I see where you're going, Hunter, but you're asking things of a jury that either aren't the jury's job or undermine the point of having a jury separate from a judge.
Aneurhythmia on
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HunterChemist with a heart of AuRegistered Userregular
So Hunter instead of a trial by your peers you'd rather be tried by bureaucrats?
I never said government employees. You and I are both educated professionals in our fields, and are not bureaucrats.
I said I wanted a trial by people who understand something about law and forensics, not some bored housewife who watches CSI or some dipshit that thinks crying is an indicator of guilt or innocence.
I see where you're going, Hunter, but you're asking things of a jury that either aren't the jury's job or undermine the point of having a jury separate from a judge.
Easily fixed! Have dedicated academies for these jurors, where the importance of hating judges and the system is instilled into them from the outset, so that they're most definitely not on their side
So Hunter instead of a trial by your peers you'd rather be tried by bureaucrats?
I never said government employees. You and I are both educated professionals in our fields, and are not bureaucrats.
I said I wanted a trial by people who understand something about law and forensics, not some bored housewife who watches CSI or some dipshit that thinks crying is an indicator of guilt or innocence.
also professional jurists would never turn corrupt
nope
You do know that we already have judges and lawyers who are professional law type people. And cops.
A professional jurist would be no more or less likely to be corrupt as the people already serving in law enforcement or the legal system.
well then let's keep it to the regular people then, as a little check and balance thing
So instead of educated and trained people making decisions that could quite literally be life or death, you want average people with little or no understanding making a choice on if you should be out of prison or in prison based on how guilty you looked, how much you resembled the guy they hated in high school, or if you cried enough during your trial for killing your wife?
What... what are you doing here? We already have professional jurists; they're called judges.
Judges are not juries.
You can have trial by judge or trial by jury. Wouldn't trial by pro-juror just be trial by judge?
Presumably professional jurors would still be be exclusively tasked with answering questions of fact, with the judge answering questions of law.
In a trial with only a judge (a bench trial), the judge does both.
CrossBuster on
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HunterChemist with a heart of AuRegistered Userregular
I see where you're going, Hunter, but you're asking things of a jury that either aren't the jury's job or undermine the point of having a jury separate from a judge.
Trial by jury of your peers assumes the populace is capable of making important decisions. Look at the people around you on a day to day basis. Do you want most of them determining if you should live, die, or spend a significant amount of time in pound you in the ass prison?
Having a pool of jury candidates to select from that have specific education and training in law, police procedure, forensic science, maybe even things like ethics, philosophy, psychology, or logistical thinking is not a bad thing. I'm not talking about 12 people in a city being the jury for everything. But a pool of people with the right training instead of relying on people who can't grasp the concept of DNA or look to see if the defendant seems really sad.
even if global warming is fake (it's not), what's the big deal about not polluting the shit out of the environment and not running out of oil and all that shit?
Because to stop global warming they will have to pay money. It's the same reason there's units in a lot of refineries that have equipment that's been operating since World War II. Oil companies have a mentality that they will squeeze every last dime out of what they have, safety, efficiency, and changing views on the environment be damned. This isn't to say that our regulatory structure has made it easy to build a new refinery, because it's extremely difficult to get approval to build one, and any new plants are subject to much tighter regulation. Right now these old refineries are grandfathered into compliance with a lot of the new environmental and safety regulations, making it cheaper to keep these old shitty plants operating perpetually than to build a state of the art, clean, efficient plant.
Is this a problem with the refineries being penny pinchers, or is it that the regulations actually allowed 70 year old process units to be grandfathered in? Probably a little bit of both.
Also, even if we do spend an asston of money to try to curb our emissions, emerging markets such as China and India aren't gonna spend a dime on it. This isn't to say that we shouldn't, but it's reason to be skeptical that we'll actually have an impact by doing it.
If you're implying that the oil refining industry suffers from a lack of regulation or modern safety standards you are extremely wrong. Accidents happen because harvesting and refining huge amounts of explosive materials is a naturally hazardous business.
I'm an engineering contractor, I design this shit for a living. It's why I prefer to design new processes rather than work on existing units, because each company has different standards and maintenance/safety practices.
Edit: thought about it, removed a bit of text here.
I too am an engineering contractor and having personally spent time getting certification and entrance in to many different facilities over the last 10 years I can attest that the oil and gas industry is much more strict than power, mining, materials production, or manufacturing.
Maintenance and safety practices to a point may very but there are dozens if not hundreds of standards and certifications that compliance is required to work in and/or service oil and gas.
As someone from a more labour-orientated point of view, I'd like to chime in a with a comment here.
