Death penalty juries?

[Moi]

... If I was to make one suggestion there should be a body of professional jurors...

What would you suggest are the criteria for a person to be considered a "professional juror"?

[James Deuce]

If someone was proven to have murdered and raped a member of your family I am pretty sure you would develop a different attitude.

That's the point of a justice system. Keeps personal feeling out of it.

[James Deuce]

Tell me about it...

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/i...memory-stinks/

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/i...-false-memory/

There's little rationality involved in memory recall. Brain function and structure determine how we recall an experience. This is why people with a brain injury may have no recall of an event related to that injury or their subsequent behaviour and recollection of their behaviour is at tremendous odds with the recall of other individuals who didn't suffer a brain injury and had to interface with that individual.

http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v7...l/nrn1825.html

It could be possible to convince someone that they killed someone and deserve the death penalty even though they had nothing at all to do with the murder. There is a large back catalogue of executions that have involved terminating people who had nothing to do with the event. That's why most countries have given up on it. It's far too easy to use recollections and memories of events to construct a completely false premise.

At a recent accident my whole family witnessed and attended for 4 bloody hours, my wife and eldest son could not recall what happened. I was driving so my attention was focused on it. I helped the cop plot how the accident unraveled. My middle son recalled a significant detail completely differently to me, describing a 180 degree spin as a 540, while my youngest described and demonstrated the last third of the accident perfectly.

[Paul in NZ]

If it's function is to discourage crime then it's not revenge, is it?

The restorative justice thing has merit though. Either as well as current discouragement or apportioned as to provide same.

Its the state getting revenge when its all boiled down. You broke the states law, you got caught, you must be punished.

Justice noun (FAIRNESS) B2 [U] fairness in the way people are dealt with:

To be fair the origin of the word is more about the administration of the law...

Justice however implies that the victim of the crime's loss is somehow made good or compensated for...

[scumdog]

At a recent accident my whole family witnessed and attended for 4 bloody hours, my wife and eldest son could not recall what happened. I was driving so my attention was focused on it. I helped the cop plot how the accident unraveled. My middle son recalled a significant detail completely differently to me, describing a 180 degree spin as a 540, while my youngest described and demonstrated the last third of the accident perfectly.

Sums up what I have to deal with from time to time.

And everybody wants me to get it right - that is get it right from their perspective.

Not very achievable in most situations.

[oldrider]

If given the choice between trial by Jury or Judge it would be Judge every time - only one to focus on getting even with!

[HenryDorsetCase]

What would you suggest are the criteria for a person to be considered a "professional juror"?

or Judge, as they're sometimes known.

[HenryDorsetCase]

[youtube]L397TWLwrUU[/youtube]


breakin the law breakin the law......

also I would serve on a death penalty jury in a heartbeat.. provided I could flick the switch on Ol' Sparky and laugh maniacally as the perp fried... and scream "Its ALIVE!!!! ALIIIIIIVE a la Dr Frankenstein"

good times!

[Big Dog]

[youtube]


breakin the law breakin the law......

also I would serve on a death penalty jury in a heartbeat.. provided I could flick the switch on Ol' Sparky and laugh maniacally as the perp fried... and scream "Its ALIVE!!!! ALIIIIIIVE a la Dr Frankenstein"

good times!

I wouldn't go that far.
I wouldn't hesitate to go on a jury knowing that was a possible outcome. I would sleep well knowing the outcome if it came to that, even if he was posthumously vindicated.
It is your duty as a citizen of a country with a jury system to pop along and do the best you can with the information you are presented with. Failure to do so on any sort of scale means the juries are populated exclusively by people too stupid to get out of jury duty... this is a bias of its own and would have me quaking just a little bit should I find myself before one because it would mean that the law of averages means that the 1/2 at least will side with the govt irrespective of the evidence. That means I only have 6 people with which to find a dissenter who agrees it was possible it was not me. If I had a more intellectual jury it is likely that all 12 will attempt to reason the evidence out to a conclusion and not just believe what they are told.

Don't want to serve as juror? Move to a country that does not have them and hope you are never charged with anything.

The whole point is that a lawyer must be able to persuade a group of disinterested peers beyond doubt that the person in the dock is guilty while a second lawyer does their best to argue for the defendant. Having trained and professional jurors means they will dish out the same biases as they were taught to all comers all day long.
The short comings of this system are many including that people are often persuaded by the personalities rather than the facts and because humans are involved errors are made.
There are an awful lot of people wrongly convicted if you are to believe the convicts.
I don't recall a whole lot of claims by defendants they were wrongfully found innocent, but I reckon that number if it could be measured would be far higher than the number of persons found guilty when they were not.
No system is perfect but it works pretty well as a whole.
I would like to see longer sentences for violent crime, perhaps with the min non parole remaining the same so that we can at least detain those with no intent to reform for longer. I like the idea of life means life, but with parole as possibility for those who are appropriately reformed because it is just as big a waste when an offender is released because they could be detained no longer as it is when a convict reforms from a one off event and changes as a person only to know they still have 15 years to go. Especially when that was a young man or woman who made an error in judgement they would not normally make and they will now be ejected into the world as a 40 something who has never held a job and the only thing on their C.V is a conviction for a violent crime they perhaps only participated in because of peer pressure they were to weak to overcome.

