On 25-3-2009 4:35, Chambers wrote:
> On 3/24/2009 1:55 PM, andrel wrote:
>> Good question. We tend to have people trained to evaluate the evidence.
>> I think that works here, but I know it fails in a lot of other places.
> 
> What, you mean professional jurors?  

No the judge.

> One of the basic tenets of our 
> judicial system is a review by a jury of your peers, rather than 
> professional jurors.

Indeed that is the main weakness of it ;) See my remark to Darren on why 
everybody feels their own system is the best.

> 
>> The suggestion in the video is that the police does not need real
>> evidence but can get convictions by twisting someones words into
>> "evidence".
> 
> Do you think personal testimony is not evidence?

As the only source? No. Only if it contains verifiable facts.

>> I think you are probably right as long as you are middle class white. I
>> have heard some stories that not everybody is that lucky.
> 
> Now you're conflating the issue with racial prejudices. 

Not really. I was pointing out that as soon as you get public involved 
you open up all sorts of possibilities that irrelevant details enter the 
process. Sure that also happens with a judge, but at least you can train 
them a bit. Again note that in the Dutch system the judge is appointed 
without any political background. If that works (as it does here) it 
works better than a jury IMHO. Yet if that fails like in your example 
below, it fails worse.

> Anyway, as I said before, the main issue here is that we leave such 
> determinations to a public jury.  They need to be convinced that there 
> is no "reasonable" doubt of guilt.  The problem with leaving such 
> determinations to the courts (or professional jurors, which amounts to 
> the same thing because they become a part of the system) is that the 
> courts themselves may be corrupted.

indeed.

> Our current system was put in place largely as a reaction to the abuse 
> that the public suffered from the judicial system at the time.  Innocent 
> people were being arrested but never charged with crimes, or convicted 
> with little or no evidence.  In many cases, the authorities flat out 
> lied about evidence in order to convict the men they were after.

You probably can guess what I am thinking now.

> So we threw them out, and started our own system that was controlled by 
> public review.
>

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