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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

[Cheeetar]

dude chill

i gave up at the point where they didn't even bother with the italics at the start of the article

just dismiss it as 'murica and carry on

Care to explain why you think judge trials are a good thing, or are you more concerned with being as quirky as possible?

[Sergarr]

dude chill

i gave up at the point where they didn't even bother with the italics at the start of the article

just dismiss it as 'murica and carry on

Care to explain why you think judge trials are a good thing, or are you more concerned with being as quirky as possible?

Judge are actually trained professionals who know much more about the law than a normal person from the street.

Normal people from the street are 1) not educated in law and 2) very biased. In a "tough on crime" way, usually.

[Angle]

Darn 'urapeon's looking down their pointy frenchie noses at us! Take you socieleesms somewhere else, ya commies! *shakes fist in the general direction of europe*

that said, I do find myself in general agreement that I'd rather have a jury.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Normal people from the street are 1) not educated in law and 2) very biased. In a "tough on crime" way, usually.

Or in lawsuits: always favor the victim/small man, even when the suits are ridiculous at times.

that said, I do find myself in general agreement that I'd rather have a jury.

Harder to bribe 12 people than just 1?

[XXSockXX]

I too find the idea of jury trials rather horrifying. I guess how many US legal dramas are about manipulating juries doesn't help. Otherwise it's probably "stick with what you know".
Although you should remember that the role and power of judges in civil law systems differs from common law systems, so judge trials here might be a bit different than you imagine.

Normal people from the street are 1) not educated in law and 2) very biased. In a "tough on crime" way, usually.

This. People here usually think judges are too lenient, at least when it's about major crimes.

[Sheb]

We actually have juries in Belgium, but only for the Assize Court, that deals mostly with murder and the like. But yeah, having someone trained as a judge seems better than having a bunch of random people, screened by lawyers to be as ignorant and malleable as possible decide on the fate of someone.

[smjjames]

Did everybody miss what I said about using computers?

Maybe some day when AI algorithms are on par with humans, but not now, both because ethics and because its too easy to manipulate coding or throw the computer into a deadlock.

[Lord Shonus]

Harder to bribe 12 people than just 1?

That's one big factor (particularly since you have no idea who is going to be on the jury ahead of time to prepare bribes and/or threats (and sequestration of the jury further minimizes the threat of such in major trials). Another, more important, factor is that judges tend to come from the upper levels of the legal profession, which restricts the majority of them to a fairly narrow group (generally privileged people that not only had the money to go to law school, but had the social connections to manage to rise fairly high fairly quickly. There's exceptions, of course, such as crusaders that distinguished themselves in high-profile cases, or poor scholarship students that managed to get there by working their asses off, but those create their own biases), which is the perfect breeding ground for unconscious bias in decision. Having to convince 12 people of a person's guilt goes a long way toward offsetting that with a range, particularly when the lawyers on both sides have gone over the jury list and eliminated the most biased members. It's notable that the court systems took a long way toward fairness once juries were racially integrated, for example, even without changing most of the judges. 

[Helgoland]

You know, judges in civil law systems are appointed in a quite different manner than those in common law systems.

[BurnedToast]

dude chill

i gave up at the point where they didn't even bother with the italics at the start of the article

just dismiss it as 'murica and carry on

Care to explain why you think judge trials are a good thing, or are you more concerned with being as quirky as possible?

Judge are actually trained professionals who know much more about the law than a normal person from the street.

Normal people from the street are 1) not educated in law and 2) very biased. In a "tough on crime" way, usually.

Don't forget, who are also only there because they are legally obligated to be, and are being paid an insultingly low amount for their time so likely just want everything over with as quickly as possible.

[FearfulJesuit]

Could make basic legal and reasoning knowledge the main requirement for jury duty, once you clear out the friends and family of the prosecution- have jurors pass a test.

[Darvi]

Again, most people go out of their way to avoid jury duty, and NOT learning something is a very easy thing to do.

[FearfulJesuit]

I'd love to sit on a jury! It's something I've always wanted to do in life. The compensation isn't fantastic, but, hey.

Are people here really so tied up in "but most people don't want to!" to forget about concepts like civic duty?

[Sheb]

Even if person shoulddo it doesn't mean they want to.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Are people here really so tied up in "but most people don't want to!" to forget about concepts like civic duty?

It's probably that they don't want to have to deal with having to decide to pretty much ruin another person's life, or the possibility of having friends or family (or a massive crowd) decide to get revenge in some cases, since they didn't like the verdict.