On 25-3-2009 17:07, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:

> If the judge or lawyers don't follow the laws set down by the 
> legislature, they get fired. If the jury doesn't follow the laws, the 
> accused goes free and the jury isn't in any trouble. That's the primary 
> reason for having a jury. They, in theory, get to overthrow bad laws by 
> simply refusing to convict anyone.

Is that anything more than a theory? Is something being a bad law 
discussed as such within the jury? How many juries refuse to convict 
someone who smoked or sold small quantities of marijuana because that 
would actually increase future crimes in a neighbourhood or some similar 
line of though?
BTW overthrowing bad laws is very difficult here. Judges are not allowed 
to test laws against the constitution. In the end they often find a more 
subtle way.

>> It is probably a good way to get a judge angry when you meet him in 
>> private to suggest that because they are paid by the government that 
>> they will do what the government wants.
> 
> So, if you accused the judge of upholding the law because that's what 
> he's paid for, he'd be upset? 

I was more thinking of convicting based on weak evidence or sentencing 
harder because the politicians demand a firmer stand.

> Do you have judges that refuse to enforce 
> certain laws because they don't think the laws are good laws?

No, they can't. At least not individually. It should not matter if you 
get judge A or judge B. If two judges or groups of judges in different 
parts of the country differ to much, that is a reason for an investigation.

> Incidentally, you *do* understand that every[1] court case gets to be 
> heard by a judge only, if the accused wants it that way?  It's a right 
> to have a jury,not a requirement.

yes.

> [1] AFAIK. Maybe stuff like death penalty cases, you *have* to have a 
> jury or something, but it's going to be a rare situation.
> 
>> Most likely you will get a speech on how the politics is failing to 
>> make decisions and leaves the difficult problems to the judges.
> 
> Of course they do. We do that here too. The judges don't have to justify 
> their decisions to keep their jobs.

I though that also judges were elected or am I mistaken?

>> Well, it makes it very hard to get rid of a group of youths that 
>> continuously make noise in front of your house.
> 
> I'd rather have to solve that in a neighborly way than to have the abuse 
> going on in the USA right now. :-)  And yes, I have some rather loud 
> neighbors.

They were not from this neighbourhood, just hanging around here. We 
tried the neighbourly way. Which did not work and only resulted in some 
mild vandalism on properties of those complaining. So we asked the 
police to have a chat with them. Which they didn't for some months and 
then did it in a friendly way. At first refusing to talk to the 
neighbours that were complaining and then by e.g asking our 90+yo 
neighbour if she had problems with this group when a couple of them were 
standing by and listening. So the police could safely report back that 
there was actually no problem.

> The funniest one was when the brother and sister were out on the street 
> arguing. Apparently Dad took away Sister's car for getting a ticket, and 
> Sister was complaining and Brother was saying it makes sense. The funny 
> thing was that I never before realized you could actually composes 
> sentences with more than 50% of the words being variations on the word 
> "fuck". It was rather amusing to listen to.
> 
> A month later, I hear someone walking past in the evening chatting 
> pleasantly about the fucking bitch who mouthed off at that cocksucker at 
> work who... you get the idea. I look out the window, and it's the 
> parents taking their dog for a walk.

At least you now knew where they learned to talk like that.

>> 'we know it is illegal, but as long as the council has not appointed a 
>> place for him to park we won't do anything about it. 
> 
> I'd think you'd need some civil way (as in, not involving the police) to 
> enforce that sort of thing, then.

Our police is very civil. It is the normal next step to prevent 
something like this to escalate.

>>> And again, that's the police and not the courts. 
>> It was only a (partly unrelated, I knew) story, that is all.
> 
> Understood. :-) The police have been known to be pretty awful here, too.
> 
> I'm not sure why they don't just videotape everything that happens. 
> Well, I know, I mean, I'm not sure it's a bad idea to require that. :-)

And you get a number of funny programs of everything that went wrong as 
a bonus. It might even make a small profit for the police departments if 
they sell it at the right prize.

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