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Jacob Drake

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A Jury System Should Not Be Used in Court

In a Jury trial, the jury decides the facts and evaluates the arguments presented by lawyers fate of the convicted person(s) is decided by the jury, a number of everyday citizens chosen at random. Why is this the case? Shouldn't the fate of the convicted be decided by professionals/judges whose jobs requires them to have a substantial amount of critical thinking skills? Also, aren't jurors susceptible to bias and prejudice? (I remember there was a case when a African-American man was beaten, he was taken to court but the jurors were all white Americans).

Jurors also usually do not have to give a reason for their verdict. This is seems unfair as the convicted could be deemed guilty without a proper given reason. If, however the jurors were forced to give a proper, logical reason as to why they made their choice, the system would get so complicated that a bench trial would be much simpler.

Please express your opinions below.

Topics: Criminal Justice Human Reliability human rights
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  • Luis Marin

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    Apr 16 2012: I am sure in a no-jury all-professional judges there will not be bias and prejudice since that only happens to humans and not to "law-people" (it has been long established "law-people" are a variation of sharks, smarter and more vicious). These sharks are also incorruptible so it makes sense that having a small group of them to trial and judge is much better than a random selection of citizens. While on this subject, why stop there? Why do we allow those citizens to vote? It has long been known people are dummies when it comes to voting too... so why not be led by intelligent well versed elites too? In fact, elites should be left to make all decisions for people...
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    David Hamilton 50+

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    Apr 8 2012: The jury system, is like capitalism, is like democracy... The worst thing... Except of course, everything else that has ever been tried.

    The second it becomes a government selected and educated body which decides your guilt or innocence, there will be a huge bias against civil disobedience, against protest, against unions, and for... the police. In most cases, would that bias be fair? Yes, most law enforcement officers, are nice people trying to do good work, and so are most judges but... throughout history, that power, has been abused numerous times, to enforce the status quo, even after culture had evolved past it.

    I virtually guarantee that as an unfortunate result of poverty, you will find more African Americans on a jury, than in a judges robe. We need to fix that... but, until we do, jury trials are actually closer to fair, then the courts would be without them... most of the time. The jury trial was designed to protect minorities, and civil organizers... but unfortunately it does not always work out that way.
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    Kevin Tinholt

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    Apr 4 2012: In America you have higher courts, such as the Supreme court to handle these problems. It is however not as easy to get judged by a higher court in America as it is in Europe. Personally I agree with you, as Judges are thought to have multiple perspectives and tend to judge better than a group of commoners. However, this system is not merely created to be effective, it is more so created to be fair or so the tale goes.

    I can see it's function in older societies, where you'd be judged by peers, but not in the modern societies of today that are able to process these cases without any real problems.

    There have been countless of studies about the effectiveness of the Jury system. About how the rich/educated in society are not represented enough because they're able to find ways to get exempt.
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