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a sad state of affairs | 244 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
a sad state of affairs
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 22 2013 @ 03:42 PM EDT
Um no. One person may be able to influence certain groups of people to do one
thing, this may occur some percent of the time in juries, but it is simply wrong
to say that one person can influence ANY OTHER PERSON to do a certain thing. So
it is not a case of you need a specific man to be perfect, it is a case of you
need one in X people willing to stand up for what they actually think.

Further you're clarification of what is a "jury" clarifies nothing,
nor was anything needed to be clarified. The thing I am saying applies to all
concepts of "jury". For if it doesn't, then it's not a jury but a
singular "judge" or "dictator". Yes the "jury"
might not be of your peers and therefore not a "jury" under many
definitions, but my arguments apply anyways.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

a sad state of affairs
Authored by: PJ on Wednesday, May 22 2013 @ 04:38 PM EDT
I'd rather have my case, if I had one, judged by a
jury than a judge any day of the week.

Here's the purpose, under the US system, of a jury:
to put hearts and common sense into the legal system,
not just the law. Any law you write, no matter what
it is about, will need exceptions and fudging around
the edges to accommodate edge cases, taking into
account odd facts that the law didn't think about
when it was written. It is just like that.

Judges don't have much wiggle room, in that they are
supposed to follow the law carefully. Juries can in
fact say, I don't care what the law says; it'd be
wrong to apply it here in this case.

It's an important safety net.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

a jury of ones peers
Authored by: Wol on Wednesday, May 22 2013 @ 07:26 PM EDT
means a very different thing nowadays than it did back then.

Back then, it meant a Peer had the right to be tried by the House Of Lords.
Well, not quite, because I think Magna Carta predates the House Of Lords, but
that's where the word "peer" comes from.

So the whole point of "a jury of ones peers" meant that the accused
was well known to, and probably friends with many of, the jury.

Cheers,
Wol

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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