Butters is closer to the truth of the matter in regards to the regulations that are put in place by government. Specific operational procedures and safety measures (at least in Canada) are in place by government energy boards (for example, where I live its the Energy and Utilities Board of Alberta). Furthermore, to be a liscensed oil & gas producer, there's more liscenses than you can shake a stick at to even get approval to begin surveying and perform seismic studies on prospective leases.
Then you get to the guys who are actually doing the work to drill the o&g, or complete and produce the well, or build the pipeline, or work at the processing plants. The industrial culture that surrounds the whole process encourages workers to shut work down in any unsafe work conditions. Reputable producers honour this practice, as it makes getting future liscenses easier and saves them money in the long run.
Then you have asshole producers (ie: BP) who like to sacrifice safety and regulatory measures to increase production and try to avoid litigation and punishment by the regulatory bodies. Eventually they do get found out and suffer consequences.
Overall, from my 10 years of working in this industry, I think we've come a very long way in responding appropriately to environmental concerns and becoming more safety-concious, but that's not to say there's still a long way to go. As long as the guys running the show are serving the profit motive, there'll always be places where they'll try to save money to increase the profit margins.
So Hunter instead of a trial by your peers you'd rather be tried by bureaucrats?
I never said government employees. You and I are both educated professionals in our fields, and are not bureaucrats.
I said I wanted a trial by people who understand something about law and forensics, not some bored housewife who watches CSI or some dipshit that thinks crying is an indicator of guilt or innocence.
We need jurybots
just pretend i posted a still from that harvey birdman episode with the jetsons here
I see where you're going, Hunter, but you're asking things of a jury that either aren't the jury's job or undermine the point of having a jury separate from a judge.
Trial by jury of your peers assumes the populace is capable of making important decisions. Look at the people around you on a day to day basis. Do you want most of them determining if you should live, die, or spend a significant amount of time in pound you in the ass prison?
Having a pool of jury candidates to select from that have specific education and training in law, police procedure, forensic science, maybe even things like ethics, philosophy, psychology, or logistical thinking is not a bad thing. I'm not talking about 12 people in a city being the jury for everything. But a pool of people with the right training instead of relying on people who can't grasp the concept of DNA or look to see if the defendant seems really sad.
How would you determine this pool? Testing is a clusterfuck at the educational level, and I see no reason why it would be any less of a clusterfuck at the judicial level.
I also think that most people aren't as stupid as you seem to think they are. They may be ill-informed a lot of the time, but their intelligence is sufficient for the job asked of a juror.
I see where you're going, Hunter, but you're asking things of a jury that either aren't the jury's job or undermine the point of having a jury separate from a judge.
Trial by jury of your peers assumes the populace is capable of making important decisions. Look at the people around you on a day to day basis. Do you want most of them determining if you should live, die, or spend a significant amount of time in pound you in the ass prison?
Having a pool of jury candidates to select from that have specific education and training in law, police procedure, forensic science, maybe even things like ethics, philosophy, psychology, or logistical thinking is not a bad thing. I'm not talking about 12 people in a city being the jury for everything. But a pool of people with the right training instead of relying on people who can't grasp the concept of DNA or look to see if the defendant seems really sad.
How would you determine this pool? Testing is a clusterfuck at the educational level, and I see no reason why it would be any less of a clusterfuck at the judicial level.
I also think that most people aren't as stupid as you seem to think they are. They may be ill-informed a lot of the time, but their intelligence is sufficient for the job asked of a juror.
Test the same way any other professional is tested in their field. Stop looking at this as an abstract.
You get awarded a college degree. You pass some kind of professional testing standard. You get hired for a job. This isn't science fiction. It's how professionals get hired and work in their fields.
As for intelligence or ill-informed, you may choose to put your life in the hands of the general populace but I wouldn't. Add in technical legal jargon, actual forensics from a case vs shit you see on TV, and heaven forbid a defendant doesn't act how people think he should behave. After the books I've read and interviews with juries from high profile cases I've seen, I wouldn't risk my freedom or life on my peers.
There is a place for experts of all kinds in a trial by jury system. It's called the witness stand.
Although then we get back to Hunter's prior point, where expert witness testimony comes up against the fact that a lot of jurors might plainly not be in a position to understand what the hell they're talking about
maybe most people are more stupid than YOU seem to think they are
If everyone is a mouth breathing moron, then how is society still functioning?
Considering average intelligence appears to rise from generation to generation, how did we even make it this far?
I'm not claiming everyone is a genius, just that they have sufficient faculties to determine guilt or innocence based on clear instructions and a pile of facts.
HunterChemist with a heart of AuRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
Would you convict someone on murder with DNA evidence that only had a 12 point allele match?
