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It is a long standing civil right, if you use a wide definition of human rights it would be a human right too. The actual basic human right is that of a 'fair trial'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
For which by the way Presumption of innocence is infinetely much more important than trial by jury. The proper source material for that would be the Declaration des Droits d'homme et du Citoyen or of you wish the American Bill of Rights.
The American Bill of Rights includes trial by jury.
I do not care as other than you I don't consider it an essential element of a fair trial. Take out the jury and you can still have a fair trial, take out presumption of innocence and fair trial goes out of the window. So you may think it a human right, for me it's not. For lack of relevance.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Otherwise I have no strong opinions of the jury system, the prejudices of a jury may just as easily exist in the minds of the people on the bench. It is also human to want ones judgements confirmed by ones peers.
Wow that makes a change we disagree on something. How will I sleep tonight? ;)
For me being tried by a jury is an ancient and critical part of a free society and getting a fair trial. That makes it a basic human right. The US Constitution agrees. That makes it a guaranteed American right. Though it's interesting that you accept the Bill of Rights as a source material when I've probably mentioned close to a dozen times already the Bill of Rights included trial by jury. Furthermore that the right to trial by jury was adopted in the Constitution based on centuries of rights tracing back to the Magna Carta.
Stacking benches and the judiciary with corrupted supporters of the government willing to jail opponents has been a tool of authoritarian regimes time and again. The purpose of a jury of peers is not one of mere whimsy it is a safeguard for a free society.
I doubt someone who is accused of blasphemy in Pakistan would think his basic human rights are best served by a trial by jury.
And as you may have noticed, I started out calling it a long standing civil right though not the essential right, which is the right to a fair trial. For which presumption of innocence is the necessary condition. Jury trial isn't.
Yes but you haven't addressed the claim that a jury is PART of getting a fair trial. How can you have a fair trial if the judicary is tainted?
We have both judges and juries. If a professional judge thinks the law clearly says not guilty then he can throw the case out. If an appeals court of judges thinks the jury reached the wrong verdict they can throw out the conviction. In order to ascertain guilt we need both the judiciary AND a jury to say guilty. Otherwise presumption of innocence means not guilty.
By this standard, looking at the history of jury trials, the provisions of Qur'anic law is more legitimate than the right to a jury trial. The right to a jury trial has not always existed in English and American common law jurisdictions, nor has that right been constantly and consistently enforced. It has also changed considerably since it was first codified. You're misrepresenting the right to trial by jury when you suggest that it "dates back thousands of years unbroken through to those ancient religious/legal systems and is enshrined as a constitutional right today as a result of that ancient history".Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Who has suggested any right should be "lazily discarded"?Quote:
Firstly being executed was never a right it was a punishment. Secondly I never said custom should never be overturned but that rights granted from centuries of custom should not just be lazily discarded.
Can they provide many compelling arguments based on several different valid and persuasive lines of reasoning for doing so, o brexiteering climate-change denier? :rolleyes:Quote:
That's a rather Lemming like approach. So if your friends all want tojump off a cliffscrap ancient judicial liberties then you should too?
Why? Why should a very ancient law that is wrong be viewed as being equal to a very new law that is right? Why should an ancient law that is okay be viewed as being better than a new law that is also okay? Why should an ancient law that has clearly evolved over time be viewed as being more legitimate than a new law that may evolve over time?Quote:
No I don't. Here I imply, no here I state, that we should weight how ancient a liberty is just as seriously as how many other transient viewpoints currently and temporarily agree.
The only advantage an ancient law has over a new one is that it has been given the appearance of greater legitimacy due to years of repeated affirmation. But I don't see why the consensus affirmation of dead fools should be given more weight than that of living ones. If anything can be characterized as "backwards", it is the former.
In this paragraph it's not clear what you're talking about or responding to.Quote:
Getting rid of ancient liberties that are Constitutionally guaranteed should not be done lightly. It should perhaps be done from time to time but it should be done knowing how serious the change is and in the US via amending the Constitution. Not by attempting to redefine the meaning of words to circumvent the Constitution and ancient liberties.
It's absurd to call the right to a trial by jury a "basic human right" when it was once denied to slaves, continues to be denied to most minors, is not applicable in cases involving individual charges that may be punished with up to six months in prison (up to 12 months in some cases, in the UK) and was once not applicable to civil cases. By your reasoning, only 5% of criminal cases in the UK can be considered to be "fair" (and even then juries play a role in deciding only around 1% of the toal number of criminal cases). Minors are frequently denied a basic human right. People who commit "petty" offenses are denied a basic human right. Wow, some tradition of justice that is. Looks like something you might see in a society that places the general right to a "fair" trial (with varying definitions of fairness) far higher than the specific right to a jury trial.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Quote:
Stacking benches and the judiciary with corrupted supporters of the government willing to jail opponents has been a tool of authoritarian regimes time and again. The purpose of a jury of peers is not one of mere whimsy it is a safeguard for a free society.
