• Voting for specific trials - a new way to free the innocent and convict the guilty
    11 replies, posted
[B]EDIT:[/B] It has come to my attention that this is a terrible idea. This specific idea to fix the justice system is invalid and non-functional. Continue reading if you want to see an idea that has been shot down and has been logically dismantled and shown to be invalid. Here in the good old United States of America, you see people getting sued and prosecuted for no real fucking legitimate reason other than because people are jerks. You also see people who are rich and famous getting off nearly scot-free for crimes that would cause a layperson to spend the rest of their life in jail. In short, the justice system is absolutely, positively corrupt off it's motherfucking ass and there is no way that any rational person can deny this fact. How would one go about fixing this problem? Well... I propose there should be a new addition to the justice system. Juries are fucking retarded as fuck. Even the most brilliant minds will turn to a blob of jello the moment they sit on the jury bench. "A jury of your peers" is what those going to court are said to get. Well, most of these people who serve jury duty are at least one of the three: A.) fucking moronic and uneducated, B.) Prone to being heavily manipulated by skewed data, and/or C.) really fucking pissed off for having to be there and don't give two shits about the outcome. You also only have 12 people. 12 people is no way a statistical representative of the population at large. It's only 12 fucking people. If you get 12 people in a room with two TV's, and 6 people watch one show and the other 6 watch another because they choose to, does that mean it would scale up? If there were only two TV channels, would 50 percent of the nation would watch show A while the other half would watch show B? Fuck no. There are not enough data to determine that. Why the fuck do they think 12 people are enough for a statistical representation of the public at large? You then have judges who are complete douchebags and will overturn the will of the jury even if they made a completely rational decision. In some cases it's completely obvious the judges are being bribed in one shape or another to do this. My system is a radically new design. It's also not that difficult or complicated to add. How about local and national voting of case outcomes? It's simple. If an individual or group of individuals hears about a case where a person is incarcerated over a law that should not exist, or feel that the person being convicted is being overly charged for a crime, then that individual or group can start a petition to free the person who has been convicted. Lets look at this case: [url]http://hypervocal.com/news/2011/update-youtube-musician-evan-emory-sentenced-to-60-days-in-jail/[/url] This is one out of many, and it is just the most recent one I see. This person was making a joke. He was trying to be funny. No one was harmed AT ALL. He took nearly every precaution to make sure that the children depicted in that video were not exposed to any inappropriate material. But for some asinine reason, he is still being convicted. In fact, the asshole judge and lawyers have even gone so far to say he is guilty of “manufacturing child pornography." I mean what the fuck. How is this even closely related to child pornography? There were no naked children, nor were children being depicted in any sexual fashion with the intent of sexual arousal. How is this claim even legal? This is so far from being "justice." This is just destroying someone's life for the fuck of it. There are a few flaws in my idea that would have to be worked out. For example, by allowing the public to vote those charged of a crime guilty or not guilty, a large amount of special interest groups would arise. For example, NAMBLA would probably vote every child molester innocent. Drug dealers would always vote their competition guilty to gain a larger foothold, and so on. Those are almost fatal flaws in the plan. However, with a bit of brainstorming and a little effort, maybe we can think of a functional system. One could be where individuals or groups would have to come up with justifiable reasons why the convicted should be considered innocent, along with votes, or those with the highest number of votes will be re-tried with new evidence, along with the justifiable reasons why they are innocent or guilty. There are many different possibilities. I just think that there has to be a way to solve our broken justice system. Maybe this isn't it. Maybe there is some other way. Whatever that new way to completely reform this broken justice system will be absolutely revolutionary and save a lot of innocent lives from being destroyed, while allowing those who are genuinely guilty to be fed justice. It's said that Lady Justice is blind. Well she is. She's also deaf and dumb. It's time for her to regain her senses.
No, this is not a good idea. Those 12 people have a better chance of making a correct decision because they actually have to know all of the details of the trial. If you just had people vote willy nilly than whoever the media paints in a better or worse light determines the outcome of the trial, which is a direct violation of the constitutional right to a fair trial.
[QUOTE=Valnar;29164761]No, this is not a good idea. Those 12 people have a better chance of making a correct decision because they actually have to know all of the details of the trial. If you just had people vote willy nilly than whoever the media paints in a better or worse light determines the outcome of the trial, which is a direct violation of the constitutional right to a fair trial.[/QUOTE] Well, based on the outcomes of many court cases, can it even be said that the defendant had a "fair trial?" In my eyes, a fair trial leads to a fair outcome. If the outcome has it where the defendant is punished excessively, such as the case listed in my original post, than I will argue that the trial was far from "fair." Why not make it so the defendant can decide if they want to have their entire case information to be released as a whole to the general public. Just the plan facts and objective data for the public to decide on. This could be in lieu of a jury.
This has corruption of justice written all over it. You know how some people on Facepunch to vote for some silly contest so that they win something? Yeah, think of this, except more organized and having serious repercussions. There's no way it'd work in any shape or form.
