The shocking thing is that before video and DNA evidence, pretty much all murders were never actually solved.
Witness testimony has been the cornerstone of most criminal cases in history, but witness testimony has been scientifically proven, repeatedly, to be entirely unreliable in all circumstances. Unless a killer confessed out of nowhere or was caught in the act, statistically they were innocent regardless of whatever twelve untrained yahoos were convinced of. The state, all states, have killed more innocent people with permission from the citizenry than any arbitrary group of civilian criminals in history, included ng all terror groups combined.
Gonna need a couple sources there, buddy. Sounds poetic but, like most poetry, a little bit hyperbolic.
… wikipedia how trials were done in the 1800s? This is, and I can’t stress this enough, common sense.
Man, sorry, this just sounds like you doubling down on not knowing what you’re talking about (For example, in what world has trial law ever been common sense?)
By the haploid genes of christ themself, you cannot say that witness testimony is unreliable while claiming that modern DNA evidence has somehow improved things. It screams that you’ve bought in to the borderline propaganda of modern media, that forensic evidence is in any way reliable. The internet is rife with reporting about how unreliable it is, in fact.
Seriously, unless someone confessed or was caught in the act, they were innocent when convicted? Statiscially most people convicted were innocent? Where in the hell are you getting this? Please, enlighten me, since my digging in wikipedia has failed to find a source to support your position (though the number of articles on trial law in the 1800s is… small, to say the least)
Look, I’m not arguing about the violence of the state or that trial procedure has been (and is) awfully biased, but specifically trial procedure is nothing like (and has never been) as bad as you imply it is/was.
No they’re right eyewitness testimony has turned out to be shit. In your responses it looks like you go out of your way to miss the entire body of eyewitness experiments.
That wasn’t the point I was addressing, but I appreciate you providing sources!
The unreliability of eyewitness statements isn’t in question, I’ll happily agree that it’s total shit. But, while we’ve only recently quantified just how bad it is, the fact that it’s unreliable is not new information (this is actually at the heart of “beyond reasonable doubt”). For the same reason, nobody’s done the police procedural trope of a “Perp Walk” in years because of how demonstrably terrible it was. Criminal cases have required more than simply eyewitness accounts to establish a case for a very long time, and I wasn’t arguing that. I was pointing out that at no point in history was a (relatively) fair court system so broken that more than half of people convicted were innocent. That’s just ridiculous.
‘Solve’ incorrect
More like ‘we need your opinion on all this evidence we have’
Right?! I’ve always found it odd that the judicial system can’t get anything accomplished without bringing in 12 random Joe Schmoes off the street.
The judicial system can get plenty accomplished without juries. In fact, the number of disputes settled by jury trial has dropped drastically in the last fifty years, especially with the Supreme Court ruling on Brady v. the United States in 1970 that upheld plea bargaining.
The result has been a stronger judiciary that more readily upholds state authority. Instead of a prosecutor proving to a dozen other citizens that you are guilty, a prosecutor needs to persuade you alone that, whether you’re guilty or not, you’ll suffer more if you don’t admit guilt than if you do. That’s a fucked up premise, IMO.
I would love to do jury duty. It’s one of your obligations as a US Citizen, treat it like that.
Fifteen dollars is way beyond minimum wage from what I’ve read online. Also they apparently give them sandwiches and coffee and let’s them sit. It’s not like any US corporation would go that far. Unless they’d grab their organs later on.
Yeah. The right to trial by a jury of your peers is an amazing privilege that comes with the responsibility of willingness to serve on one. You don’t need to love your country to be proud to do it, just to love your fellow humans and to understand how much worse the alternatives are.
Fwiw, some states require employers to compensate employees at their regular wage while serving on a jury. Probably not relevant to you in particular, since I think only 10 do (plus DC), but it’s worth checking out if you’re unsure. Especially since some of the states that do have such provisions may not be the ones you might expect. Alabama and (parts of) Florida come to mind.
Furthermore, in states where such compensation is not compelled by law, employers are free to develop their own policies, which may include full compensation for jury duty or other mandatory court summons (e.g. being a witness). I’m sure that that is not common, per se, but it bears investigation if you find yourself in that situation. Either by contacting your HR department, or reading the policies yourself, depending on the competency or sliminess of your HR contacts.
Pray you never get selected to serve on a grand jury. They can require you to serve for a full week every month, for up to 4 years (in PA at least). It’s absolutely insane. You do get paid a little more though, I think it’s $40 a day.
You can always request an exemption for financial hardship. But that means that it’s never really a jury of your actual peers.
When I was called in for selection of the grand jury, so many people requested exemptions after hearing the insane requirements, the judge announced that no further exemptions would be granted.
I’m always amazed Americans seem to hate it. I’d love it if we had that here in the Netherlands.
When someone commits a crime, they’re not only hurting a specific victim, they’re also hurting the community as a whole. It makes people feel less safe. The victim and offender are represented in the courtroom, so the broader community should be too. A jury feels like a nice way to give them representation.
I’d absolutely sit on a jury if they had it here.
You have to miss work and your employer is not required to pay you while you’re gone. In a country where most people live paycheck to paycheck, this fact makes jury duty not very fun.
Fair enough if that’s the case. Over here, we get at least a month of paid vacation time and a bunch of days on top of that. So basically, it would just be slightly inconvenient to colleagues if someone had to take a day off. But that’s the same as any sick days, so not much of an issue.
Still though, if you can, I think you should. If nothing else, it’ll give you a front row seat to seeing your judicial system in action. And if you’re a bit more engaged, reading up on things like ‘jury nullification’ is smart if you’re ever called for jury duty.
The best part is that the jury is the right of the criminal, not the community. Rather than having a judge decide your guilt you get to have ordinary people, guaranteed to be your peers, pulled off the street and vetted by the defense and prosecution to be as unbiased as possible to determine your guilt.
Many aspects of the American justice system that seem odd basically come from the goal to ensure fairness for the accused. We’re supposed to take jurisprudence very seriously. And in that vein it would be very nice if we could reduce sentence length to not be an outlier.
You don’t have jurys in the Netherlands?
It seems it’s not universal in Europe.
Nope, not a thing in the Netherlands. I know some countries here do have it, like Belgium for particularly serious or specific offenses.
In the Netherlands, you usually face a single judge for smaller crimes and a panel of three judges for more serious offenses. Basically, the judges determine guilt based on the evidence and pass sentences based on general guidelines for similar offenses. Jury trial is something we only know from US TV shows, but it’s not something most people here would miss or be comfortable with. The idea is that judges are considered to be impartial enough to be trusted to do their work fairly and honestly. Of course, there are procedures to replace judges in cases where they might not be impartial.