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Supporters of the person would just vote non-guilty and opponents would just vote guilty. It would just result in hung juries over and over.

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[-] fubo@lemmy.world 83 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

An "impartial" jury doesn't mean one where every member is ignorant or has no prior opinions relevant to the case.

It's one where the members are willing to set aside their previous knowledge and opinions, and evaluate the evidence that's presented to them.

[-] mySFWaccount@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 year ago

How does the court system evaluate that? That seems like a super hard thing to check.

[-] fubo@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago

Jury selection usually involves asking the prospective jurors various questions, with the lawyers on each side being allowed to dismiss jurors they think will be biased.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

jury selection is a very tedious process where every juror is interviewed by the judge and possibly both sides. They get whittled down by the court before being fully assigned, and then the prosecution and defense get to boot a certain number of jurors.

advising on jury selection is actually very lucrative business with both sides dishing out massive amounts of cash to make those checks.

in any case, in this situation, it's not that they're looking for unbiased jurors, it's that they're looking to balance out the biases of the individual jurors with jurors of apposing bias. I mean, you'd have to be living under a rock at this point to not have a bias as far as trump is concerned.

[-] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

But what if the person balancing the biases is biased?

[-] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

It's not balanced by a single person. The lawyers from both the prosecution and the defense do it adversarialy.

[-] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago
[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

They are. One is the prosecutor and the other is the defense.

Judges normally follow a very strict procedure on who to kick, like people that may have worked for trump or family, etc, so it’s at least supposed to be objective. The lawyers are the ones sorting subjectively

[-] steakmeout@aussie.zone 1 points 1 year ago

What if you die stepping out of the shower? All choices have consequences and nothing is perfect, at some point you have to accept that certain things are not and cope anyway.

[-] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

You can't just balance out the bias though.

If one juror just plain will not return a guilty or not guilty verdict, then the whole trial is for naught.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Pretty sure it’s a hung jury and they do it again (or bring in an alternate that’s been in the trial watching every thing as well.)

You’re right it’s a problem. Would you prefer trial by combat?

[-] pseudonym 1 points 1 year ago
[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I’d prefer trial by ordeal. Hog tie him and toss him in a pond. Sinking? Innocent. Floating guilty.

The problem is this system would almost certainly opress more people.

Our current system is quite flawed. But it’s not nearly as flawed as it could be

[-] twistypencil@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Voir dire is the process, if you lie you go to jail

[-] NutWrench@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

The problem with Trump is that he's a known quantity to anyone who has lived on Earth for the last 50 years. He's a compulsive liar, literally about everything and a vile, disgusting person, as well.

Knowing that, I would find it impossible to "just consider the facts" and believe that maybe . . . just maybe, this is the one time he's telling the truth.

[-] khepri@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thankfully we put career criminals, well-known in their communities, who people have heard of, on trial all the time. Could you imagine if "I'm too famous as a dirtbag to be tried by a jury of my peers" was a defense?

[-] khepri@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Absolutely right. "Impartial" doesn't mean you've never heard of the person, or never seen them on the news, or don't live near them, or have no opinion of them, or haven't heard or believe things about what they've done. It means just what you said, that whoever is picked will be able to listen to the evidence presented by both sides and make a decision based on that evidence. Apparently a huge number of people believe this is functionally impossible for humans to do, which is pretty sad if you've let your politics overwhelm your reason to such a degree that you think no one else can be objective either.

It's a classic shithead defense to try and tell a judge "the paper did a piece on my crimes and everyone read it, so I can't get a fair trial!!" Well guess what, that never works, for anyone, ever. There is no such thing as "too famous" for justice, there is no such thing as "too infamous" for justice. And there is no such thing as "the vast majority of people in NY and DC and GA hate me so badly because of who I am and what I've done that no one in those states can be allowed to judge me for my acts."

this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
107 points (94.2% liked)

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