The shocking thing is that before video and DNA evidence, pretty much all murders were never actually solved.
Witness testimony has been the cornerstone of most criminal cases in history, but witness testimony has been scientifically proven, repeatedly, to be entirely unreliable in all circumstances. Unless a killer confessed out of nowhere or was caught in the act, statistically they were innocent regardless of whatever twelve untrained yahoos were convinced of. The state, all states, have killed more innocent people with permission from the citizenry than any arbitrary group of civilian criminals in history, included ng all terror groups combined.
Gonna need a couple sources there, buddy. Sounds poetic but, like most poetry, a little bit hyperbolic.
… wikipedia how trials were done in the 1800s? This is, and I can’t stress this enough, common sense.
Man, sorry, this just sounds like you doubling down on not knowing what you’re talking about (For example, in what world has trial law ever been common sense?)
By the haploid genes of christ themself, you cannot say that witness testimony is unreliable while claiming that modern DNA evidence has somehow improved things. It screams that you’ve bought in to the borderline propaganda of modern media, that forensic evidence is in any way reliable. The internet is rife with reporting about how unreliable it is, in fact.
Seriously, unless someone confessed or was caught in the act, they were innocent when convicted? Statiscially most people convicted were innocent? Where in the hell are you getting this? Please, enlighten me, since my digging in wikipedia has failed to find a source to support your position (though the number of articles on trial law in the 1800s is… small, to say the least)
Look, I’m not arguing about the violence of the state or that trial procedure has been (and is) awfully biased, but specifically trial procedure is nothing like (and has never been) as bad as you imply it is/was.
Yeah okay. Witness testimony is less accurate than chance. Before other forms of evidence, the main evidence used was witness testimony. Therefore, logically, less than half of people convicted were guilty of the crime charged in jury trials.
Ah, I think youve misunderstood some numbers. The best stats I have found indicate that ~75% of overturned cases used eyewitness testimony, and 1/3 of those (so ~20% of all) were found to use faulty testimony from two or more eyewitnesses.
Those are a tiny slice of cases, I’m not sure how many total convictions there have been but best numbers on the time period in question is tens of thousands. The court system either modern or historic has some serious fucking problems, an inability to correct its mistakes being one of the more prominent ones. But a 50+% false conviction rate has never been one of them, come on.
It’s nearly impossible to overturn a case, I never brought that up or suggested that.where you got confused is that you haven’t kept up with any scientific research in the last hundred years relating to human memory, especially under stress
Eyewitness testimony is as reliable as lie detectors, ouiji boards, and Dosing rods for fact finding.
I brought that up because it’s the only example I’ve been able to find (I didn’t try all that hard, but still) of how faulty eyewitnesses testimony impacts case outcomes. It’s also not almost impossible to get a case overturned, we have an entire court system devoted to hearing appeals. You just fundementally don’t know what you’re talking about.
A truly miniscule number of cases are based off of a single eyewitnesses’ testimony, either historically or in the modern era.
There’s also physical and circumstantial evidence, not just eye witness. And I don’t think you fully grasp the concept of "logic. “Eye witness” being a highly unreliable source doesn’t make “correct convictions” less likely than a coin toss
You’re talking out your ass and trolling. Go home, peasant
Do try to keep up with a conversation if you enter it.
K
🤔 to my understanding DNA evidence is one of the very few things that is actually reliable when it comes to forensic science. What issues do you have with it?
Unfortunately your understanding, and that of nearly every juror in the US, is wrong. Tainted by the pro-police television narrative, that cops never mess up and that all crimes can be solved with the application of Forensic Science™. The link I provided elaborates further, but one reason from the concerningly long list: DNA testing really is little more than circumstantial evidence - it’s ridiculously easy for your DNA to show up at the scene of a crime you were not involved with. In general, it’s more precise than blood splatter or ballistic analyses, but not nearly by the margin you think.
“Common sense” often just means “intuitive”, “expected”, or “uninformed”. The problem is that reality is very often not so simple so that’s not much of an argument, especially if you have no studies to link to to confirm your hypothesis.
