I also think prosecutors are absolutely negligent when it comes to the police and others they need a relationship with for their other day to day activities.

I've kind of come to the conclusion that we need a _separate_ prosecutor's office for police matters.

It's just as bullying as false testimony, but far more common. I suspect a magnitude more innocent people are screwed by this than by purgery. Other countries, like the UK, seem to have more fair systems.

The proverbial headmaster arbitrarily deciding my fate? That feels more terrifying than a jury of my peers, to me.

But more seriously, the jury system also has serious flaws. I'd guess its bias towards existing norms. Bias against minorities in the jury pool. And its hard enough for us not accidentally trap into social media echo chambers. I doubt i'd notice attempts to personally manipulate me by a well funded defense (even without FB-like info about me). At the same time, a public defender wont have the resources to even try.

Guess "no free lunch" applies to legal systems as well. So far we haven't found an optimal system, at least.

You mean a bunch of random people who have no vested interest in the trial's outcome, and so can't be gamed or stacked for or against you in a premeditated fashion, vs. someone in a clear, long-term position of power that makes for an easy target of bribery, blackmail, or corrupt nepotism? You would seriously prefer that?

Centralization of power should generally not be preferred.

But that is not true. An attorney will try that, while someone on a jury might not even be aware his believe in a nuclear family is used to paint the victim as a slut. Being aware of your own biases and noticing others trying to abuse them will require education and training. Random citizens won't have the time for that. A professional judge (should) take that time.

Do you take you medical advice from random citizens as well, since it is harder for the pharmacy industry to influence them? I'd want to avoid corruption. Transparency helps, but comes with its own issues... if at all possible. I do want a system that avoids centralized power as much as possible but still lets trained experts do the job. There's got to be a better balance.

The system worked exactly as intended. Because jurors are paid almost no money to be there, I had a strong feeling that I didn't want to live with the guilt of sending a person to prison unless they were completely guilty and completely deserving of it.

While a judge will usually act fairly, a jury has a selfish incentive to actively look for ways to avoid sending someone to prison.

I don't think juries are a good solution everywhere. The UK does not have the remnants of racial segregation that the US does; racialism is endemic in US thought patterns. Additionally, the average person where I live is university educated. For that reason, I feel that every defendant should be given the option of a bench trial.

So? That's what the jury selection process is for. Your defense should exclude jurors with such obvious biases.

> Do you take you medical advice from random citizens as well, since it is harder for the pharmacy industry to influence them?

Except I'm not beholden to only a single doctor. You are beholden to a single judge, and you don't get a say which judge tries you.

One of my favorite lines about judges is: "it's the responsibility of every person to know the law, except trial judges, who simply have to consider the arguments presented and have appellate courts to set them straight"

This is not how juries are formed. The parties can refuse jurors and you can refuse yourself if you are chosen.

Nothing like the American system, where the lawyers can go through 250 candidates to choose 12 jurors, letting them choose the race, gender, education and class composition of the jury.

*Challenges are possible, such as if the random selection procedure wasn't followed properly or if a juror knows people involved, but it's very unusual.

They exclude jurors.

Big difference.

Each side -- depending on the state and level of court -- gets a certain number of premptory challenges; that is, they can exclude N jurors without giving a reason.

After that, the only way to exclude a juror is to prove to the Judge that the juror is biased.

That's not to say that judges do not exhibit such biases, but once again - they should be trained specifically against that. There is no such training or expectation on the juries. And yes, of course juries are asked "do you have any bias against this person" but I don't believe for a second that actually works.

Certainly you can introduce bias in the jury vetting process, but that's what your defense attorney is for.

Furthermore, your defense attorney has the opportunity to filter out jurors that have bias against their client. Not so for judges.

Btw, if you wanted to go into the free will vs formed by society thing: The reason parents tell their children to "work hard" and "be responsible for them self" is this being an effective influence. Such is necessary by society to provide for people to become better individuals. I know it sounds contradictory at first.

