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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Dutchling]

That seems like an argument in favour of judge trials o.o

Why would you be against professionalism when it comes to trials?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Why would you be against professionalism when it comes to trials?

10/10 reframing there.

It's for two reasons. Firstly, it's because "professionalism" is a package deal. It comes with knowing the law, sure, but it also comes with all the weight of judging person after person. No judge, no matter how fair, will not cross-contaminate their experiences. They will make assumptions, they will stop analyzing their own judgements, and they will fall into a pervasive pattern of "I've got this" that will get worse the longer they practice. Secondly, it's because professionalism can be offloaded onto the judge, the lawyers, and experts while leaving the actual verdict up to people who are "fresh" and aren't bringing in as many preconceptions. Indeed, juries screen for such things, while judges are not as interchangeable. In addition, judge panels rarely get larger than three and are most often one. It's a lot easier to focus the weight of your arguments upon a single individual or only a few, especially if they remain static between cases so you can figure out what they are weak to. 12 random citizens are significantly more difficult to tailor your arguments for.

Everybody who knows about judiciaries knows about the hanging judge phenomenon. Imagine what such vindictive and cynical people would be like if they also had the power to say people are guilty. Let judge, jury, and executioner all remain separate.

[smjjames]

One could use a computer in place of a judge, which would ideally be free of bias and won't get cynical and sentence criminals equally. However, theres the whole ethics of it, the human side of the whole thing, and the fact that it'll inevitably have the bias of whoever programmed it.

[Dutchling]

I don't know, the very idea of a jury sounds incredibly silly/dangerous to me.

But I live in a country without one so that is only to be expected I guess.

[smjjames]

LSP, the subject is about criminal trials, not civil. Which, yeah, both judge and no trials in that case is kinda' fucking bad. Doubly so considering this is the states and being an ex-con completely screws you basically forever.

Doesn't being an ex-con completely screw you basically forever in most places anyway? Though isn't it mostly if you commit a felony?

[Lord Shonus]

Why would you be against professionalism when it comes to trials?

10/10 reframing there.

It's for two reasons. Firstly, it's because "professionalism" is a package deal. It comes with knowing the law, sure, but it also comes with all the weight of judging person after person. No judge, no matter how fair, will not cross-contaminate their experiences. They will make assumptions, they will stop analyzing their own judgements, and they will fall into a pervasive pattern of "I've got this" that will get worse the longer they practice. Secondly, it's because professionalism can be offloaded onto the judge, the lawyers, and experts while leaving the actual verdict up to people who are "fresh" and aren't bringing in as many preconceptions. Indeed, juries screen for such things, while judges are not as interchangeable. In addition, judge panels rarely get larger than three and are most often one. It's a lot easier to focus the weight of your arguments upon a single individual or only a few, especially if they remain static between cases so you can figure out what they are weak to. 12 random citizens are significantly more difficult to tailor your arguments for.

Everybody who knows about judiciaries knows about the hanging judge phenomenon. Imagine what such vindictive and cynical people would be like if they also had the power to say people are guilty. Let judge, jury, and executioner all remain separate.

To expand on this, let's look at something like domestic violence. After a few weeks of putting away obvious wife beaters, some guy's going to come in charged with smacking his wife, and the judge is going to "know" that the guy's a wife beater completely ignoring the broken nose and missing teeth she gave him, just because he's so used to one-sided MtF abuse that the possibility that "she started it" (a common defense in such cases) might actually be true in this instance never crosses his mind. A complete jury will only ever see one case, and an individual jury member will rarely serve more than once every couple of decades, if that.

[Dutchling]

Seems like you people just have an issue with judges in general.

[smjjames]

Seems like you people just have an issue with judges in general.

You're the one with the system that doesn't have juries though.

How does that work fairly without the jury system though? And yeah I know the jury system can be manipulated pretty easily.

[Dutchling]

We have judges

[Darvi]

Seems like you people just have an issue with judges in general.

In countries where jury trials are common, juries are often seen as an important check against state power.

Sounds about right. Bloody libertarians.

[Frumple]

Don't blame the libertarians for this one. It's europe's fault. You bastards offloaded all your crazies over here, and unfortunately they bred. So now we actually have to have checks on state power, otherwise you have some lackwit mandating monthly duck fornication rituals and no one can stop them.

[Darvi]

I'm not blaming them, I'm associating the people in question with them via comparison. Call it an insult, if you will.

[smjjames]

Don't blame the libertarians for this one. It's europe's fault. You bastards offloaded all your crazies over here, and unfortunately they bred. So now we actually have to have checks on state power, otherwise you have some lackwit mandating monthly duck fornication rituals and no one can stop them.

Sounds like something a noble in DF would mandate, lol.

[Frumple]

And most of the states have entirely too little accessible lava to deal with that sort of thing.

[Lord Shonus]

The courts did just legalize gay marriage there, which is a positive event, I suppose.