On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:06:38 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   It's still better to have people who have years of education and
> experience on criminology and forensic science in general than random
> people who have no such things at all.

Those people *are* involved, Warp.  They're the expert witnesses, the 
prosecution and defense attorneys, and the judge.  They're just not the 
*only* people involved.

In my work in IT, it often made sense when I had a problem to try to 
explain it to my wife.  She's not an expert in IT (by any stretch), but I 
found that trying to explain things to her made them clearer for me.  
Having "John Q. Public" involved means that the prosecution and defense 
both have to really work on their arguments to explain them to the 
layperson.  Since a jury can ask any question they want about what's been 
presented or the law, anything that's not clear can be clarified.

And in exceptional cases where the jury comes to the wrong verdict (which 
does happen), if the judge doesn't feel that the jury's vote was 
appropriate (in either direction), the judge can set aside the verdict.

Jim

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