Timeline for In the US are jurors actually judging guilt?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
25 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 30, 2021 at 17:52 | vote | accept | Neil Meyer | ||
| S Mar 28, 2021 at 19:15 | history | suggested | CommunityBot | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
typo fixes, some carification I hope is what's intended
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| Mar 28, 2021 at 13:09 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Mar 28, 2021 at 19:15 | |||||
| Mar 22, 2021 at 11:19 | comment | added | Steve Melnikoff | Re "jury of one's peers": see this question. To reiterate what others have said, it's "peers" in the sense of equals, not in the sense of nobility. | |
| Mar 18, 2021 at 4:35 | comment | added | user207421 | @hszmv No it doesn't. Magna Carta is in Latin, and uses the word 'parii', meaning 'equals'. | |
| Mar 18, 2021 at 1:37 | comment | added | reirab | @AustinHemmelgarn The other difference between the scenario you describe and actual jury nullification is that a decision of Not Guilty by the jury cannot be appealed. The defendant is not guilty and that's the end of it. If the jury finds someone guilty despite knowing that they're not, the defendant can appeal the decision. | |
| Mar 17, 2021 at 19:16 | comment | added | paul23 | @hszmv yet you cannot repair from murder, death is death, you can't revive someone. | |
| Mar 17, 2021 at 15:51 | comment | added | hszmv | @paul23: Even without death penalty in play, the state is always liable for damages if the wrongful conviction of an innocent person and must pay restitution. Typically these are settled out of court as there is normally a cap based on what the insurance companies are willing to pay, though in some cases, that cap might not be sufficiently punitive, especially if the state was acting in an unconstitutional manner with respect to the trial. Additionally, Prosecutors can be sued for malicious prosecution and often will be held liable separate from the state. | |
| Mar 17, 2021 at 15:44 | comment | added | hszmv | @paul23: That may be a good subject for another question as it's very very nuanced, especially in the modern U.S. Justice System. For the purposes of this answer, in any case where the accused is convicted and sentenced, the case is automatically appealed on the defendant's behalf (even if he refuses) if for no other reason than for more scrutiny of the trial. If the execution is still upheld by all the appeals process, and it turns out the defendant was innocent all along, the next of kin can sue the state for wrongful conviction... and the state typically settles pretty quickly. | |
| Mar 17, 2021 at 14:39 | comment | added | paul23 | How does mistrial work when you're murdered by the state though? You cannot undo murder. | |
| Mar 17, 2021 at 13:58 | comment | added | hszmv | @AustinHemmelgarn: Jury Nullification is not checked by perjury... it's checked by the judge not allowing either side to ask questions to assess if a juror knows about it at all. And again, Jury Nullification is the jury legally saying that "we don't think this should be a crime on the books" thus nullifying a law... you do not "nullify" laws by using that law to convict an innocent person for looking different to you... that's just violating his constitutional rights. Jury nullification is not legislation by other means. Its a veto invested in the people. | |
| Mar 17, 2021 at 13:36 | comment | added | Austin Hemmelgarn | @hszmv It’s not technically legal to have it happen in reverse, but that does not mean it can’t happen. The current system does not prevent it any more than it prevents actual jury nullification (which is to say that because the jury screening questions are answered under oath, you can potentially get hit with perjury charges if you nullify depending on what screening questions you were asked and how you answered them), it can only really react to it after the fact (but even then it’s questionable how much it can or will do). | |
| Mar 17, 2021 at 12:48 | comment | added | Chronocidal | @hszmv That makes no sense. The word "peerage" comes from the word "peer" (meaning "an equal in rank, character or status"), and just meant the people that the King or Queen considered to be their peers. "Peer review", in scientific literature, means "review by other scientists of similar academic credentials", not nobles. The phrase "jury of one's peers" has nothing to do with the peerage system — it's a short-hand in the US Legal system for "an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed" per the 6th Amendment. | |
| Mar 17, 2021 at 11:57 | comment | added | hszmv | @AustinHemmelgarn: No, it doesn't work in reverse. Keep in mind juries have to be unbiased per U.S. constitution. Seating 12 white men as a jury in the Jim Crow south is clearly a violation of this rule. Just because it happened, does not mean it should have happened. No system is perfect and I am not discussing the imperfections in my answer, only the way the system ought be run. Jury Nullification didn't happen "in reverse" because one cannot nullify anything by affirming it. | |
| Mar 17, 2021 at 11:53 | comment | added | hszmv | @Gidds: The phrase Jury of one's Peers is not in the U.S. Constitution as the U.S. does not have a peerage system. That said, Jury of Peers do exist in the U.S. but are limited to court martials only (enlisted defendents are entitled to a jury that has a certain subset of enlisted ranked personel while enlisted are never allowed to sit on juries of officer ranked defendants. I also think there might be rules against seating jurors who the defendant outranks, but I'm not sure.). The phrase comes from the Magna Carta and was using "Peers" to mean "Peerage system." | |
| S Mar 17, 2021 at 4:25 | history | suggested | CommunityBot | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
changed to inclusive language
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| Mar 17, 2021 at 3:52 | comment | added | phoog | @DavidWaterworth as far as I understand it, juries in trials of nobles were nobles, of the same rank, no less, and juries in trials of commoners were commoners. | |
| Mar 17, 2021 at 1:39 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Mar 17, 2021 at 4:25 | |||||
| Mar 16, 2021 at 22:39 | comment | added | David Waterworth | So does that mean jurors in the UK originally consisted only of "nobels"? I'd always assumed it meant one's peers as @gidds states. | |
| Mar 16, 2021 at 22:26 | comment | added | gidds | “it is not a jury of peers, as this alludes to the Peerage systems” — isn't it a ‘jury of one's peers’, i.e. people on a par with the defendant, rather than Peers of the Realm? | |
| Mar 16, 2021 at 20:30 | comment | added | Austin Hemmelgarn | Of note, the same process as jury nullification can also be applied in reverse (finding the defendant guilty when they are demonstrably innocent), and both forms happened quite frequently in southern US courts prior to systemic desegregation. | |
| Mar 16, 2021 at 19:52 | comment | added | ohwilleke | FWIW, the typical jury in a misdemeanor case or in a civil case is six jurors, usually with at least one alternate, who may be dismissed prior to deliberations if not needed. Sometimes even smaller juries are authorized for ordinance violations, traffic offenses that don't carry jail time, and in eminent domain cases, but local practice varies a lot in those cases. | |
| Mar 16, 2021 at 13:24 | comment | added | hszmv | Only for criminal trials. For civil tort cases, the preponderance of evidence standard is used (basically would assign fault to both sides, with one side being more at fault than the other.). To give an example, yes, Timmy shouldn't have been playing by an open well with only a collie dog for supervision, but the person who owned the well on the unfenced property within walking distance to a small child who is routinely saved by a dog should have some blame for not seeing this as something of a problem. Thus damages are awarded to Timmy's family, but not as much as they wanted. | |
| Mar 16, 2021 at 13:14 | comment | added | Neil Meyer | OK so if the case is made beyond a reasonable doubt then the person IS guilty. | |
| Mar 16, 2021 at 12:58 | history | answered | hszmv | CC BY-SA 4.0 |