What will be some new jobs of the future?

[Politesse]

That would open the door to further significant economic, religious, and racial disparities in juries. I would love to be such a professional juror (I'm one of those odd ducks that actually enjoys getting called in) but it would hurt the very notion of trial before one's peers if the majority of jurors were educated and the majority of the accused were not. I could imagine this working okay if we had free and accessible education, but that isn't how things stand in the U.S. The current jury pool is unbalanced as it is, simply because of how it is garnered.

How would that be worse than the current situation where we have a strong bias towards juries of the less competent?

Evidence?

 

[Keith&Co.]

That would open the door to further significant economic, religious, and racial disparities in juries. I would love to be such a professional juror (I'm one of those odd ducks that actually enjoys getting called in) but it would hurt the very notion of trial before one's peers if the majority of jurors were educated and the majority of the accused were not. I could imagine this working okay if we had free and accessible education, but that isn't how things stand in the U.S. The current jury pool is unbalanced as it is, simply because of how it is garnered.

How would that be worse than the current situation where we have a strong bias towards juries of the less competent?

Evidence?

Anecdotal. The joke about avoiding a trial because your life us in the hands of 12 people that couldn't get out of jury duty.

Fact is, most judges have the latitude to set aside a jury decision, if they were complete idiots and fell for the lawyer's bullshit. The fact that this is rarely done seems to indicate that somehow, these knuckledraggers muddle thru well enough for govt. purposes.

 

[Politesse]

I don't see why a lawyer would want an unusually dumb jury. Sure, they might be more likely to fall for your nonsense, but they are also more likely to fall for your opponent's nonsense. In any case, many legal arguments would be rather difficult for complete idiots to follow, so you'd want a group who at least seems marginally aware of how thoughts are supposed to flow together.

"What's that he said? The guy's mind was in a frame? Is he saying he was framed? I thought he was on the other guy's side. Whatever, I'm hungry, when's lunch break?"

That sounds more like a lawyer's nightmare than their inherent bias.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That would open the door to further significant economic, religious, and racial disparities in juries. I would love to be such a professional juror (I'm one of those odd ducks that actually enjoys getting called in) but it would hurt the very notion of trial before one's peers if the majority of jurors were educated and the majority of the accused were not. I could imagine this working okay if we had free and accessible education, but that isn't how things stand in the U.S. The current jury pool is unbalanced as it is, simply because of how it is garnered.

How would that be worse than the current situation where we have a strong bias towards juries of the less competent?

Evidence?

The highly competent tend to be in situations where jury duty is a substantial burden. Especially for big trials you tend to end up with those who aren't working or have other important obligations.

 

[Politesse]

Evidence?

The highly competent tend to be in situations where jury duty is a substantial burden. Especially for big trials you tend to end up with those who aren't working or have other important obligations.

That doesn't generally excuse them from duty. Turning jury duty into a low-paying permanent job would not change that situation in any case.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The highly competent tend to be in situations where jury duty is a substantial burden.

That depends on the company, not their competence. My company supports jury duty at any position.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The highly competent tend to be in situations where jury duty is a substantial burden.

That depends on the company, not their competence. My company supports jury duty at any position.

Large companies can. Smaller companies might very well have only one person in the role. Or they are in a position where substitution isn't easy--my father was a college professor. Again and again they would call him during the school year, he would point out that there weren't spare teachers laying around to substitute, he would be happy to serve during the summer. They always excused him and never followed up on his offer of serving in summer.

 

[atrib]

Many cases could be heard by ordinary people rather than professional judges paid 200-300 thousand $$$ per year.

Cases of accused criminals could mostly be resolved by ordinary persons who could review the details, watch the videos, hear witnesses, etc., and decide if the guy should stay in detention.

Most ordinary people know very little about the law. So, terrible idea.

 

[atrib]

And what does it require to "understand the law"? 4 years of college, then 4 more years of law school?

At a bare minimum, yes. Plus requirements for getting licensed (admitted to the Bar) which would include training and passing a test.

 

[atrib]

If you have just the average person decide things it would be worse than what we have now.

So you disagree with the jury system. You'd have the City Council, or State Legislature, hear all the cases and decide guilt/innocence, because having the average people (juries) decide it is worse than we'd get from the elected demagogue-elitist speech-makers. Why do you think speech-maker elitists would perform the function better?