If you had to look up allele, 12-point match, or DNA, perhaps you aren't the best person suited to be deciding someone's life. If you can recite the Hardy–Weinberg principle, I want you on my jury. Unless I did it...then get the other guy.
maybe most people are more stupid than YOU seem to think they are
If everyone is a mouth breathing moron, then how is society still functioning?
Considering average intelligence appears to rise from generation to generation, how did we even make it this far?
I'm not claiming everyone is a genius, just that they have sufficient faculties to determine guilt or innocence based on clear instructions and a pile of facts.
Yeah I'm not really prepared to swallow this "ZOMG jurrors iz so dum!" pill just yet. The prosecution and defense get to debate on the merits of each prospective juror. They don't just shove everyone that didn't ignore their summons in a box and then slap DNA evidence in their lap.
maybe most people are more stupid than YOU seem to think they are
If everyone is a mouth breathing moron, then how is society still functioning?
Considering average intelligence appears to rise from generation to generation, how did we even make it this far?
I'm not claiming everyone is a genius, just that they have sufficient faculties to determine guilt or innocence based on clear instructions and a pile of facts.
Yeah I'm not really prepared to swallow this "ZOMG jurrors iz so dum!" pill just yet. The prosecution and defense get to debate on the merits of each prospective juror. They don't just shove everyone that didn't ignore their summons in a box and then slap DNA evidence in their lap.
lawyers are trained to assume jurors have less than a high school education
Don't most people selected for Jury Duty get eliminated before the trial, usually for being idiots? Isn't that what juror selection is for?
Each side gets to remove a limited number of jurors for no specified reason. After that it's either they both agree that someone is not capable or the judge decides.
Each side specifically targets getting jurors that are more likely to lean their direction on a case. There's literally experts hired by both the prosecution and defense that read potential jurors to get the best picks for a victory on their side.
Again, it's an appeal to emotion more than the facts. For example, a person with children is perfect for a jury where a prosecutor is looking to convict someone accused of killing or injuring children. The defense would love it if it's someone accused of murder that claims they were protecting their child. The facts of the case being beside the point.
Also, it's kind of showing some merit for my case that people are asking questions like this. Just saying.
Look Hunter, I just don't understand why we're still arguing... I mean Gil Grissom can get the DNA matches in under 5 minutes on CSI, so obviously this guy is guilty.
Also, they need to "enhance" this security footage of this "supposed" other guy. I mean that little gothy chick on NCIS can do it with two clicks! Obviously the defense is hiding something!
Stale on
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HunterChemist with a heart of AuRegistered Userregular
Look Hunter, I just don't understand why we're still arguing... I mean Gil Grissom can get the DNA matches in under 5 minutes on CSI, so obviously this guy is guilty.
Also, they need to "enhance" this security footage of this "supposed" other guy. I mean that little gothy chick on NCIS can do it with two clicks! Obviously the defense is hiding something!
The best is Law and Order where unless the forensic chick can get a 13 point loci match, the perp will walk after raping a bus full of orphans. Nope, that 11 or 12 point match means it could be anybody. DAMN THEIR SNEAKY DNA!
Also, no suspects can be eliminated simply by blood type anymore. If it ain't DNA, get that shit out of here.
OnTheLastCastlelet's keep it haimish for the peripateticRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
I just started dating a criminal defense attorney. Odds I open the biggest can of worms when I ask her what she thinks about juries and the thoughts put forth here?
OnTheLastCastlelet's keep it haimish for the peripateticRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
Sticks, a not insignificant minority of Americans answer positively to the belief that Barack Obama is a Muslim or was not born in America. You might say "That doesn't prove they're stupid." But yes, yes, it does.
OnTheLastCastle on
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OnTheLastCastlelet's keep it haimish for the peripateticRegistered Userregular
The advent of shows like “CSI” set unrealistic expectations of the evidence jurors expect to hear, making a prosecutor’s job more difficult, says an Angelina County prosecutor.
Within a 42-minute block of television someone commits a crime, the crime is investigated and the “whodunit” is wrapped with DNA evidence to prove it — “not realistic,” according to Assistant District Attorney Art Bauereiss.
“Those shows have raised expectations on what jurors expect the state to present as evidence,” Bauereiss said. “They’re simply are not an accurate portrayal of what technology is and is not available. Second of all, they don’t really explain the limitations.”
JoeUser on
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Quoththe RavenMiami, FL FOR REALRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
here's something i found as well, more tangentially related
The FBI found that crime dropped significantly in 2009, despite the recession. It's the third straight year of decline, and runs counter to historical trends that link economic decline to a jump in crime. Still, a Gallup poll from 2009 shows that a vast majority of Americans believe crime is up.
