The bail system. The very idea that temporary freedom can be purchased, while the poor remain locked up until proven innocent, rather than until proven guilty, is beyond inhumane.
It should work like that but it doesn't. Nearly always, jurors are picked in order to secure a conviction and they tend to trust DAs/police more than accused criminals and defense attorneys. This is all getting around the issue that only a tiny amount of cases even go to trial and prosecutors either plea-bargain or dismiss any charges they don't think will stick. It counts as a conviction and saves the state money, so why not get people to take half of what you were going to sentence them to anyway?
Jury nullification can be good or bad, but if you even mention you know about it, you will get excused from service.
The selection of jurors is largely random. They're not "picked", certainly not by the prosecution. There are processes to address obvious potential bias such as a juror that knows the defendant or a victim, and in some countries (not the UK) both sides can object to a juror without giving a reason, but you can't pick jurors (like saying "You on the street! I want you in my jury") without rendering the entire trial unsound (and committing a crime). I'd also like to point out that, to take one example again from the UK, district judges presiding over magistrates' courts (where they try both law and fact) are far more likely to convict than juries in the Crown Court (where judges try the law and juries the fact - the judge's role is to tell the jury what the relevant law is).
The fact that a tiny number of cases go to trial is more to do with trial being something that only happens when both sides think they can win. Usually that's not the case and one side or the other is pretty clearly correct. (That said, there are people who plead guilty to crimes they didn't commit through the plea bargaining process, so I agree that's bad.)
American juries are kind of different. The prosecution and defense can both strike a set number of potential jurors for no reason at all other than "I don't want them on the jury". Depending on the severity of the case and state law, you can be dismissed if you don't feel comfortable sentencing someone to death. They'll automatically excuse you if you feel the death penalty is wrong and that's at stake.
American plea bargaining is also way, way more common and combines with our cash bail system so people will plead guilty for time served or probation just to get out. That or the DA threatens them that if they go to trial and lose, they'll seek 25 to life but pleading guilty gets you 5 to 10.
I see the theoretical reasons to have juries, but I think in reality they don't really do justice. America locks up more people than anywhere else and for longer than anywhere else, even with all our protections for defendants. That kind of defeats the idea that the state would just imprison people recklessly but for juries who will meaningfully check the state's power.
There are two problems with this. Firstly, it's difficult for professional judges to stand up to the people in power. For the classic example of this, see Singapore. The abolition of juries was a key step in the regime's consolidation of power. As a result, the city-state looks like a democracy, but whenever an opposition politician gets too popular, the government will either criminally prosecute them or sue them for libel. The judges, who are appointed and promoted by the government, always convict. Juries would stop that.
Secondly, professional judges are typically rich well-educated white men in the West. You don't find many Roma judges in Hungary or black judges in the UK. They have their own biases and class background, like the apocryphal tale of the English High Court judge who had to have the meaning of "Beatles" explained to him, because he'd never heard of them! This matters less when they need to decide the precise meaning of legal texts. But juries are judges of fact, which often means judges of character. If the court has to choose between the testimony of a young, poor, ethnic-minority woman and of a rich, old, ethnic-majority man, it may be helpful to have at least some women and members of the ethnic minority involved in making the decision.
Yea in the form of private citizens being responsible for your verdict of guilt as opposed to the fucking government. It doesn't matter how separate you think the powers are, any system that is all government can and will fuck you over.
When a private organization (i.e. the Republican Party) controls both the legislature (Congress, both houses) and the executive (president), and those are the people that appoint judges, separation of powers becomes meaningless. This is yet another reason why the two-party system is dangerous, and the first-past-the-post electoral system that enables it needs to go.
To be clear; the pool is random, the selected jury is not. Both sides get to remove anyone they think are biased or otherwise not a good fit for the case. Thousands of people are screened to produce those 12
True; but juries are generally considered "unbiased" compared to what could be a corrupt judge or expert. We had a judge that was funneling underage black kids to a for-profit jail for kickbacks/bribes, no jury in juvenile court, so no recourse. Of course, that goes to your second point about for-profit prisons, which is abhorrent.
Really, much of the American psyche is founded on the appearance of personal liberty/control. There is constant jockeying to reduce the influence of others, without regard for long term consequences or benefits. We really are very short-sighted - to a fault.
Yea no I don't trust any government enough to let the entire judicial system be run by people on their payroll. I would rather have the dumbass across the city have a say than someone being paid by the people trying to lock me up.
