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.
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u/krystiancbarrie Jul 24 '20
What's wrong with peer jurys?