Yes, because everyone believes what they see on TV right?
Hurf durf, I am incapable of understanding anything that might be going on in the court room because it doesn't match what I saw on ma shows.
Actually yes. Many people believe that what is shown on TV or movies in regards to forensic science is in fact real. For example, the last time I had to testify in court for a civil trial involving potential pollutants in a water table I had to explain why I had error bars on my data table for over an hour. I was asked about 30 times why I couldn't have an exact value for Chrome oxide vs Hexavalent Chromium instead of a less than value. The gentleman actually referenced a movie and tried to have my data removed because it wasn't absolute.
Sticks, a not insignificant minority of Americans answer positively to the belief that Barack Obama is a Muslim or was not born in America. You might say "That doesn't prove they're stupid." But yes, yes, it does.
Surprisingly, propaganda can effective!
I'm sure they all did in depth research on the subject too.
Brought in expert opinion from both sides.
Had facts and evidence for and against the idea laid in their laps.
"Conventional wisdom in law enforcement suggests that people tend to be acquitted by juries when there is not much physical evidence and are convicted more in trials that have such evidence," Sarapin says. "The reality is that few crimes have hard, scientific evidence such as ballistics, gunshot residue or DNA evidence. And some states even allow the juror screening process to include questions about their television viewing. There are more questions for us to ask regarding what kind of an effect this has on people, especially jurors."
The term most often refers to the belief that jurors have come to demand more forensic evidence in criminal trials, thereby raising the burden of proof for prosecutors. Although this is widely believed among American legal professionals, several studies have shown that crime shows are unlikely to cause such an effect.
edit:
One alternate explanation for the changing perception of forensic evidence is what Shelton refers to as the "tech effect": as technology improves and becomes more prevalent throughout society, people develop higher expectations for the capabilities of forensic technology. Shelton described one instance in which a jury member complained because the prosecution had not dusted the lawn for fingerprints, a procedure which, besides being impossible, has not been demonstrated on any crime show.
"Conventional wisdom in law enforcement suggests that people tend to be acquitted by juries when there is not much physical evidence and are convicted more in trials that have such evidence," Sarapin says. "The reality is that few crimes have hard, scientific evidence such as ballistics, gunshot residue or DNA evidence. And some states even allow the juror screening process to include questions about their television viewing. There are more questions for us to ask regarding what kind of an effect this has on people, especially jurors."
So waching all CSIs and NCIS can get you out of jury duty?
Posts
I never said government employees. You and I are both educated professionals in our fields, and are not bureaucrats.
I said I wanted a trial by people who understand something about law and forensics, not some bored housewife who watches CSI or some dipshit that thinks crying is an indicator of guilt or innocence.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
Easily fixed! Have dedicated academies for these jurors, where the importance of hating judges and the system is instilled into them from the outset, so that they're most definitely not on their side
...wait
We need jurybots
Presumably professional jurors would still be be exclusively tasked with answering questions of fact, with the judge answering questions of law.
In a trial with only a judge (a bench trial), the judge does both.
Trial by jury of your peers assumes the populace is capable of making important decisions. Look at the people around you on a day to day basis. Do you want most of them determining if you should live, die, or spend a significant amount of time in pound you in the ass prison?
Having a pool of jury candidates to select from that have specific education and training in law, police procedure, forensic science, maybe even things like ethics, philosophy, psychology, or logistical thinking is not a bad thing. I'm not talking about 12 people in a city being the jury for everything. But a pool of people with the right training instead of relying on people who can't grasp the concept of DNA or look to see if the defendant seems really sad.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
"KILL ALL HUMANS" is unfortunately not a valid verdict
As someone from a more labour-orientated point of view, I'd like to chime in a with a comment here.
Butters is closer to the truth of the matter in regards to the regulations that are put in place by government. Specific operational procedures and safety measures (at least in Canada) are in place by government energy boards (for example, where I live its the Energy and Utilities Board of Alberta). Furthermore, to be a liscensed oil & gas producer, there's more liscenses than you can shake a stick at to even get approval to begin surveying and perform seismic studies on prospective leases.
Then you get to the guys who are actually doing the work to drill the o&g, or complete and produce the well, or build the pipeline, or work at the processing plants. The industrial culture that surrounds the whole process encourages workers to shut work down in any unsafe work conditions. Reputable producers honour this practice, as it makes getting future liscenses easier and saves them money in the long run.
Then you have asshole producers (ie: BP) who like to sacrifice safety and regulatory measures to increase production and try to avoid litigation and punishment by the regulatory bodies. Eventually they do get found out and suffer consequences.