Juries don't make laws. They are instructed in the law by a Judge. The jury's duty is to examine the evidence presented and render a verdict based on the instructions provided by the Judge.

The decision rendered by the jury can also be set aside by the trial Judge, or by other Judges during the appeal process.

 

[Keith&Co.]

uries don't make laws. They are instructed in the law by a Judge. The jury's duty is to examine the evidence presented

and legal experts decide which evidence they'll hear, a decision that is revisited in the appeal. So expertise is required for that part of the appeal.
Experts decide which testimony they'll hear, which is also revisited. So, + expertise.
Experts explain the very specific questions the jury is to answer. "Did the state prove to you that the defendant intended for the whoha to hit the whatsit when he whatevered the whatchamacallit?" So that the jury's answer can be basically yes or no. Because they're really dumbing down the law for the jury.

 

[fromderinside]

That's why prosecution used undercover detective looking down into a bag with blocks of drug covered by old plush stuffed animals in a case where I served as a juror. Too bad the defense was ready with it's "hard to see past large plush animals in a grocery bag" especially when the prosecution didn't mention that until the defense brought up the plush animals in the bags. The one looking had already been pretty much discredited on earlier 'observation' of his.

They were guilty. They got off. Liaryers tricks and over eager fuzz. The perp actually came to court decked out in gold rings and necklaces. Only in Lala land.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Why do you think ordinary citizens are incapable of making important decisions for society?

If you have just the average person decide things it would be worse than what we have now.

So you disagree with the jury system. You'd have the City Council, or State Legislature, hear all the cases and decide guilt/innocence, because having the average people (juries) decide it is worse than we'd get from the elected demagogue-elitist speech-makers. Why do you think speech-maker elitists would perform the function better?

Juries don't make laws.

They do whatever the law empowers them to do, and any state or city could empower "juries" to make laws. And there are countries where "juries" do make laws, though maybe they're not called "juries" -- but what they're called is just semantics.

They are instructed in the law by a Judge.

They can be instructed by whoever is needed to instruct them in their function. A quickie training course in legislation could be required, after which the "jurors" could perform the legislation function just as well as the preacher-speechmaker-demagogue-blowhards you like having do that function. But you can't give any reason why only your demagogue speech-makers have that capability.

The question is why it couldn't be done differently than this. Why must we rely only on these demagogue speech-makers to do the decision-making?

The jury's duty is to examine the evidence presented and render a verdict based on the instructions provided by the Judge.

Their duty is whatever the law says their duty is, and the law can be changed to empower them to do much more than only render verdicts in trials. Grand juries do more than what you're talking about. There are different kinds of juries, and different rules for them according to what jurisdiction it is. Not all "juries" fit one mold, as you're describing.

And they can receive their "instructions" however it is practical, not necessarily from a professional who requires 10 years of higher education. It's not true that we must have a system run only by elitists paid $300 - $400 thousand per year, thus causing the system to get so clogged that the needs and issues are delayed for years in order to be resolved.

It's not true that ordinary citizens are good for nothing other than to be put into factories to do makework jobs created for them by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump to keep them out of mischief. Ordinary people can make decisions, contrary to your elitist philosophy that only demagogue professionals have any ability to think.

The decision rendered by the jury can also be set aside by the trial Judge, or by other Judges during the appeal process.

Who can easily be bribed. And who are political appointees. And the truth is that they hardly ever do "set aside" the jury decision. But if you think they should, why not also have the Judge set aside the decision of the voters, if they vote for the wrong candidate? or set aside the elections entirely because if the voters are so stupid at making decisions themselves, they are equally stupid at choosing who should make the decisions?

If you hate ordinary citizens making decisions, then why let them have any decision-making power at all, about anything? Obviously you think they are ignorant rabble incapable of understanding anything, so what is the point of having them make decisions at all?

Why do you think ordinary citizens are incapable of deciding anything other than that of choosing which demagogue tyrant to rule over them?

The question is why ordinary citizens should not be given a greater degree of decision-making power than in the current system. It's about what the process should be, not what it currently is.

If you're right that only elitist speech-makers are capable of making decisions, then why not also have them render the verdicts instead leaving this to the "jury" which is chosen from among the rabble citizenry who are too ignorant to make decisions about anything important?

 

[bigfield]

And there are countries where "juries" do make laws, though maybe they're not called "juries" -- but what they're called is just semantics.