These are not insurmountable problems. Don't let the government appoint all the judges. Don't let governments control the judiciary. Don't turn your highest court into the most valued political prize imaginable. Give the judiciary discretion and make it the most authoritative interpreter of the law. Elect the government in as democratic a manner as possible, and ensure that it represents the will of the people to the greatest extent possible (this would require electoral reform in your backwards country obv). Spare people the injustice of being tried and convicted by a society tainted by the worst forms of bias against races, nationalities, genders, orientations etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
It is a right in a number of trials in a limited part of the world. Given that it is neither essential nor proven to deliver more equitable justice, it well misses the threshold of a basic human right.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Only police aren't typically representing the United States government when they put on the uniform. Also that solution cuts both ways. How much more likely do you think it will be for people to riot when a judge rules the police officer non-guilty as opposed to a jury?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Yes, they are. They're there to protect and to serve the American public.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
People will be less likely to riot if they see a consistent pattern of just outcomes.
Since when does public = government?
People see just outcomes they dislike as unjust so that claim is a load of bullshit. Besides which you've not demonstrated that judges are infallible and perfect creatures that have no bias and would have a consistent pattern of just outcomes. Given how low regard you review other judicial bodies like the Police I fail to see why the judges can't be as biased in which case without a jury to protect you things could get even worse.
A police officer servicing the city of Austin represents Austin, not America. A sheriff serving a County represents that County. A state patrol officer represents the state, not America. This is important for a huge variety of reasons that you should know.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
As far as 'just' outcomes. There are people who STILL think Wilson was wrong in shooting Brown. If you think people being found not guilty due to reasonable doubt (something that a judge is far more likely to actually rule on as opposed to a jury who tend to be more biased toward likelihood of the person doing the crime) by a government official is going to decrease the sense of disenfranchisement you're not thinking clearly.
Civil rights are national, not city-wide. It's why a police officer that violates a person's civil rights can be taken to federal court.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
One could reasonably disagree with any individual verdict. I'm talking about a pattern of behavior here.
Going back to your moral relativism shtick? Nothing is perfect. I'll take an imperfect judge over your average citizen any day of the week (unless I'm a guilty defendant who committed a crime that's considered acceptable by my peers of course).Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Interesting how Randbade thinks he can plead in favour of the jury system by saying that people are fallible.
Well I wouldn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Why? That's the very basis of why we have them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
If people are fallible and we go with presumption of innocence then getting 12 fallible people to all agree guilty is a higher burden than getting eg one or three fallible judges to agree guilty. As I'd rather presumption of innocence than guilt, I'm OK with that. If people were infallible then it would be moot which system we had, so of course people being fallible must be part of the reason why one is better than the other.
I'm sure 1950s KKKers would wholeheartedly endorse your point of view.
Benefit of the doubt extends beyond those I like. If I remove liberties from those I despise then what protects me when those liberties are gone?
Are you still pretending that countries with civil law are devoid of civil liberties?
They're devoid of civil liberties I (and our ancestors) value(d) dearly yes.
Like not paying interest to Jews. Got it.
You've really got to learn some new tricks.
Too bad for you there is no evidence whatsoever for the idea that jury trials make an actual difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
The Netherlands and Belgium have near identical legal systems delivering similar results. One without, the other with juty trials.
The problem is that the purpose of having juries is to make it more difficult for the government to just lock people up. By doing away with jury trials you give people like Trump (who will be the next POTUS and appoint judges) and the government *more* power to lock people away. Juries are a check against the government. Because some cases don't got he way you want doesn't mean you should throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Do you have a better response to someone who plugs their ears and repeats the same nonsense ad nauseum?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wraith
"You've got to learn some new tricks" seemed like a good response "to someone who plugs their ears and repeats the same nonsense ad nauseum," to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
There's no specific need to do away with them. They are as good or as bad as an independent judiciary. To call them a basic human right though is as silly as calling the right to travel on green buses a basic human right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Or access to the internet, right? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
In all honesty I think everyone is splitting hairs needlessly and losing sight of the bigger picture. That being the idea that there having certain checks on the power of the government is a good thing and that in all types of trials (judge or jury decided) there will be errors. The question is do you want a system that errors on the idea of the guilty going free or errs on the side of the innocent being imprisoned? Jury trials, by forcing all 12 jurors to come to a consensus for guilt is a powerful check on the ability of the government to imprison the individual.
Exactly.
I don't know that I am splitting hears by pointing out that the jury system is neither better nor worse in delivering.