juries... remember, it's judgment by 'the people', or by your peers depending on your legal tradition. So a bunch of random morons is what's called for... if you don't like it, then switch to a 3 judge panel, but not to a bunch of legal professionals... who are likely too busy with their job to serve jury duty anyway.

My 'peers' are not 12 random members of the public and to be honest I'm no peer of a lot of the public. . 12 random member of the public worked when we he had a single culture where most of people in a society actually had something in common. These days we are just a bunch of tribes that agree not to kill each other and instead vote every few years

What I meant by 'legal professionals' is we would create a new paid job called jurer. That would be their sole job and they would be well trained (and paid). A random selection from a pool would be taken and they would be expected to present not just a verdict but why they came to the verdict.

It's not like the public is he ultimate authority on whether someone is guilty or not anyway, when it comes to appeals there is no jury involved just a judge

Indeed, your peers are 12 morons, not random because random choice might turn out some intelligent folk

[DaveDodo007]

I have always liked 'surprise sex' myself but it is look down on in polite society.

[cronus]

I have always liked 'surprise sex' myself but it is look down on in polite society.

There's a embassy where you can do time for that.