> An angry and easily manipulable lynch mob arbitrarily deciding my fate? That feels more terrifying than some trained and experience arbitrator with respectable work history, to me.
You mean a bunch of random people who have no vested interest in the trial's outcome, and so can't be gamed or stacked for or against you in a premeditated fashion, vs. someone in a clear, long-term position of power that makes for an easy target of bribery, blackmail, or corrupt nepotism? You would seriously prefer that?
Centralization of power should generally not be preferred.
> who have no vested interest[..], and so can't be gamed or stacked for or against you
But that is not true. An attorney will try that, while someone on a jury might not even be aware his believe in a nuclear family is used to paint the victim as a slut. Being aware of your own biases and noticing others trying to abuse them will require education and training. Random citizens won't have the time for that. A professional judge (should) take that time.
Do you take you medical advice from random citizens as well, since it is harder for the pharmacy industry to influence them? I'd want to avoid corruption. Transparency helps, but comes with its own issues... if at all possible. I do want a system that avoids centralized power as much as possible but still lets trained experts do the job. There's got to be a better balance.
It depends where you live. I've sat on a jury in a wealthy urban area in the UK, and I'm happy to say my fellow jurors had excellent critical thinking skills. Each of us had different expertise which we could contribute.
The system worked exactly as intended. Because jurors are paid almost no money to be there, I had a strong feeling that I didn't want to live with the guilt of sending a person to prison unless they were completely guilty and completely deserving of it.
While a judge will usually act fairly, a jury has a selfish incentive to actively look for ways to avoid sending someone to prison.
I don't think juries are a good solution everywhere. The UK does not have the remnants of racial segregation that the US does; racialism is endemic in US thought patterns. Additionally, the average person where I live is university educated. For that reason, I feel that every defendant should be given the option of a bench trial.
> An attorney will try that, while someone on a jury might not even be aware his believe in a nuclear family is used to paint the victim as a slut. Being aware of your own biases and noticing others trying to abuse them will require education and training.
So? That's what the jury selection process is for. Your defense should exclude jurors with such obvious biases.
> Do you take you medical advice from random citizens as well, since it is harder for the pharmacy industry to influence them?
Except I'm not beholden to only a single doctor. You are beholden to a single judge, and you don't get a say which judge tries you.
I guess as a programmer it makes far far far more sense to me that the person deciding my fate is a professional who has to follow a rule book, rather than a bunch of random people who act on their own emotions and who don't have to know anything about the law. If the prosecution presents them with an emotional argument that makes them feel I am guilty, they will vote that way - and I'd hope the judge can't be swayed that easily.
That's a hilariously naive view of judges. Judges totally have emotional and political motivations, and a huge amount of discretion. It's less "following a rule book" and more "trying to squeeze this scenario to fit the box I think it belongs in". If you think adjudication is anything like running a computer program you're dead wrong.
One of my favorite lines about judges is: "it's the responsibility of every person to know the law, except trial judges, who simply have to consider the arguments presented and have appellate courts to set them straight"
You realize that some judges are elected by the general public right? If they won their election on a hang 'em high, and let god sort 'em out kind of platform then guess what they're gonna do? Hang 'em high. Because if they don't they'll loose their job next election. They can literally loose their job for caring too much about whether the accused is actually guilty. This is one of the reasons why we have a problem with over aggressive prosecutors and police, because they, and/or their bosses, are basically politicians who often have much stronger incentives to appear tough than to be fair or effective. If you want to think of it in programming terms, imagine working at a place that does performance reviews and promotions based on LOC generated. That is the judicial system in some states.
> You mean a bunch of random people who have no vested interest in the trial's outcome, and so can't be gamed or stacked for or against you in a premeditated fashion
This is not how juries are formed. The parties can refuse jurors and you can refuse yourself if you are chosen.
In the UK system juries are selected randomly, and there is essentially no selection*
Nothing like the American system, where the lawyers can go through 250 candidates to choose 12 jurors, letting them choose the race, gender, education and class composition of the jury.
*Challenges are possible, such as if the random selection procedure wasn't followed properly or if a juror knows people involved, but it's very unusual.
Each side -- depending on the state and level of court -- gets a certain number of premptory challenges; that is, they can exclude N jurors without giving a reason.
After that, the only way to exclude a juror is to prove to the Judge that the juror is biased.
There's loads of scenarios like that. All white jury against a black defendant comes to mind(or all black against white or any other combination you can think of). There's also plenty of research showing that juries are more likely to be sympathetic if you are attractive or someone they can identify with, with unattractive people/people from other social classes getting worse verdicts for the same crime.
That's not to say that judges do not exhibit such biases, but once again - they should be trained specifically against that. There is no such training or expectation on the juries. And yes, of course juries are asked "do you have any bias against this person" but I don't believe for a second that actually works.
Nothing you've listed is premeditated. Jury candidate selection is random, so premeditation is literally impossible unless the candidate selection process itself is compromised.
Certainly you can introduce bias in the jury vetting process, but that's what your defense attorney is for.
randomly selected how? By the order a $9 an hour secretary enters stuff into an excel spreadsheet? In some places yes. Even if it is random(normal case)...random selection of which old rich jaded PHD holding white guy you get? In many places yes.
You mean a bunch of random people who have no vested interest in the trial's outcome, and so can't be gamed or stacked for or against you in a premeditated fashion, vs. someone in a clear, long-term position of power that makes for an easy target of bribery, blackmail, or corrupt nepotism? You would seriously prefer that?
Centralization of power should generally not be preferred.