How does your Court system differ?

[mich64]

I believe ours are still sent by registered mail.

[anshjain97]

Thanks, Bixa.

[Deleted]

Mar 8, 2013 19:50:36 GMT mich64 said:

I believe ours are still sent by registered mail.

This seems to make the most sense to me.
We have difficulty here with being able to fill jury pools because a summons delivered by regular post can so easily be ignored (and are by many) and there is no way it can be proven that the person got it without a signature. Duh......

[mich64]

I do think there are developing problems even with them being sent by registered mail though.

We now have these super boxes at the ends of our streets now where the postal agents deliver into these locked boxes and we never see a mailman/woman anymore. When something comes registered or too big to fit into your box, the Agent leaves a tag with the address where you can go and pick it up the next day. Plenty of people do not bother unless they are expecting something, therefore, these summons are being returned to the Court House as undeliverable.

They can not force you to go and pick up your mail so with no signature they can not send the Sheriff to your residence, no cause. Perhaps they will try courier service if too many are being returned but they will be pretty expensive, even with a discounted Municipal rate, much more that the Post.

[Deleted]

So, today the French government officially decided to put an end to jury trials for criminal cases for 3 reasons:

1. Too expensive for taxpayers
2. Too slow when there are so many cases waiting to be tried
3. Juries are more lenient than professional judges, when the whole point (according to the previous president Sarkozy) was to obtain more severe sentences to satisfy public opinion. "Amateur" jurors absolutely do not want to take the responsibility for locking up people for a long time.

I imagine that different countries might have different results for point #3 but probably not for #1 and #2.

[patricklondon]

Mar 18, 2013 19:18:27 GMT kerouac2 said:

So, today the French government officially decided to put an end to jury trials for criminal cases for 3 reasons:

1. Too expensive for taxpayers
2. Too slow when there are so many cases waiting to be tried
3. Juries are more lenient than professional judges, when the whole point (according to the previous president Sarkozy) was to obtain more severe sentences to satisfy public opinion. "Amateur" jurors absolutely do not want to take the responsibility for locking up people for a long time.

I imagine that different countries might have different results for point #3 but probably not for #1 and #2.

I think we're talking about a different concept of juries. Ours do not have anything to do with sentencing - that's a matter for the judge within the national sentencing guidelines. In the UK, juries simply decide, for the more serious crimes, whether the prosecution has proved guilt of the offence as charged "beyond reasonable doubt"; the judge (only one, so we save that expense) advises on what the law requires for that test to be met, but the jury decides whether they are convinced or not by the witnesses and evidence brought forward. I don't see why that should take any longer or cause any more expense than trial by judge alone - apart from the period of deliberation over the verdict, or unless it's assumed a case can be judged on written depositions without having witnesses in person under cross-examination by both prosecution and defence.

But the bulk of minor crimes in the UK are dealt with in the magistrates' courts, that is, by lay people of standing in the local community who are trained to do the job on a regular, long-term basis. Is that perhaps something like the concept France has of juries?

[bjd]

Patrick -- in France juries are used only in criminal trials. What I suppose you mean by magistrates' courts are dealt with by magistrates and judges alone.

And indeed, juries have a say in sentencing. When the jury + the judge + the two attending magistrates go to deliberate, the case is discussed, everybody knows what kind of sentence has been demanded by the state prosecutor and it's discussed. Then everybody writes anonymously the sentence they think should be applied on a slip of paper, it's read out and written down, and going in several rounds until an average is reached. Not really an average, but rather the sentence that gets the most votes "wins".

Juries are not used for trials where they might be in danger like terrorism or organized crime or big drug cases.

I add that the jury was indeed a bit more lenient than the magistrates.

I know all this because I was on jury duty a few years ago.

[bixaorellana]

Do you think that kind of system is more fair, Bjd? More fair than the jury systems in the UK & US, for instance, or the new method in France?

[anshjain97]

Something I didn't know:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KM_Nanavati_v_State_of_Maharashtra

"The case was the last to be heard as a jury trial in India, as the government abolished jury trials as a result of the case"

So India did have jury trials at one point...

[bjd]

Just saw your question, Bixa. I don't know -- I had never had any experience of courts or trials or anything else before being on jury duty, so I didn't really think about it.

I would think that magistrates and judges might be a bit more competent than juries.

My only experience had been watching Perry Mason reruns when I was young, but even the courtroom is set up differently in France.

[tod2]

I've yet to hear of a jury in South Africa. Every trial is heard by one sole judge. That doesn't mean these judges don't confir and discuss the merits of a case with their peers.
My cousin is waiting for her case to be heard in the Supreme Court. It can take 2 or more years to get a trial date. This is to contest a Will.

[bixaorellana]

Thanks, Bjd. I know I'm programmed to think juries are the best way, but to me it seems to give the defendant more of a chance. That's fairer, right?

Wow, Tod. How many courts has your cousin's case dragged through before it got to this point?

[Deleted]

For some reason, movies and TV always show the "good" juries -- or at least the one hard-headed person who prevents the others from being evil. I just keep thinking about all of the people on death row who were proved innocent by DNA tests years later -- all of them were convicted by juries.

Of course the fact that death row still exists at all is a matter for another debate!

[bjd]

To go on from what Kerouac just said, another problem with juries is that they are one-off situations. So people don't get any experience about judging what defendants or lawyers or prosecutors say. They are just intuitive reactions.

We learn so many other things by trial and error and through experience, whereas it's considered that a bunch of people taken off the street are capable of understanding and sorting through evidence, or are capable of deciding to send someone to jail for years. Or are swayed by lawyers' arguments.

It's a difficult question.

[fumobici]

I think jury trials, despite the lack of professional expertise of the panel, can perform justice in situations where professional experts cannot. Frequently people here are unambiguously guilty of some statutory offense that is trivial in its harms, yet carries a draconian sentence as its prescribed punishment. Hence the fact that we use wholesale long-term incarceration with all the introspection and concern for justice applied to swatting flies. A citizen jurist can easily ignore the law and vote for acquittal on grounds of simple justice-- a professional jurist cannot, they are bound by the arbitrary letter of the law and justice is at best a minor concern to the professional. One can scrupulously apply the rules of law--rules written by and for a tiny wealthy elite--and do grave injustice and one can flaunt those same laws and serve justice and fairness. At least one can if one doesn't rely on mindless obedience to a corrupt code and system for their livelihood.

[fumobici]

I should add that this is an American perspective where the criminal "justice" system seems primarily concerned with warehousing unimaginable numbers of poor brown men for any ad hoc reason at all and just as importantly insuring that wealthy white people are spared that fate regardless what they do to maintain that privileged position above the law. Justice has no place at the table in the American court system, its about money and power and is primarily a racist tool of oppression.