On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:07:21 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> We do here too. The government pays the judge and both the prosecution
> and defense lawyers in many cases.  The government doesn't pay the
> juries.

Um, actually (at least here in Utah), they do.  It's something like $20/
day, but the government does pay the jury.

Jim

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On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:00:49 +0100, andrel wrote:

> On 25-3-2009 16:36, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:57:04 +0100, andrel wrote:
>> 
>>> On 25-3-2009 5:39, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:40:00 +0100, andrel wrote: I think it's a
>>>> shame people try to get out of jury duty; it's actually quite
>>>> fascinating, at least I think so.
>>> I talked to one that got out of it yesterday. But he knew the system
>>> anyway, having been sued a couple of times for not so good reasons. He
>>> is a medical doctor and the first couple of hits when you google him
>>> are sites that will provide you with his track record both in clinical
>>> practice as well as in the court room for money. I though that is
>>> quite sad. Somehow I expected to find his homepage at his university
>>> and his outstanding scientific contributions first.
>> 
>> Under those circumstances, he'd probably be dismissed by the
>> prosecution in many cases anyways, since the prosecuting side wouldn't
>> want someone who was angry at "the system" and might be inclined to
>> take their anger about the system out against the prosecutors by being
>> excessively lenient on the defendant.  At the very least, there would
>> likely be a few extra questions during voir dire.
> 
> I don't think he is angry with the system, just with the people that
> sued him for no good reason other than that as a medical doctor he is an
> easy victim.

Oh, no, I wasn't saying he was angry with the system, but that he's been 
sued in court is something the prosecution would be likely to play on 
during voir dire in order to disqualify him.  Particularly if the case 
involves medical elements he may be familiar with if the prosecution has 
a weak case.  His medical expertise could also be a liability to the 
prosecution, so add to that that he's been involved in malpractice suits 
and he would be seen as undesirable in some instances.

That also would tend to be an automatic disqualification from any 
malpractice suit he might sit on a jury for, too.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> In the appeals process, bench trials are standard operating 
> procedure, again as I understand it - because the judge is responsible 
> for deciding if the lower court made a reversible error.

Right. In the appeals case, there's no jury, because the jury already saw 
all the facts. The appeal is checking that the legal system did the right 
thing, not arguing that it came to the wrong conclusion.

In other words, if you're guilty and everyone followed the rules, you won't 
correctly go free by appealing the case.

Appeals aren't "I didn't do it."  Appeals are "the judge allowed the wrong 
evidence" or "the judge miscalculated how much I owe" or even "the judge 
shouldn't have been allowed to take the case in the first place."

If the jury believed the prosecution witness and not the defense witness, 
you're not going to get out of that with an appeal.

> But in normal circumstances in the US, the judge interprets the law for 
> the jury, the jury determines the facts, and decides if the facts support 
> the charge based on the law or laws that the defendant is accused of 
> breaking were in fact broken.

And the judge tries to convince the jury to obey the law, and to convict 
even if they think it's a bad law, but there's no actual requirement to do 
so, and indeed the founders of the country explicitly put into their 
writings that the jury was there to keep the new rulers from passing bad laws.

Not that *that* worked out too well... :-)

> The prosecution and the defense put together a packet for the jury, 
> though, that outlines different perspectives on the law.  The packets 
> from both sides are given to the jury to read and often you can't tell 
> which comes from who (they're not identified in my experience).

I didn't get one of those. But then, it was just breaking into a car. A 
pretty straightforward crime.

> I think it's a shame people try to get out of jury duty; it's actually 
> quite fascinating, at least I think so.

It can be annoying for busy people to take three to five days off work 
without pay in order to listen to some low-life who broke into a car trying 
to get out of the punishment. :-)

It might have been more interesting in cases where there was more to it, 
like the one where the father was accused of mishandling the baby, or where 
the sailor was accused of rape (along with "breaking and entering with grave 
bodily harm") six months after the fact because he followed the two ladies 
into their house and was invited to sleep with both of them at once.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Chambers wrote:
> judicial system is a review by a jury of your peers, 

No, it's not. That's England's system.

