Joanie is now younger than 79. A few years ago, I asked about the ages of the characters. They didn’t start aging in real time until the early 80s. The event that prompted my question was Boopsie’s age being something in the 80s or 90s that would have made her about 12 or so when BD started dating her.
How many of you have actual first-hand experience comparing a jury trial to a trial by a judge?
The issue isn’t how smart each individual juror is. The benefit comes from twelve people forcing each other to think carefully about a decision.
A single judge labors under no similar restrictions. I’ve seen even the smartest judges make all kinds of hasty, imprudent decisions out of anger, annoyance, favoritism (in my favor many times) or a simple desire to get on to the next case.
In your criticisms, consider a couple of questions:
First, if juries were so horrible, why do they still exist? There is no institutional incentive for them to exist. They reduce the power of judges and they are INCREDIBLY expensive for the court system. If juries were as bad at making decisions as all of you suppose, judges would have pressured legislatures and voters long ago to amend state constitutions to get rid of juries (at least in civil cases). Instead, we spend millions of dollars on juries because everyone who sees a lot of jury trials
Second, are you sure your impressions aren’t the product of skewed information? Bill Buckner fielded thousands of ground balls in his life cleanly. He’s famous for the one he didn’t. Juries are the same way. Only their mistakes make the news.
The following story would never make the news: “jurors deliberate carefully for a reasonable amount of time, make completely defensible decision.” Nope, never on the news. What makes the news? “Jurors acquit obviously guilty defendant.” Juries get a bad reputation because we expect them to reach the right answer. It’s never news when they do. It’s news only when a jury makes a mistake. If jurors were the idiots so many of you suppose them to be, it would be news when they got the right answer, not when they go the wrong answer.
Joanie is now younger than 79. A few years ago, I asked about the ages of the characters. They didn’t start aging in real time until the early 80s. The event that prompted my question was Boopsie’s age being something in the 80s or 90s that would have made her about 12 or so when BD started dating her.