So we don't do jury trials in criminal cases where the jury can get the crime (96% pleas), but when it is about complex and bullshit IP laws, where even very savvy person will be confused - fire away.
Something is very wrong with that system.
Something is very wrong with that system.
You can argue that juries aren't savvy enough to judge a complicated IP case and I'd agree with you but that's what the appeals court is there for. If the jury got it wrong, you can appeal to judges who, presumably, have a better understanding.
The appellate court for patent cases is the Federal Circuit, which is full of former patent lawyers who don't really understand software and like validating ridiculous software patents. After that you can only appeal to the Supreme Court, and only if they take the case and you haven't been bankrupted yet.
Especially as the judiciary primarily upholds procedural rights by disregarding ill-gotten evidence.
(And to preempt the inevitable complaint about trials being too expensive - if that much of the population is committing crimes, then perhaps it's time for some to be decriminalized or at least prioritized. A jurisdiction desiring to prosecute so much should be forced to raise taxes to cover its true expense - and that includes funding a defense attorney for everyone.)
Obviously, it's impossible to know exactly who does and doesn't need a trial, which is why everyone is entitled to one. But incentives to keep pointless trials from bogging down the system make sense, too.
The majority of crimes are also not Silverglate "transporting the wrong species of kiwi across state lines". A plurality of incarcerated people in IL and IN are in for domestic violence; the majority are in for violent crimes.
If the defendant is guilty and deserves the punishment they stand to receive at trial, then the prosecutor is doing society a disservice by letting them off easy for expedience. On the other hand, if the plea sentence is adequate punishment/rehabilitation/etc, then why are they being threatened with a much larger sentence?
It seems to me that the feedback loop on sentences operates on the time specific criminals spend in jail being deemed too short during campaign season. As such, the plea sentence (ie "worst case") reflects what society deems appropriate (modulo the problems with democracy). Everything above the offered plea really is just an added threat to encourage a defendant to forgo the trial and submit to the judgment of the prosecutor.
If the case is really so open-and-shut, then it should not take terribly long for a proper court to see so as well.
tptacek isn't saying that we should reduce costs under any circumstances. He's saying that we should reduce costs where it is reasonable to do so. There are a huge number of cases every year where everyone knows the defendant is guilty and the defendant isn't interested in defending himself. Why, as tptacek put it, have a "ritualized but ultimately pointless trial" in these situations?
Have you spent much time on jury duty? Hanging out in a room full of prospective jurors, some of whom are literally praying for the day's cases to get settled before they're compelled to spend days or even weeks in court, gives one a real gut-level appreciation for the court system's love of settlements.
It's not just a matter of paying more taxes, because the costs of a jury trial can't all be settled with cash. Jurors get paid a stipend in my state, but it's $50 per day, which wouldn't fully compensate a minimum-wage worker, let alone a doctor, a lawyer, or a consultant. Companies must pay their salaried workers for up to three days of jury service, but lots of people don't have salaries (see above under "consultants"), and backlogs and inboxes accumulate whether you're on the job or not.
And, even if it were a good idea, dialing back the right to trial-by-jury in the USA would be the opposite of a "straightforward" reform, because that right is in the Constitution.
> because the costs of a jury trial can't all be settled with cash.
Increase the stipend to be in line with a person's salary, or their education level if they're self-employed. Yes, this is going to be expensive. But just like government efficiency is not a justification to destroy rights, it's also not a justification to demand people's uncompensated labor. And once jurors were properly compensated, I bet it would be much easier to cancel if one really had a problem with losing the time.
(Also, if the issue is only with the cost of jury trials, then I can weaken my argument to say that plea-bargains should turn into judge-bargains, where forgoing the jury will limit your punishment to the smaller amount)
> the right to trial-by-jury ... is in the Constitution
Yes, and my whole point is that plea bargaining has also undermined that right, only by a slow erosion over time rather than by an overt policy choice. To the extent that people would presently balk at eliminating juries for efficiency, they should also take issue with defendants effectively being denied a trial under threat of overblown punishment.
Maybe you could base it on their taxes. That should work regardless of their source of income, though of course we're assuming that income is the only thing being displaced worthy of compensation.
All of this is to say, it is not the case that the legal system is gung-ho about giving juries complex IP issues while simultaneously avoiding juries for "easier to understand" criminal matters.