”He looks guilty enough, hang him”
Hell, replace “guilty” with “black” and you’ve got the current legal system.
No they’re right eyewitness testimony has turned out to be shit. In your responses it looks like you go out of your way to miss the entire body of eyewitness experiments.
That wasn’t the point I was addressing, but I appreciate you providing sources!
The unreliability of eyewitness statements isn’t in question, I’ll happily agree that it’s total shit. But, while we’ve only recently quantified just how bad it is, the fact that it’s unreliable is not new information (this is actually at the heart of “beyond reasonable doubt”). For the same reason, nobody’s done the police procedural trope of a “Perp Walk” in years because of how demonstrably terrible it was. Criminal cases have required more than simply eyewitness accounts to establish a case for a very long time, and I wasn’t arguing that. I was pointing out that at no point in history was a (relatively) fair court system so broken that more than half of people convicted were innocent. That’s just ridiculous.
That was the point though. For hundreds of years we relied greatly on eyewitness testimony. And the state was incentivized to find people guilty for labor at home or in colonies. It’s why half the bill of rights has to do with rights in criminal proceedings.
Hence:
“a (relatively) fair court system”
If the courts are just throwing everyone in prison anyways, it’s sort of a moot point.
(The claim they’re making is dumb and their understanding of statistics is worse. They’ve provided 0 evidence, or even coherent arguments. Listen, I like you, I see you on here all the time. Why are you defending this troll?)
I’m more trying to make sure people don’t come by and get the wrong idea about eyewitness testimony or courts in history.
I don’t think anyone’s claiming that eyewitness testimony is reliable, or that historical courts weren’t bad. But it’s important not to exaggerate how bad institutions were in the past - it makes it all too easy to dismiss the failures of those same present-day institutions by comparing them to how they bad they used to be.
-some person
‘Solve’ incorrect
More like ‘we need your opinion on all this evidence we have’
Right?! I’ve always found it odd that the judicial system can’t get anything accomplished without bringing in 12 random Joe Schmoes off the street.
The judicial system can get plenty accomplished without juries. In fact, the number of disputes settled by jury trial has dropped drastically in the last fifty years, especially with the Supreme Court ruling on Brady v. the United States in 1970 that upheld plea bargaining.
The result has been a stronger judiciary that more readily upholds state authority. Instead of a prosecutor proving to a dozen other citizens that you are guilty, a prosecutor needs to persuade you alone that, whether you’re guilty or not, you’ll suffer more if you don’t admit guilt than if you do. That’s a fucked up premise, IMO.
I would love to do jury duty. It’s one of your obligations as a US Citizen, treat it like that.
Then they should get paid a living wage.
Fifteen dollars is way beyond minimum wage from what I’ve read online. Also they apparently give them sandwiches and coffee and let’s them sit. It’s not like any US corporation would go that far. Unless they’d grab their organs later on.
It’s $15 per day, not per hour.
That was a lot in 1922! And don’t forget the sandwiches!
living wage
You don’t get less pay for an easier day at any corporation either. We get paid for our time, regardless of how efficiently the employer chooses to spend that time.
Cool. I would love be to be able to pay rent and buy food, and jury duty is incompatible with that
Yeah. The right to trial by a jury of your peers is an amazing privilege that comes with the responsibility of willingness to serve on one. You don’t need to love your country to be proud to do it, just to love your fellow humans and to understand how much worse the alternatives are.
None of my peers can afford to miss work for $15 per day.
Fwiw, some states require employers to compensate employees at their regular wage while serving on a jury. Probably not relevant to you in particular, since I think only 10 do (plus DC), but it’s worth checking out if you’re unsure. Especially since some of the states that do have such provisions may not be the ones you might expect. Alabama and (parts of) Florida come to mind.