They're usually called a "parliament" or "congress", and they're often elected by the people to represent the people.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

We really don't need the Blue and Red speech-maker pundits to "lead" us.

And there are countries where "juries" do make laws, though maybe they're not called "juries" -- but what they're called is just semantics.

They're usually called a "parliament" or "congress", and they're often elected by the people to represent the people.

No, not that.

I neglected to put "make laws" in quotes. They've played a small role (today and historically) in legislation. Historically there have been some cases where "juries" did make laws or determine policies rather than a "Congress" or "Parliament" etc.

Today there is an effort to revive this form of decision-making for society, as an alternative to the politician speech-maker demagogues, who now make the decisions in our elitist-dominated class system which considers the average citizen as a dumb animal incapable of thinking, other than to mark an "x" on a ballot by a demagogue's name.

https://www.sortitionfoundation.org/sortition_around_the_globe

https://www.sortitionfoundation.org/what_is_sortition

https://participedia.net/method/5507

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12V9rV_bp_M Here's a (somewhat annoying) video about "sortition" which gives some modern examples of this method being used to write new constitutions (British Columbia, Belgium, Ireland, "all across the globe"), which doesn't say they "make laws" exactly, but that a law-making role is played using this "jury" approach rather than that of electing politicians giving speeches in Parliament.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FsOH4KQp54 And in this (also somewhat annoying) video, the speaker adds Spain and Netherlands and Australia as countries where some important policies were decided by "sortition" rather than by politicians.


https://www.oidp.net/docs/repo/doc376.pdf on p. 9, cites an example of "juries" (randomly-selected), in Oregon in 2011, which played a role in shaping ballot measures. Though this seems to have been a small part in policy decision-making, it was a necessary part of the process for measures which were adopted, and the decision-makers were chosen randomly from the population rather than being the usual partisan political appointees.


So the "jury" system of policy-making does exist in some cases, even if very limited. Proving that our current system of having charismatic demagogues give speeches to manipulate voters is not necessarily the only way that decisions can be made.

There's no reason to believe we couldn't get good decisions using ordinary people instead of the elitist demagogue-speechmaker-politician-blowhards you've been trained to vote for as your "leaders" to do your thinking for you.

 

[bigfield]

So the "jury" system of policy-making

And there, the goalposts moved. These assemblies don't make laws. They are organised, selected, steered and advised by experts, and the decisions they make have no force in law. The legislation is still made by the legislature.

There's no reason to believe we couldn't get good decisions using ordinary people...

Randomly-selected citizens' assemblies are just an extra layer of bureaucracy layered on top of the existing legislature. They aren't capable of replacing the legislature because they cannot plan and synthesise complex legislation. There are many crucial things that "ordinary people" don't understand, including science, technology, economics, history, geopolitics, and the law itself. I would never trust 99, or 999, random, unaccountable people to draft legislation on anything. I'd much rather delegate the job of law-making to someone who does it as a full-time job and therefore has the opportunity to do it properly.

 

[atrib]

Juries don't make laws.

They do whatever the law empowers them to do, and any state or city could empower "juries" to make laws. And there are countries where "juries" do make laws, though maybe they're not called "juries" -- but what they're called is just semantics.

They are instructed in the law by a Judge.

They can be instructed by whoever is needed to instruct them in their function. A quickie training course in legislation could be required, after which the "jurors" could perform the legislation function just as well as the preacher-speechmaker-demagogue-blowhards you like having do that function. But you can't give any reason why only your demagogue speech-makers have that capability.

The question is why it couldn't be done differently than this. Why must we rely only on these demagogue speech-makers to do the decision-making?

The jury's duty is to examine the evidence presented and render a verdict based on the instructions provided by the Judge.

Their duty is whatever the law says their duty is, and the law can be changed to empower them to do much more than only render verdicts in trials. Grand juries do more than what you're talking about. There are different kinds of juries, and different rules for them according to what jurisdiction it is. Not all "juries" fit one mold, as you're describing.

And they can receive their "instructions" however it is practical, not necessarily from a professional who requires 10 years of higher education. It's not true that we must have a system run only by elitists paid $300 - $400 thousand per year, thus causing the system to get so clogged that the needs and issues are delayed for years in order to be resolved.