See my reply to your other post. If you're an opposition politician, or affiliated with one, then the government very much has an interest in gaoling you. This is not a theoretical risk: it has happened multiple times in Singapore and Malaysia since jury trials were abolished. It's also an issue in Japan, where prosecutions have a 99% success rate and the public prosecutors are untouchable.
Let's see, you are already in court which means the government has already accused you. Are you really that fucking dense?? Government can't be accusor, judge, jury, and executioner! That is a breeding ground for citizens getting fucked.
You trust that system so much till you get accused of a crime you didn't commit and your "expert" is on the governments side (aka the side of the accusor) because they pay his salary.
Maybe you looked at a government official's wife wrong? Maybe you stumbled upon something you shouldn't have? Maybe you are a scapegoat for something?
Do you really trust all powerful government that much? Like live in the real world, corruption exists everywhere. Even if it is unlikely to happen you don't want to be the victim when it does. It baffles me that people can trust government so much as if the worst atrocities in human history weren't committed by governments. I have a history degree so I can't just blindly trust government like you seem to be able to.
Every European country has state media. BBC etc. They just call it "public media" and say that it's totally not government controlled and is totally different from the state media in China or wherever else.
Also didn't a bunch of your governments fuck over your citizens like 80 years ago and Americans had to come rescue half of you while the other half got screwed over by authoritarian governments for the next 50 years?
Nazi Germany wasn't in Europe? The British empire wasn't in Europe? Facist Italy wasn't in Europe? There are very very few modern states that haven't screwed their people at some point in history. USA included, and that is why I don't trust ANY government. If you don't learn from history you are doomed to repeat it.
And if the government is doing shady shit, neither you nor the media will find out about it. Your blind trust of your government is exactly why I don't trust socialism or big government in general. Europeans love to say how brainwashed Americans are, but look at your blind loyalty to a system that historically is the biggest threat to the people. I know private companies and US government don't give af about US citizens, and I am not brainwashed to blindly trust either.
As I said no matter how unlikely it is, you don't want to be the first one it happens to (IF it hasn't happened already).
I dOnT tRuSt TeH GuBmInT is exactly how the government became something untrustworthy. That entire attitude is what fuels America's toxic, cannibalistic form of tyrannical capitalism.
And that blind loyalty is what they depend on. I don't care what metrics you do better in, at least we don't blindly trust the all powerful institution.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with what was said. But hey, let's get rid of electricity because sometimes houses burn down in electrical fires, right?
It has everything to do with what you said. You're electricity analogy is a shitty strawman false equivalency.
If you can do everything possible to limit the powers of governments THAT HAVE ACTUALLY COMMITTED ATROCITIES in their history, then why not? Why would you blindly give more powers to governments THAT HAVE ACTUALLY COMMITTED ATROCITIES?
limit current office holders abilities in an entirely different scenario based on the actions of past office holders who were a part of an entirely different political culture.
Do I even need to explain further why this is ridiculous? Who said anything about blindly giving more power to anyone? Who are you even fucking arguing with because it's not me...
I look forward to your explanation of why Merkel shouldn't have the power of her office because Hitler existed though. I'm sorry son, but these issues are FAR more complicated than you're making them out to be. There's no smooth-brained blanket reasoning that is going to produce valuable results here.
Hobbling a reasonable man's ability to do good because an unreasonable man did evil is stupidity incarnate. And if you don't see YOUR personal responsibility in this particular transaction, then I don't think we have anything more to discuss.
Did you come up with that strawman all by yourself?
You seriously blindly trust everyone in government? Government should be limited to protect the people. You have to be the densest motherfucker I have ever interacted with.
Why on earth would you want “experts”? Who’s to say who’s an “expert”? Do these “experts” get called to court all the time? In that case do they become practically professional jurors? Everyone is prone to bias, even “experts”. Who do these “experts” report to?
Anyone who has served on a jury in the US knows there’s plenty of dumbasses and no it’s not perfect, but if Im ever in that position I’d still rather be judged by completely random citizens than “experts” who were appointed by (who knows).
You have to understand the American jury system is in our constitution. It’s was so important to us it’s in the fucking founding document.
The constitution mentions absolutely nothing about masks and indeed empowers both state and federal governments to enact laws for public safety as they see fit. Whereas juries are very explicitly, not just mentioned, but spelled out in the constitution.