Furthermore, in states where such compensation is not compelled by law, employers are free to develop their own policies, which may include full compensation for jury duty or other mandatory court summons (e.g. being a witness). I’m sure that that is not common, per se, but it bears investigation if you find yourself in that situation. Either by contacting your HR department, or reading the policies yourself, depending on the competency or sliminess of your HR contacts.
Pray you never get selected to serve on a grand jury. They can require you to serve for a full week every month, for up to 4 years (in PA at least). It’s absolutely insane. You do get paid a little more though, I think it’s $40 a day.
You can always request an exemption for financial hardship. But that means that it’s never really a jury of your actual peers.
When I was called in for selection of the grand jury, so many people requested exemptions after hearing the insane requirements, the judge announced that no further exemptions would be granted.
oh cool, so I guess I’ll see you back here in a couple months for vagrancy. Super cool. Super normal.
In my experience it’s more like: decide how much money the rich person’s insurance has to give the other rich person because of a small car accident.
I’m always amazed Americans seem to hate it. I’d love it if we had that here in the Netherlands.
When someone commits a crime, they’re not only hurting a specific victim, they’re also hurting the community as a whole. It makes people feel less safe. The victim and offender are represented in the courtroom, so the broader community should be too. A jury feels like a nice way to give them representation.
I’d absolutely sit on a jury if they had it here.
You have to miss work and your employer is not required to pay you while you’re gone. In a country where most people live paycheck to paycheck, this fact makes jury duty not very fun.
*In a country where your healthcare is tied to employment
While employers are not required to pay you, many will offer it as a benefit, but only up to 8 hours. Basically them saying “we know you’re required by law to do this so we’ll pay you, but you better try your damnedest to get dismissed in the first day”.
And some of the ones that do pay you, require you to turn down the fifteen dollars. That’s some sadistic shit right there…
Fair enough if that’s the case. Over here, we get at least a month of paid vacation time and a bunch of days on top of that. So basically, it would just be slightly inconvenient to colleagues if someone had to take a day off. But that’s the same as any sick days, so not much of an issue.
Still though, if you can, I think you should. If nothing else, it’ll give you a front row seat to seeing your judicial system in action. And if you’re a bit more engaged, reading up on things like ‘jury nullification’ is smart if you’re ever called for jury duty.
The best part is that the jury is the right of the criminal, not the community. Rather than having a judge decide your guilt you get to have ordinary people, guaranteed to be your peers, pulled off the street and vetted by the defense and prosecution to be as unbiased as possible to determine your guilt.
Many aspects of the American justice system that seem odd basically come from the goal to ensure fairness for the accused. We’re supposed to take jurisprudence very seriously. And in that vein it would be very nice if we could reduce sentence length to not be an outlier.
You don’t have jurys in the Netherlands?
It seems it’s not universal in Europe.
Nope, not a thing in the Netherlands. I know some countries here do have it, like Belgium for particularly serious or specific offenses.
In the Netherlands, you usually face a single judge for smaller crimes and a panel of three judges for more serious offenses. Basically, the judges determine guilt based on the evidence and pass sentences based on general guidelines for similar offenses. Jury trial is something we only know from US TV shows, but it’s not something most people here would miss or be comfortable with. The idea is that judges are considered to be impartial enough to be trusted to do their work fairly and honestly. Of course, there are procedures to replace judges in cases where they might not be impartial.
Call this phone number OR WE WILL SEND YOU TO JAIL
oh well it’s holiday hours here so call us after 7
Oh well its holiday hours here so no need to report
WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?
oh well we dropped the case.
Hah, I went to college and work in public service.
I’ve never been called for jury duty.
Though I did work in a courthouse where juries assembled prior to trial. Criteria for jury selection in that local county court appeared to be: “Ancient and/or racist”.
I continue to be happy I am personally exempt from jury duty. I’d be fine if it was one of the courthouses in town but noooo they always have to be down in the big city or the fucking state capitol.
Yeah im self employed, if I take off for jury duty I essentially lose my job. Court doest care, so fuck me I guess. I shred those when I get them and wait for the certified mail ones.
