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Comment by MomoXenosaga | Hacker News Reader

I disagree with the jury system but as I understand it American jurors are supposed to reflect society.

If you only want smart people you leave it to the judge.

In fact jury selection is notorious for discarding potential jurors with intelligence, critical thinking, legal awareness, or domain expertise. Jurors reflect the part of society least qualified to be making these decisions.

Attorneys do not want thinkers, they want predictable cogs in the court machine.

> In fact jury selection is notorious for discarding potential jurors with intelligence, critical thinking, legal awareness, or domain expertise. Jurors reflect the part of society least qualified to be making these decisions.

Jurors get dismissed based on whether or not one side feels they decide in their favor or not. That's it.

When there's no agreement I suspect the less educated are favored though.

I'd believe a juror getting dismissed for knowing statistics and being persuadable by logical arguments, before I'd believe a juror being dismissed for being in a demographic who favors police and emotional arguments.

Depends on which side is moving to dismiss that particular juror and what finding in their favor would require.

So whoever thinks their case is weakest when viewed intelligently (i.e. ability to handle subtletly, nuance, complexity, rational over emotion, science, statistics) is going to need to get those intelligent people off the jury.

Just mentioning FIJA can be enough to land you in jail.

That's not true. Jury nullification is legal (both talking about it and carrying it out), even if some judges and prosecutors wish it otherwise.

I can't find any supporting documentation-- so take this as hearsay-- but I recall a man being arrested for handing out FIJA pamphlets in front of a courthouse at the Southwestern Justice Center in Riverside, CA.

You have the right to not have a jury. There are some downsides. It's harder to win an appeal; jury nullification is off the table; plenty of judges are biased or uninformed. Your lawyer can't manipulate a judge as easily as a jury. Still, if I had to defend myself against some emotionally charged claim whose defense relied on legal technicalities, I might prefer a bench trial to a bunch of idiots who couldn't get out of jury duty. If the potential jury of "my peers" were going to be biased against me for reasons of religion or race or culture, I'd be more inclined to let a judge decide.

What we need is a right to a multi-judge tribunal.

Agreed, although impractical due to a shortage of judges. You shouldn't have to rely on making it to an appeals panel to have your fate decided by more than the whims of a single person.

> a bunch of idiots who couldn't get out of jury duty

Maybe they are not idiots, just regular folks who take their civic duty seriously.

Yeah, that was too dismissive. I do think there's a problem with juries in that the pool of people is narrowed to those who both want to and are able to serve. Some jobs will pay employees who have jury duty, but many will not. Some people have backup caregivers for their dependents, but many don't. I'm not interested enough to look for statistics on it, but I would be surprised if juries aren't primarily composed of a narrow subset of social classes, like upper middle class professionals, retired people, the childless, and the unemployed, or some similar categories. It should be hard to get out of serving and jurors should be compensated in a way that eliminates the financial burden without becoming an incentive in itself.

Do you really want to force people to make a decision? They will try to end the case as soon as possible correct outcome or not.

From my experience some people just want to convict and are happy to have the power to punish. Most want to get out of there. You might get someone trying to find anything not to convict. What you end up with is some people happy to not work, others eager to close the case because they are not getting paid.

Personal feelings decide outcomes. I know this person is not guilty but this guy who loves the free lunches won't ever change his mind and I am worried about my mortgage.

Just regular retired folks and folks with government jobs that pay folks who are on jury duty.

But now you have to model a judge's incentives to cooperate with the justice system, given that the DA's office and the police have worked to bring a case this far.

About those judges…

Wait... there are smart judges?!

What's worse is that judges are elected and it creates perverse incentives.

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