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See also: the UK trying to eliminate juries ("in cases where a convicted defendant would be imprisoned for up to three years").
I'm generally in favor of the jury. It's "the worst system except for all others that have been tried": other than a few high-profile cases (like OJ Simpson), it seems most juries reach reasonable conclusions. A jury is harder to corrupt than a judge, since it's 12 people who are supposed to be ordinary citizens. They tend more lenient (and if the defendant is clearly innocent and the jury convicts them anyways, the judge can and will vacate their ruling), but I'm generally against convicting someone unless they're clearly guilty. Less efficiency isn't a big issue, because most trials are avoided via plea bargain or dropped prosecution.
I also think civil cases against corporations should only need a certain ratio of jurors, because a wrongful conviction is less severe. Criminal cases should be nearly or totally unanimous.
My understanding is that the judge is very powerful in the courtroom: if jurors are bickering or not acting serious, the judge can sanction or replace them, or order a retrial with an entirely new jury. For example, here the judge should've ordered "no costumes".
EDIT after actually reading the article:
In summary, the focused (costume incident) case is about hospitals suing opioid pharmacies. Two jurors wanted to acquit the pharmacies based on the law, the remaining six wanted to convict presumably based on morals. The verdict needed to be unanimous, but apparently the case can be retried (because the parties plan to do so).
Personally, I really wouldn't care either way how this case resolved. In a criminal case that requires unanimity, if jurors are deadlocked between law and feelings, the defendant can only be acquitted, which I generally support whether law or feeling are on their side. A civil case sometimes (in some jurisdictions) doesn't require unanimity.
I think the main issues here are jurors harassing others, violating court rules (using AI), and complaining about other jurors making them feel unsafe. The judge can and should handle these; it seems like they mostly did, and some jurors are just upset that the case didn't end how they wanted.
It's also not just the juries either that decide your fate. If you're clearly innocent you have the prosecutors who probably aren't going to charge you to begin with (most don't want to risk ruining their record and triage stronger cases), the grand jury (which while normally considered easy to get past, we've seen that success rates fall dramatically with explicit weaponization), then the jury and judge, and then the whole appeals process.
And even if that all goes wrong, you can appeal to the president/governor. And even if that goes wrong, you might still be able to appeal to public opinion and put enough pressure on the rest of the system that they drop your case.
If you can't win despite all that, it's probably because you're either truly guilty or because you got insanely unlucky and are practically indistinguishable from truly guilty.
I somewhat agree. But do governors routinely pardon normal cases that fail to get into the news cycle usually because there is a scissor statement involved?
Political cases which I would consider Chauvin the gold standard literally have different results depending on what state it occurs in. In Texas I would say with 80% probability he would not have been charged. Likely another 80% if he was charged he would win at trial. And probably a 100% chance the go vet or would pardon him. Obviously different results in Minnesota.
I believe I have much different views on the system of guilt/innocent 20 years ago than I would today. It very much depends on where you are charged.
Yeah, it's not too often but lots of pardons can happen this way. You don't have to get into the news cycle, you can literally file an application with the governors office/state clemency board/etc.
Now it might take a few years, they don't really prioritize that often (in part because most applications are bullshit and they are truly guilty and don't have a good case!) but it happens.
Wouldn't controversy increase the chance of a news cycle?
I'm not sure "my imaginary probabilities" is a good source for this sort of topic.
I 100% mean if their is a scissor statement it’s more likely to get pardoned if your in the correct state.
Do you seriously disagree that the results of Chauvins guilt/innocent would not be different in Texas or other red state (same evidence/same event/etc). I 100% think he’s completely innocent. Even if say it occurred in Austin and he got convicted Gov Abbot would have had a ton of pressure to pardon him.
You're in the minority view even among just republicans there.
Also consider that it's not just state charges, but also federal charges he was found guilty for. He went through two different juries and appeals processes (including the US supreme court with its 6-3 conservative majority denying the appeal), so your confidence that there's no basically no chance of him even being charged yet alone convicted in a red state seems inaccurate.
45% of Republicans find him innocent. Which means he absolutely would be innocent in Texas. And it’s likely a much higher rate of not guilty in Republicans who watched the entire 30 minute police interaction who know he did things like saying he couldn’t breathe BEFORE any force was applied or who read the entire medical report and know he had a potentially fatal does of fentanyl in his system. It’s probably close to 95% or even 100% of Republicans who find him innocent.
Like your own study completely supports my position. The 45% of GOP who find him innocent are likely the far more online and active Republicans. The exact people that would heavily pressure a Republican governor to pardon him.
I don't know if there's a term for this sort of fallacy but I see it if often in discussions about blue states vs red states. Basically all states are purple states it's just the degree to which they are purple will differ a little.
In 2024, Texas was 56:42 Trump v Harris.
Minnesota was 47:51 Trump v Harris.
There is not that extreme of a demographic difference when you're selecting twelve jurors basically at random from the population who all have to agree on the guilt.
If you pull twelve balls out of a 47:51 red/blue ball bag, the most likely result is still 6 red and 6 blue balls, with a slight edge towards 7 blue 5 red
This is especially true when you consider that a significant amount of eligible voters also don't show up to vote to begin with! So the actual jury makeup is probably more like 4 red balls, 4 blue balls, and 4 normie balls who are just bored retirees or something. So the only difference between the states really is a slight likelihood nudge towards 3 red, 5 blue, 4 normie balls vs 5 red, 3 blue, 4 normie balls.
Unless the defense side is incredibly incompetent and doesn't use preemptory challenges properly, the makeup of a jury isn't going to just be Democrat sided or just Republican sided people. It's going to be a mix of different idealogies and beliefs, with a healthy bunch of normies and independents who all come to an agreement.
Republicans did judge Derek Chauvin. There were Republicans in both the state and federal jury. They looked at all the evidence in deep detail, listened to expert testimony presented by both sides, listened to the defense's best arguments, and found him guilty.
Pardons do not imply any bit of legal innocence. Contrary to internet myth they also don't apply any acceptance of legal guilt, but he would still have been found guilty even if he later was pardoned.
Think you are lacking experience living in red states and blue states. The loud people in blue states are blue. The loud people in red states are red. With gerrymandering and other means of asserting authority all the political power shifts farther to one side. Judges, prosecutors, etc all shift to one side.
I thought peremptory challenges actually shift the bias farther in one direction. The cities are even more partisan so maybe it’s 75%-25% Dem/GOP. The prosecution can axe any likely republicans while the defense runs out of challenges long before.
You also have to remember at the time Chauvin trial occurred it was very clear that NOT GUILTY = burn the fucking city down. This is not in play for most other trials but in this specific trial it was lose your house or vote guilty.
Also you should almost never cite public opinion polling in any debate. It’s highly unreliable and can be gamed. Took me 2 minutes checking polling and I found 31% of GOP thought he was guilty.
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