It's not true that ordinary citizens are good for nothing other than to be put into factories to do makework jobs created for them by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump to keep them out of mischief. Ordinary people can make decisions, contrary to your elitist philosophy that only demagogue professionals have any ability to think.

The decision rendered by the jury can also be set aside by the trial Judge, or by other Judges during the appeal process.

Who can easily be bribed. And who are political appointees. And the truth is that they hardly ever do "set aside" the jury decision. But if you think they should, why not also have the Judge set aside the decision of the voters, if they vote for the wrong candidate? or set aside the elections entirely because if the voters are so stupid at making decisions themselves, they are equally stupid at choosing who should make the decisions?

If you hate ordinary citizens making decisions, then why let them have any decision-making power at all, about anything? Obviously you think they are ignorant rabble incapable of understanding anything, so what is the point of having them make decisions at all?

Why do you think ordinary citizens are incapable of deciding anything other than that of choosing which demagogue tyrant to rule over them?

The question is why ordinary citizens should not be given a greater degree of decision-making power than in the current system. It's about what the process should be, not what it currently is.

If you're right that only elitist speech-makers are capable of making decisions, then why not also have them render the verdicts instead leaving this to the "jury" which is chosen from among the rabble citizenry who are too ignorant to make decisions about anything important?

You are clearly confused about the roles of legislators and jury members. Legislators are elected to office and they write and modify laws. Juries serve on trials as arbiters of the facts; they do not make or interpret the law, but are instructed in the law by the trial judge. Two very different functions.

Judges and lawyers are trained in the law, while most lay people are not. Lawyers and judges serve a vital role in the legal system, and their roles cannot simply be taken over by lay people who lack knowledge of the law. You would not expect a lay person to successfully carry out surgical procedures, build power stations and bridges, or even prepare tax returns for a large organization. But somehow these requirements for education and experience doesn't apply to judges and lawyers? Are you on high on drugs?

 

[rjh01]

They may not make or interpret the law, but they can do something called "jury nullification." That is the defendant is guilty, the evidence is very clear on that, but the jury finds the defendant not guilty. It can also go the other way too. The person is not guilty but the jury find the defendant guilty anyway.

Remember if you ever get selected for a jury you are not answerable for your decision.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

If you have just the average person decide things it would be worse than what we have now.

Think about the McDonald's coffee case. Most legal experts agree it was a good decision, a fair award, good law.
Corporate America campaigned to convince the average Joe it was bad law, juries gone crazy, litigation out of control. Which is where most of them still seem to be.
Let's have legal experts fo law. Joe average doing an appeal would be taking a compound fracture to the essential oils saleslady for treatment.

Wasn't the MacDonald's case decided by a jury who were "experts" in that they considered all the evidence in the case? I won't look it up, but it definitely could have been decided by a jury having all the facts on the case. That's what a real "jury" is supposed to be. They are the experts, unbiased, chosen at random from the citizenry.

If you think ordinary citizens cannot be "experts" on the given case, then you'd have to be against having the jury system, and let only the politicians and their appointees decide everything, even guilt-innocence in trials.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

What makes a polished speech-maker more competent or more qualified to make decisions?

So the "jury" system of policy-making

And there, the goalposts moved. These assemblies don't make laws. They are organised, selected, steered and advised by experts, and the decisions they make have no force in law. The legislation is still made by the legislature.

There's no reason to believe we couldn't get good decisions using ordinary people...

Randomly-selected citizens' assemblies are just an extra layer of bureaucracy layered on top of the existing legislature. They aren't capable of replacing the legislature because they cannot plan and synthesise complex legislation. There are many crucial things that "ordinary people" don't understand, including science, technology, economics, history, geopolitics, and the law itself. I would never trust 99, or 999, random, unaccountable people to draft legislation on anything. I'd much rather delegate the job of law-making to someone who does it as a full-time job and therefore has the opportunity to do it properly.

It could be something made more specialized. And then those randomly selected would do it full-time and do more preparation than a current jury member does.

But how is it that the only ones competent to perform this function have to be charismatic speech-maker demagogues? What is it you like about politicians whose main talent is to manipulate a mob of idiots with their speeches? Why do you want to make that talent to manipulate a requirement to be a decision-maker?

Where is the evidence that these pundits are more knowledgeable in science, technology, economics, history, etc.? They're never tested. It's easy for a good speech-maker to bullshit his way, yet having his head up his ass even worse than the average citizen who lacks the talent to fake it.