That’s the funny thing though, as silly as the elections can be a LOT of decisions are made by qualified technocrats. I dump on technocratic navel gazing at least as much as anyone else, but there’s a value to having qualified professionals do certain tasks. It always seemed funny to me that a trial required two qualified lawyers that have to follow a licensing regime, and a Really Good one gets to be the referee for the argument, but then the decision is made by 12 morons from around the way.
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Meh. I was foreman on a jury about gun possession when the defendant was allowed to have weapons. The details were kind of tricky but as soon as we got into deliberations, old man farmer stated he didn’t believe there should be any gun laws (after being specially asked that question in voir dire.
Thankfully he at least agreed the defendant was a piece of shit plus he didn’t want to come back the next day.
We did split some of the charges to satisfy him. Really should have been guilty on all counts.
Ugly sausage making., juries are.
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I used to be quite anti-jury, especially in patent law. However, like democracy, juries are more about legitimacy than ensuring the best result. In fact, the prospect of a jury (and the cost of trial) is why 97% of civil cases settle and criminal cases usually plead out.
The issue Trump brought to the fore is whether “average” people are even minimally competent to support a democracy. That’s been a live debate for 250 years, but the alternatives are demonstrably worse. (Nice try with the electoral college thing, didn’t work )
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don’t let the world bring you down
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These are great points, thanks. I get it, like democracy it’s frustrating to hand over critical decision making to an obviously flawed process.
Yeah I mean if you look around the world, for all our flaws, there aren’t a ton of countries doing “governing” better than us.
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~all of Europe?
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Among our peers internationally, we are enjoying the best recovery from covid per some metric lol
What
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Even if this is better than all alternatives, it still seems not great to me.
“Y’all better work it out otherwise we’re gonna let 12 randoms, many of whom will be morons, decide your fate” seems like a hell of a way to design a justice system.
Can’t find Steve Martins SNL medieval judge (vs the barber/doctor skit).
Yah that Riverman post deserves the eternal rainbow treatment lol
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TYPICAL WOKE MOB DEMANDING RAINBOWS
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I have never served on a jury, but once I was an alternate on a civil trial and I think the jury arrived at the right conclusion in spite of the judge’s instructions.
The case was two plaintiffs who were suing their friend for injuries they had sustained a decade earlier in a car accident. They were helping a friend move to Westchester. The friend rented a Ryder truck, and drove it into a steel post under the Jerome Avenue subway in the Bronx (in the middle of the night in the early 90s). They were suing the friend for negligent driving. They were also suing Ryder trucks lol, presumably for renting vehicles that have the capacity to get into accidents.
This case had been broken up into stages, and our portion only dealt with the issue of whether the driver was culpable for the accident. There was no discussion of injuries or money. Clearly everything that was introduced in testimony had been litigated extensively. It was nothing like watching a courtroom drama. To call it a fractured narrative would be an understatement. I paid very close attention, and it was very hard to tell what was going on. It was weird.
At the end, I was pretty sure the entire case was fraudulent. The driver didn’t even really defend themselves, and their lawyer barely said anything the whole time. Ryder had separate counsel, who seemed much more competent, but it felt like they were handcuffed to the point that they couldn’t really contribute until the closing statements. Ultimately, I thought it likely that the accident was staged, or perhaps even made up. There wasn’t really any evidence introduced that it happened (supposedly they were too scared of sticking around the South Bronx to file a police report). However, because of the way things were presented, and the instructions that were given to the jury, it seemed likely that the plaintiffs would prevail. The driver basically admitted that they were at fault!
After the arguments were over, I was counting my lucky stars that I didn’t have to deliberate with them. I imagined getting stuck in a 12 angry men type situation. But I was wrong – they went at it for like 20 minutes and found for the defense. Turns out they all saw through it better than me. I still felt like a jury of tort lawyers may have gone in a different direction.
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STOLLEN!!!
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Delays, delays, piling up quietly but consistently
You need to take photos now as I can’t view links
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Going with lazy text, I guess twitter linking is done
Hugo Lowell
New: Trump deadline to respond to DOJ request to have trial starting in December pushed back to July 10 after Trump valet Walt Nauta had his arraignment postponed until next Thursday, per minute order from Judge Cannon — delays already starting to add up on this docket.