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On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:18:41 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospam com> wrote:
>> Out of curiosity, have you ever served on a jury?
>
> Nope. There's no such thing here.
OK.
>> In Finland (going from
>> memory, so please correct me if I'm wrong), what sort of criminal
>> justice (and civil justice, for that matter) system is used?
>
> If I'm not completely msitaken, usually a judge and a panel of three
> so-called lay judges. In more difficult cases the panel may be expanded
> with one or two experts.
>
> The lay judges are elected by the city council (or something like
> that,
> I'm not completely sure) in 4-year terms.
>
> In very trivial cases simpler setups may be used.
OK - this makes some sense to me, assuming you trust your government to
do the right thing. In talking about the US courts system, you have to
keep in mind that when the country was founded, one of the principles was
that the founders didn't trust the English government, so the power of
the three branches of government was put into the hands of "the
people" (historically, though, this was not all people - women couldn't
vote, slaves couldn't vote, people who didn't own property couldn't vote
- all initially, and all have changed now). The founding principles were
essentially that a government is needed, but that it shouldn't be trusted.
I can honestly say that I would rather have a jury than not if I were
accused of something serious, because experts, judges, etc *may* have an
axe to grind on a particular issue. Over here, case law history sets a
precedent that can trump legislative processes, so even if I'm innocent,
an "activist judge" may see the case as an opportunity to push his agenda
if a guilty verdict is entered, and I'm just "collateral damage" in that
process.
Jim
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