Yes it is a pretty complex question. There are no easy answers.
But there do have to be answers and men and women who stand up to do their duty when called to provide the answers.

[Big Dog]

I also think that if a convict works in prison or otherwise receives an income that they should be required to be taxed by an extra 1/3 to be returned to the victims or their heirs and that the relative restitution to the victims should be a factor in parole.
e.g millionaires would have to pay more in restitution than those with less ability to pay.

I can hear all the millionaires on here lighting the torches about how they should not have to pay more, perhaps, but it is also less skin off your nose to pay 100k in restitution than it is for a pauper to pay 10k.

[Ocean1]

Its the state getting revenge when its all boiled down. You broke the states law, you got caught, you must be punished.

I don't agree, revenge implies a personal grudge. Nor does the state agree, what you infer is "revenge" they call "correction".

Which is bullshit, of course, but most people seem to be OK with "deterrent".

Justice noun (FAIRNESS) B2 [U] fairness in the way people are dealt with:

To be fair the origin of the word is more about the administration of the law...

Justice however implies that the victim of the crime's loss is somehow made good or compensated for...

It probably does, and I'd say most people would be happy to require those responsible for another's personal loss to make good. But they're usually disinclined to do so, probably for similar reasons that caused them to cause the loss in the first place. I'd personally be OK with a modicum of coercion to achieve those ends, but those of a more squeamish disposition probably wouldn't. They did away with debtor's prisons, maybe we should bring 'em back, but this time with the opportunity for the bad dudes to actually earn the required compensation. And rot there until they do.

[HenryDorsetCase]

Theres a really good current example being heard presently. Arthur Taylor is suing the gubblemunt (or J Kizzle) or someone and the question is that of should prisoners be allowed to vote? Up until 2010, if you were serving 3 years or less, you could vote. Paul Quinn the Nazional sponsor of the private members bill which revoked that right for those people was upfront this morning "Fuck em", he said "if they are in the big house they forfeit their rights as citizens".

Fair enough you might think, but the way the Nazionals went about it was interesting: it passed with a two vote majority. Taylor's point is that a basic change to the enfranchisement or otherwise of a sector of the populace should be (and in his view was) entrenched: that is, a 75% majority of the Parliament required to change it. Obviously that did not happen here.

Also there is some noise about J Kizzle and his candidacy or something.

So, the question is, is that disenfranchisement anything other than a little vindictive kick in the guts? I suggest that is all it is... it must only be a disincentive for rehabilitation.

What if they decided (to quote one of the commentators whose name I forget) that "Meh, no more wimminz votes" or "Meh, people from Southland: yeah, no votes for them."

The problem is that the case is bought by Arthur Taylor who the media insist on describing as a career criminal. If the medium is the message, then the message bearer has a lot about how the message is perceived: so he is stuffed from the start.

[Ocean1]

Paul Quinn the Nazional sponsor of the private members bill which revoked that right for those people was upfront this morning "Fuck em", he said "if they are in the big house they forfeit their rights as citizens".

I'm with him, they're the ones that decided society's rules didn't apply to them.

Fuck 'em. Make it so.

Also, who wants criminals shaping the future of our society?

Fuck 'em.

What's more I'd revoke the right to vote until they'd made good restitution to their victims.

Again: Fuck 'em.

[unstuck]

Theres a really good current example being heard presently. Arthur Taylor is suing the gubblemunt (or J Kizzle) or someone and the question is that of should prisoners be allowed to vote? Up until 2010, if you were serving 3 years or less, you could vote. Paul Quinn the Nazional sponsor of the private members bill which revoked that right for those people was upfront this morning "Fuck em", he said "if they are in the big house they forfeit their rights as citizens".

Fair enough you might think, but the way the Nazionals went about it was interesting: it passed with a two vote majority. Taylor's point is that a basic change to the enfranchisement or otherwise of a sector of the populace should be (and in his view was) entrenched: that is, a 75% majority of the Parliament required to change it. Obviously that did not happen here.

Also there is some noise about J Kizzle and his candidacy or something.

So, the question is, is that disenfranchisement anything other than a little vindictive kick in the guts? I suggest that is all it is... it must only be a disincentive for rehabilitation.

What if they decided (to quote one of the commentators whose name I forget) that "Meh, no more wimminz votes" or "Meh, people from Southland: yeah, no votes for them."

The problem is that the case is bought by Arthur Taylor who the media insist on describing as a career criminal. If the medium is the message, then the message bearer has a lot about how the message is perceived: so he is stuffed from the start.

Old "boy" still stirring shit then. He always did fancy himself a bit of a lawyer.

[unstuck]

Also, who wants criminals shaping the future of our society?

Criminals have been ruling the plebs for fucking centuries, every government is full of criminals. Fuck em.