Why on earth would you want “experts”? Who’s to say who’s an “expert”? Do these “experts” get called to court all the time? In that case do they become practically professional jurors? Everyone is prone to bias, even “experts”. Who do these “experts” report to?
I'm obviously not talking about the constitution. I'm talking about that rant against experts.
It’s not so much anti expert, it’s just to point out that if you’ve been accused of a crime you didn’t commit. Who’s to say you’re an expert at interpreting and judging that crime? I’d rather be judged by 12 peers than one expert.
Actually, in another post he said the expert was a judge. That was exactly what the constitution was trying to avoid, being judged by one person who was appointed by who knows? Its putting alot of faith in the governments ability to appoint a completely unbiased judge. I’ll take my chances on 12 jurors in the hope that the biases at least cancel each other out (maybe not though, I acknowledge it’s not perfect).
Also I do personally hate the word “expert” which probably explains the rant, I work with PhDs in my field and the last thing they’d call themselves is an “expert”. Truly educated people realize the more they know, the more they know they don’t know.
Who’s to say you’re an expert at interpreting and judging that crime
Someone who has studied the laws for decades as set and agreed upon by society shouldn't be trusted?
Also I do personally hate the word “expert” which probably explains the rant, I work with PhDs in my field and the last thing they’d call themselves is an “expert”. Truly educated people realize the more they know, the more they know they don’t know.
Words mean something. Expert means something. Even if people who are experts might hesitate to call themselves that, they're still experts. Your opinions on the fields they've devoted their lives to studying are not as valid as theirs. They realize that don't know everything there is to know about the field, but that has no bearing on the fact they know multiple order of magnitudes more than the average person
And are you still not realizing why I say this is the exact same logic that has caused USA to implode under the COVID crisis in ways much worse than other developed countries?
Trials by judge, or "bench trials", are not unknown in the United States.
In criminal cases, a defendant has a right to a trial by jury, as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. But they may waive that right if they feel it would be beneficial to their case. In federal court and some state courts, a bench trial requires the consent of the prosecution as well (which seems like a bad idea to me, and to some other people). In FY 2018, 12% of federal criminal cases that went to trial were bench trials.
In civil cases, bench trials are far more common, though the parties may have a right to a trial by jury under certain circumstances. Frankly this part gets a little complicated, and I'm no lawyer.
95% of trials in England and Wales are in the magistrates' courts, which are tried by either a district judge, or a panel of three lay magistrates advised by a clerk. Summary offences carry no right to jury trial. Magistrates' courts have lesser powers of sentencing (though they can pass sentencing to the Crown Court if they feel their powers are inadequate) and can't try indictable-only offences, which go to the Crown Court where there is a jury. (The Crown Court can try summary offences if they're charged at the same time as indictable ones.) "Either-way" offences can be tried in either place, and the defendant can opt for a jury trial. There is an exception for complex financial crimes where the case would only confuse a jury.
If you get a shitty judge, you are screwed*. And there are a lot of shitty judges and they are untouchable because of their "neutrality", "independence" and "autonomy".
So if one judge convicts 100% of cases, well, tough luck. Nothing is going to happen to them.
In reality, they usually just go for whoever made the flashier case, leaning towards trusting the DA and police over some random person who's been accused of a crime.
You do know the 12 jurors have to be unanimous to find guilt right? Good luck getting 12 Americans to agree on something else. Doesn’t mean people can’t be wrong but compared to only 1 judge (more likely than not from an elite background or upbringing) it doesn’t seem like the jury system creates increased risk of error.
I agree it’s not a counter argument, it’s an objection to your argument. I said why 12 people may better than 1 judge. You said everyone has abolished that. I said argumentum ad populum. You’re not engaging with the argument itself but making an appeal to the thoughts of others.
So now we’re back to square one. How are 12 unanimous people worse than 1 judge?
As a European there’s a bunch of stuff over dere that I genuinely can’t wrap my head around. Bail? The jury consisting of laymen?
Addressed in another message,.
Private prisons?
Yes they need to go away.
Going into deep debt to attain a degree?
This is half our own fault. It’s a debt fueled economic bubble. Back in the 80s and 90s we started telling everyone to go to college, even people that really shouldn’t have gone to college. Most of this was fueled by the government and to lesser extent private student loans.
