The right to a jury trial -- not that common?

[Pangloss]

I got an interesting civics lesson today from an unlikely source -- a circuit court judge in a criminal proceeding. No, thankfully, I was not sitting at the defenant's table. I was sitting in the jury box.

 

One of the more interesting statements from the judge was (and I'm paraphrasing here, because I didn't want to be "the wierdo in the back row who's taking notes") that there are only five countries in the world in which citizens have the right to a trial by jury.

 

The Wikipedia article on jury trials seems to support this assertion, if not the judge's specific statistic. I didn't realize there were so many differences in other legal systems. Some of the specific points in that article are fascinating.

 

What do you all think of this? Does the lack of a jury mean inferior justice? Or does it mean better justice?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

That depends. If you've read To Kill a Mockingbird, you can see the obvious disadvantages of having a jury--bias. But there's no guarantee that judges are going to be unbiased either. Juries just mean you need more biased people to make a wrong conviction.

 

Corruption in a law system, as in many countries, often means that it doesn't matter if you get a jury or not. The question of "which is better" depends a lot on the implementation of the system, and the crookedness of the people implementing it.

[Pangloss]

Interesting points.

 

(For a good "flip side" of the prejudicial problem, see "12 Angry Men".)

[In My Memory]

What do you all think of this?

I think our courtrooms try their hardest to achieve something close to an Ideal Observer view - which would be a single judge who has no biases, who is completely rational, completely competent, who has appropriate understanding of laws and their application, who weighs his or her decision by considering all the evidence completely and fairly. Meaning, the most fair trial would determine a party's guilt or innocence based on whether an Ideal Observer would be convinced of their guilt or innocence. (Short of omniscience, this standard is the unachievable but the ultimate ideal.)

 

So, what it comes down to is how closely a trial by jury comes to this ultimate ideal.

 

Does the lack of a jury mean inferior justice? Or does it mean better justice?

Thats a good question.

 

A trial by jury is undoubtedly better than "if she floats, she's witch; if not, she's innocent". But, there could be better alternatives to a jury trial in its current form, such as replacing all the biased uninformed laymens on a jury with a group of specially trained experts and examiners.

[Severian]

I think I would dispute the five.

[Pangloss]

there could be better alternatives to a jury trial in its current form, such as replacing all the biased uninformed laymens on a jury with a group of specially trained experts and examiners.

 

Seems like a reasonable point to me.

 

FWIW, the jury trial I was supposed to be in started today but they settled (or "plea bargained", I guess) before we started hearing testimony.