Overall, from my 10 years of working in this industry, I think we've come a very long way in responding appropriately to environmental concerns and becoming more safety-concious, but that's not to say there's still a long way to go. As long as the guys running the show are serving the profit motive, there'll always be places where they'll try to save money to increase the profit margins.
Mmmmm....toasty.
just pretend i posted a still from that harvey birdman episode with the jetsons here
How would you determine this pool? Testing is a clusterfuck at the educational level, and I see no reason why it would be any less of a clusterfuck at the judicial level.
I also think that most people aren't as stupid as you seem to think they are. They may be ill-informed a lot of the time, but their intelligence is sufficient for the job asked of a juror.
One thing they were not programmed for: Love.
JuryBots. Coming summer 2012.
Test the same way any other professional is tested in their field. Stop looking at this as an abstract.
You get awarded a college degree. You pass some kind of professional testing standard. You get hired for a job. This isn't science fiction. It's how professionals get hired and work in their fields.
As for intelligence or ill-informed, you may choose to put your life in the hands of the general populace but I wouldn't. Add in technical legal jargon, actual forensics from a case vs shit you see on TV, and heaven forbid a defendant doesn't act how people think he should behave. After the books I've read and interviews with juries from high profile cases I've seen, I wouldn't risk my freedom or life on my peers.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
Although then we get back to Hunter's prior point, where expert witness testimony comes up against the fact that a lot of jurors might plainly not be in a position to understand what the hell they're talking about
If everyone is a mouth breathing moron, then how is society still functioning?
Considering average intelligence appears to rise from generation to generation, how did we even make it this far?
I'm not claiming everyone is a genius, just that they have sufficient faculties to determine guilt or innocence based on clear instructions and a pile of facts.
If you had to look up allele, 12-point match, or DNA, perhaps you aren't the best person suited to be deciding someone's life. If you can recite the Hardy–Weinberg principle, I want you on my jury. Unless I did it...then get the other guy.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
Yeah I'm not really prepared to swallow this "ZOMG jurrors iz so dum!" pill just yet. The prosecution and defense get to debate on the merits of each prospective juror. They don't just shove everyone that didn't ignore their summons in a box and then slap DNA evidence in their lap.
no
lawyers are trained to assume jurors have less than a high school education
in the current system I could be determining your guilt
voir dire is about eliminating potential bias, not stupidity
Being idiots, being biased, or having a conflict of interest.
Each side gets to remove a limited number of jurors for no specified reason. After that it's either they both agree that someone is not capable or the judge decides.
Each side specifically targets getting jurors that are more likely to lean their direction on a case. There's literally experts hired by both the prosecution and defense that read potential jurors to get the best picks for a victory on their side.
Again, it's an appeal to emotion more than the facts. For example, a person with children is perfect for a jury where a prosecutor is looking to convict someone accused of killing or injuring children. The defense would love it if it's someone accused of murder that claims they were protecting their child. The facts of the case being beside the point.
Also, it's kind of showing some merit for my case that people are asking questions like this. Just saying.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
Also, they need to "enhance" this security footage of this "supposed" other guy. I mean that little gothy chick on NCIS can do it with two clicks! Obviously the defense is hiding something!
The best is Law and Order where unless the forensic chick can get a 13 point loci match, the perp will walk after raping a bus full of orphans. Nope, that 11 or 12 point match means it could be anybody. DAMN THEIR SNEAKY DNA!
Also, no suspects can be eliminated simply by blood type anymore. If it ain't DNA, get that shit out of here.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
I might stick to joking around and drinking.
Hurf durf, I am incapable of understanding anything that might be going on in the court room because it doesn't match what I saw on ma shows.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
I like you a lot. One might say I have a manly crush. I appreciate your strength.
this is a distressingly true statement despite your sarcasm
Angelina County prosecutor says TV crime shows make it harder to prove cases
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127370540
Actually yes. Many people believe that what is shown on TV or movies in regards to forensic science is in fact real. For example, the last time I had to testify in court for a civil trial involving potential pollutants in a water table I had to explain why I had error bars on my data table for over an hour. I was asked about 30 times why I couldn't have an exact value for Chrome oxide vs Hexavalent Chromium instead of a less than value. The gentleman actually referenced a movie and tried to have my data removed because it wasn't absolute.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
Surprisingly, propaganda can effective!
I'm sure they all did in depth research on the subject too.
Brought in expert opinion from both sides.
Had facts and evidence for and against the idea laid in their laps.
And only then, formed an opinion on the subject.
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2009b/091028SparksCrime.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI_effect
edit:
So waching all CSIs and NCIS can get you out of jury duty?