And "peer" doesn't mean what you think it means there. :-)

Ours is a jury from the same jurisdiction.

> At this point, however, you're leaving it to the courts to ensure that 
> innocent people do not get convicted.  Here, we leave it to the public, 
> in the form of a public jury.

We do both. Appeals are a check on misoperation of the legal system.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Um, actually (at least here in Utah), they do.  It's something like $20/
> day, but the government does pay the jury.

Well, yes, and something like $6 here. For a day. That's not pay, that's 
parking reimbursement. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> His medical expertise could also be a liability to the 
> prosecution, so add to that that he's been involved in malpractice suits 
> and he would be seen as undesirable in some instances.

Also, neither side wants an expert on the jury, as the others might give his 
opinion more weight than their own. If you have a case about someone's 
injuries, you're not going to have a doctor on the jury, because the rest of 
the jury would just defer to the doctor on the opinion of whether (say) the 
defendant was strong enough to cause that kind of injury.

They want you looking at the evidence presented, not the evidence someone 
else learned in school. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Um, actually (at least here in Utah), they do.  It's something like $20/
>> day, but the government does pay the jury.
> 
> Well, yes, and something like $6 here. For a day. That's not pay, that's 
> parking reimbursement. :-)

More specifically, you get paid whether you follow the government's laws or 
not, and you can't get fired from the position for deciding "wrongly".

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no
   CD I knoooow!

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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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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> 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.

  Isn't that a case of mistrial? Is the procedure in case of mistrial
really letting the accused go free, rather than setting up a new trial?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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andrel wrote:
> Is that anything more than a theory? Is something being a bad law 
> discussed as such within the jury?

Yes. Not often, mind. Mostly drug stuff, or things like interracial marriage 
being illegal. There was probably more of it back in the early days, or 
during times of great upheaval and unpopular laws.

> 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.

Yeah. There's nothing in our constitution that says the judges can declare 
something unconstitutional either. On the other hand, it's those judges 
making the decision, too. :-)

>>> 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.

Yeah. That's something you don't have to worry about with a jury.

>> 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.

That's one of the reasons we have juries here. Not that it always works, but 
if you look at the writings of the people writing the constitution, they put 
juries on the list as a balance against the government's power to convict 
people based on bad laws.

> 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.

Same here.  If two peer judges disagree about how a law should be enforced, 
it gets bumped up to the next level. That's where you see things about "the 
ninth federal circuit passing cases to the supreme court" kind of thing.

>> 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?

Some are, some aren't. The federal supreme court judges are appointed for 
life by the president of the USA. State judges are all over. Usually trial 
judges are just hired by the appropriate part of the government, I think. 
It's only the judges that make binding precidents that get elected, if at 
all.  (For example, I voted for one judge in the last election here, so some 
get elected, but clearly not all.)

Note that laws don't change meaning here unless an appeal is filed.  If you 
get off for crime X in the first trial, it means nothing for me going into a 
trial for the same crime. But if you appeal something, and the appeal judge 
makes a decision, every trial judge that appeals to the same judge is 
supposed to follow that same decisions. That's the precident. Which I'm 
spelling wrong. :-)

> So the police could safely report back that 
> there was actually no problem.

I'd *still* rather have that than having the chief of police say "Oh, we 
stop and question all black teenagers we see, because we want them to be 
afraid of us." :-)

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

Exactly. It was the whole casualness of the stream of cusswords that was 
amusing. Not that it bothers me in the least, but it was amusing.

>>> '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.

Sorry. The word "civil" in legal situations here doesn't mean "nice", it 
means "person to person."  So if the police arrest you, it's "criminal." If 
you sue someone for slander, it's "civil".

> 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.

Heh!

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no
   CD I knoooow!

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