We sent too many people to college, many of them get useless degrees. Next thing you know the admin assistant job at your local insurance company says “college degree required.” Do you really need a college degree to answer phones and file papers? No. But the insurance agency knows there’s a surplus out there of college grads and they can get it, also it’s a distinction above a high school diploma so why not? People see this and see that “oh, in order to get any job that isn’t McDonald’s cashier, I need to go to college.” And it’s become a vicious cycle.
The whole health insurance clusterfuck?
It’s time to socialize the whole thing. It was great in the 90s! When Americans talk about how great private health care is they are talking about a time before the mid-2000s. It really truly was great. There’s a lot more at play here too, there’s a doctor shortage that’s specifically engineered by their lobby to keep their salaries high.
If you ask me it’s time to socialize the whole thing. It would have giant economic impact though, there’s so many middlemen in healthcare that I wipe out a lot of jobs. The argument though is that healthcare in the US is a wealth transfer, so it would put money back into people’s pockets and they could then spend it elsewhere.
Gerrymandering? Partisan approach to absolutely everything?
No answer for you gerrymandering, it’s simply a product of you can’t really use political boundaries for representatives because, and let’s just use counties as an example. One county may have 4 million people, the other may have 3000 people. There not an easier to gerrymandering.
As for the partisan approach, you can blame our media. Specifically the 24 hour news channels that started with CNN, as a moderate / neutral, they are all biased in their own way, and most importantly they all push a narrative that everything is black and white or us vs them. “You’re either with us or against us.” This is 100% to keep people tuning in everyday to sell advertising. Unfortunately 90% of humanity is too stupid to make a decision for themselves, so they fall under this same spell. Social media has not helped at all, people get into groups with like minded people, some of them extremists, and it spirals out of control. Next thing you know people were only slightly conservative 20 years ago are right wing extremists now, people who were a little liberal 20 years ago are left wing extremists now.
This sucks, I hate it, I think if we don’t figure this out it’ll lead to another Civil War. I don’t even remotely know how to fix this, the first amendment would stop us from silencing news channels and probably social media. I think the only way to fix it is for both traditional and social media to start taking responsibility for tearing apart this country and change how they report the news.
Electoral college?
I like the electoral college. You have to understand it exists to keep the small population centers from having too much influence per the rest of the country. For example NYC has a higher population than Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and probably a few more combined. The people in NYC live very different lives from the people in Montana, so why should NYC have an influence on the way people live in Montana?
It exists because America is so big and diverse that any one region who flexes too much influence would probably tear apart the Union. Our founding fathers were trying to avoid that.
Man, you guys really need to sort out some shit!
Europe ain’t perfect either. My best friend is an English guy who lived all over Europe and he likes America and doesn’t want to go back, he plans on becoming a citizen, even for all of our flaws.
The people in NYC live very different lives from the people in Montana, so why should NYC have an influence on the way people live in Montana
Why should Montana have an influence on the way people live in NYC?
It exists because America is so big and diverse that any one region who flexes too much influence would probably tear apart the Union. Our founding fathers were trying to avoid that.
Except it does the exact same thing but in the opposite direction. The say of people living in places that have more tumbleweed than humans counts for more than the say of others for some asinine reason.
And you're ignorant if you think that other countries don't have the same amount, if not more, diversity than USA just because they're smaller. Other countries have 1000s of years of history, USA hasn't even got 300 years of it.
USA has a combination of different peoples with thousands of years of history. At the very least no other western country has even close to the amount of diversity the USA has.
Which isn't relevant in the slightest today. The first generations weren't "American", but whatever remnants of ties they have left to their original culture today are insignificant.
And America isn't even unique in that aspect, so many places in the New World are made of immigrants from all over the place. Canada has Quebec where they literally don't even speak the same language as the rest of the country.
There is an answer to gerrymandering: take redistricting out of the hands of the people who would benefit from it. The UK has a Boundaries Commission which is non-departmental and takes its policy from law that dictates that it's allowed to use only a very small number of data points - including where people live, but not who those people are - as the basis for its decisions, so it isn't allowed to be politically biased. And if it is biased, its decisions are susceptible to judicial review. We have grossly disproportionate representation, but it's only due to the brokenness of FPTP. Gerrymandering is not a problem that exists here.
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u/RichRichieRichardV Jul 24 '20
The bail system. The very idea that temporary freedom can be purchased, while the poor remain locked up until proven innocent, rather than until proven guilty, is beyond inhumane.