[QUOTE=Master117;29164797]Well, based on the outcomes of many court cases, can it even be said that the defendant had a "fair trial?" Why not make it so the defendant can decide if they want to have their entire case information to be released as a whole to the general public. Just the plan facts and objective data for the public to decide on. This could be in lieu of a jury.[/QUOTE] Show me the data that proves that court cases by juries have been ineffectual, not just anecdotes. Also your suggested system would be extremely expensive.
[QUOTE=Mr. Bleak;29164805]This has corruption of justice written all over it. You know how some people on Facepunch to vote for some silly contest so that they win something? Yeah, think of this, except more organized and having serious repercussions. There's no way it'd work in any shape or form.[/QUOTE] The votes would not be the direct method of conviction. It would be the first step in a re-trial, which would also allow for a logical and valid argument why such a law should not even exist. If the either the defendant was shown to be innocent on re-examination of the evidence, or with the use of new evidence, then they are not guilty. If the general public feels that the law the person was accused of breaking is an invalid law based on logical information, than that person is not guilty, along with everyone else who was convicted of that invalid law. The only problem with a re-trial is that the new jury would have a bias toward an outcome as they came into the court room. I understand there are flaws in the idea. This is why I posted it. Maybe there is a way of fixing it, or even scrapping it for a whole new idea that allows for a fair and functional justice system where the innocent aren't convicted and the guilty are not allowed to walk free until they pay their dues.
What you are proposing is a media-driven court that doesn't guarantee any level of fairness to the defendant or impose any responsibility on the voters. The randomly selected jurors of our current system are made to know every level of the case, and then to argue it amongst themselves until every member can reach an agreement. An open vote would leave a person's life in the hands of folks who don't necessarily know a damn thing about the case (other than whatever the media/the church/their political party/their book club leader tells them about it). A jury of your "peers" may have some flaws, but to leave such a monumental decision in the ignorant hands of the greater American public is simply a wretchedly terrible idea.
OK, fair enough. The idea of the general population being able to vote on the outcome of a trial is to be scrapped. The next question I have to ask is if anyone will admit that there are huge flaws in the justice system that need to be fixed, especially corruption. For those who do admit there are major flaws, the question is how are they to be fixed?
[QUOTE=Master117;29164902]OK, fair enough. The idea of the general population being able to vote on the outcome of a trial is to be scrapped. The next question I have to ask is if anyone will admit that there are huge flaws in the justice system that need to be fixed, especially corruption.[/QUOTE] There are flaws yes, but there are also counters to the flaws such as appeals that work to try to self correct some of the mistakes. There is only a minority of trials that are truly affected by the flaws of the system.
[QUOTE=Master117;29164847]The votes would not be the direct method of conviction. It would be the first step in a re-trial, which would also allow for a logical and valid argument why such a law should not even exist. If the either the defendant was shown to be innocent on re-examination of the evidence, or with the use of new evidence, then they are not guilty. If the general public feels that the law the person was accused of breaking is an invalid law based on logical information, than that person is not guilty, along with everyone else who was convicted of that invalid law. The only problem with a re-trial is that the new jury would have a bias toward an outcome as they came into the court room. I understand there are flaws in the idea. This is why I posted it. Maybe there is a way of fixing it, or even scrapping it for a whole new idea that allows for a fair and functional justice system where the innocent aren't convicted and the guilty are not allowed to walk free until they pay their dues.[/QUOTE] There are already systems in place for mistrials and appeals. An appeal for a retrial can be submitted if new evidence is found that could potentially exonerate the defendant, an appeal can be submitted should the defendant feel that his jury was in some way biased or unfair, a mistrial can be declared if evidence is proven to have been tampered with, or if the defendant's consitutional rights are in any way violated. I don't have a boner for the current justice system, I agree that there are certain areas that could use improvement, but the ideas you're suggesting are so poorly conceived that I'm certain I must be missing some crucial piece of information that makes them all tie together in a way that makes sense.
OK, I admit defeat. My idea [I]is[/I] poorly conceived and contains a lot of misinformation (and trying to phrase everything all fancy-like to sound smart :frown:). To be honest, I know little how the details of the justice system works. What I do know is that every day I seem to hear about some innocent person getting convicted over something completely asinine, causing their entire life to be ruined. I also read about how famous people seem to have this ability to walk away from long-term convictions. Hearing about both really makes me just angry. I guess today I wanted to vent my anger in what turned out to be a completely irrational idea. All well. Maybe I'm reading too much into everything. Maybe I'm being suckered by the media. Who knows. All I know for a fact at this point in time is that in my time zone, it is 3:46am and I am tired as fuck and I am being completely irrational due to my lack of sleep. It's funny. Here I was thinking that this was one of the greatest ideas I've had. But then Big Dumb American came and tore it to hell in a single post. I'm kind of glad that it was him that did it though.
If a person feels a jury was biased in any way, they can always file for an appeal, which would be a retrial with judges. Even though corruption bleeds it's way into the court system due to personal biases, and other reasons, the underlying system is one of the best in the world.
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