RE: Is Hive Watcher's doing a good job?
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Where I live, in the Pacific Northwest, there are company towns, where the entire population of a town works for one company, usually logging companies. They don't have any option to exclude jurors for working for the company the accused also works for (if they're a local). I believe that the reason the jury system works so well is that jurors are indeed zealous to ensure the rights of the accused are respected by the legal process, that the prosecution does effectively prove beyond a shadow of a doubt their guilt, or to conserve the rights of the juror by voting not guilty if the prosecution does not meet that bar. People are indeed zealous of the felicity of their village or town, because their family depends on it, and don't want criminals to prey on themselves, or their friends, family, neighbors because that threatens themselves and their family. Juries are motivated to judge truly and justly because of these factors.
You've painted a very specific picture here. You come from the perspective that having a vested interest is THE requirement for judging over a case. Now, this interest is here the locality and familiarity as well as the dependency on a company which feeds the town.
I agree that what I would call determination (not zeal) to judge fairly may take place. IF the logging company IS seen as a valuable enterprise for the whole area. But the question would be, what point of accusation towards a single townsperson could such a company make, arguing that its stability or very existence was in jeopardy?
To be in jeopardy as a company through a damaging act by an individual, I can only imagine that it would be a case of a powerful individual (journalist, for example) who tries to damage the logging companies reputation. Then this journalist must have a lot of power (which usually is not the case if you are acting individually, but collectively). Since badmouthing a company by individuals in private usually does not harm the company in total.
I actually didn't say that it was necessary to juries. What I did say, or meant to say, was that interest improved the ability of juries to judge because it caused their attention to be sharp and focused, and their interest aligns with actual justice.
Anyway, I don't think juries are magical. They certainly reflect their societies, which includes the bad with the good.
Alright. Thanks for clarifying.
True.
Have you ever been a member of a jury yourself? Or do you know someone who was?
We don't have that in Germany. What we have, is this:
Unfortunately, the wiki-entry does not translate into English. If you are interested, you must translate it yourself. I wasn't knowing about the "Schöffen" myself. I only knew the word and vaguely what it could mean. I was surprised when I read that you can act as a lay judge in court and that your vote actually counts just as much as that of a professional judge.
Well, juries in the US can actually rule that the law is the problem, not actions of the defendant. It's called Jury Nullification, and judges hate, hate, hate it. They often caution juries, dismiss attorneys, and start trials over if jury nullification is mentioned. They've even muzzled defendants so they can't speak out of order at trial. American juries are yet one of the most powerful vestiges of actual democracy left in the country, since voting at the national level is merely a ritual and ballot box stuffing or burning the ballots of the challenging candidate tend to decide elections where more than a few million dollars are spent on the contest. Small local elections are both more effective in controlling local polities, and more likely to be decided by the actual voters, because there's less money involved, and teams of ballot farmers cost too much.
Thus, when the wrong candidate gets in office and passes bad laws, juries have authority to nullify such laws during trials of people accused of breaking them, as well as declare the defendant guilty or not guilty. I think very highly of juries, but have been disappointed with jurors, because so many of them aren't very competent to understand technical issues, are bamboozled by their indoctrinations and propaganda, or aren't very attentive or courageous when human rights are violated by laws and courts.
I have been on juries, which is where I formed my opinion.
That is very interesting. I didn't know about Nullification. That's a great tool to counteract stupid laws. I would be interested in statistics, how often it happened that Nullification was successful. Is this ever in the media?
Yeah, I bet that this is not very well received from those who are in full line with none sensical regulations.
People here in my country who do not abide by the law, sometimes hope that someone accuses them and then a trial in court takes place. That is, of course, a high risk that your case will be judged against you.
It tells a lot about the state of affairs if those very tools to put things in balance are neither known nor often enough used.
I was attending a trial not so long ago and the result was disappointing since the judge decided against the woman accused. But what was worth it for me to watch it was that I saw how the judge actually struggled with the case and said some things which impressed me. It was obvious to me that he actually would have liked to decide in favour of the defendant, but couldn't find the courage to do so.
But when the prosecutors responded to his questions to them in such a way that they thought the defendant was guilty from the outset and it became obvious that they did, he became quite annoyed and told them: "If that's the case, that you want to ignore what you've heard here, we could save ourselves any trial!" He did indeed say a few other intelligent things, but on the whole it was not enough to secure an acquittal. He tried hard to work the prosecutors so that they could have done the difficult task of dropping the charges (which would obviously have been the best solution for him), but finally, after four tough sessions, he did what he did.
However, it was important for me to witness this live and to realise that things are often not as black and white as we see them from a distance.
Almost never, first because the courts suppress to the degree possible that power juries have, and because the media are utterly craven traitors that make every effort to impose the worst despotism humanity has ever suffered, and therefore suppress useful information and means people can employ to repair and reclaim their government.