Meanwhile someone forced to do jury duty is gonna spend the time there whether they like it or not, so there's also no motivation to _not_ try to make good decisions. It won't save any time.

Except when the arbitrator has a grudge against you (maybe personally, maybe more generically - racially, ethnically, etc., maybe he just read a hit piece in the newsletter and is prejudiced against cases like yours). You can have a chance to sway the mob, but you have no chance against the professional who is out to get you.

To understand American system one has to understand that a lot of things there are designed not to produce best outcome in optimal cases, but to reduce harm in sub-optimal cases. It is meant not to solve cases with maximum ease, but to reduce the incidence of abuse. Of course, since people with power - aka the police, prosecutors judiciary, etc. - are not very interested in reducing their own powers they are actively working to undermine this design. Thus plea bargains, testilying, qualified immunity, blue wall of silence, etc.

Roy Moore was a judge. Think of that. Ousted from the bench, twice, for defying court orders, ignoring the law, and displaying a lack of impartiality. This guys thinking was basically "I don't have to follow the rules, because God tells me what's right." And he was a judge for a number of years.

Now look at this video of a recent trump judicial nominee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-zvNnFjk3Q

He couldn't even answer basic legal questions, and admits to have never tried a case in court. I believe he dropped out of the process. But others have gone on to be judges, with only slightly better credentials.

So having a judge decide is no guarantee of a fair outcome. Juries exist for a reason. They aren't perfect, and nothing ever will be.

Also seems like we have a somewhat high bar that should filter the worst people... you need a 4 year legal education and after that have an up to 5 year trial period til you got a life long position.

In general through, judges have a strong bias towards the prosecution. DAs and judges are often extremely friendly since they work with each other every day. I would say that if you're innocent or your case has any extenuating circumstances, you almost always have a better shot with a jury than a judge.

Juries also allow for jury nullification, which allows for unjust laws to be ignored.

I dearly wish that jury trials were available in all cases. I recently went through a non-criminal case where justice was decidedly not served. The judge, of course, claimed he "had to follow the law" but his interpretation of the law contradicted the plain-text reading of the relevant statute. I had no choice but to suck it up unless I wanted to drop the rest of my life savings on an appeal. I feel pretty confident a jury would have seen things very differently.

The defence can ask a judge to throw out a case on the grounds that there is no evidence on which a jury could reasonably convict.

I think you're assuming quite a bit on the education, knowledge, and experience of the law on the part of the judge. There is no guarantee that the judge you get knows anything about the law pertaining to your case.

>> but their decisions have to be based in the law and either you broke a law or you haven't

And yet, judges are reversed all the time on appeal based on the idea that the judge got the law wrong.

Plus I'm fairly certain the judge has a great deal more power in the courtroom than the jury. A judge can certainly put you in jail for a period of time just because they feel like it.

I've started to think that prosecutorial discretion is one of the main problems in Western societies. It yields all kinds of injustices, and overly vague and expansive laws that essentially result in every citizen breaking a few laws a day.

If prosecutors didn't have a choice on whether to prosecute a case, the law would ultimately be a lot more reasonable because old and unjust laws would more readily be stricken from the books, and there would be no possibility of favouritism.

I've had the idea that the current system we have, which is basically you're not breaking the law unless someone is watching, isn't going to play nice with constant surveillance.

Currently, if a law isn't enforced, it's de-facto not the law.

Just imagine if computers in people's cars were phoning home to police. How many speeding fines would be issued daily? Failure to (completely) stop at a stop sign? Reckless driving? Look at how China is currently testing the waters with shaming j-walkers[0]. Just wait until this is fully institutionalized.

[0] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-20/china-deploys-ai-camer...

It is not "Western societies", in some Roman/Civil Law countries, as an example Italy, prosecution is not discretional, it is "mandatory" for crimes (whether this is effectively enforced in the same way and everywhere is another thing).

In the vast majority of nonviolent cases I think we as a society tend to be overly punitive with the criminal justice system.

Maybe I'm making the same emotional overreaction here.

One problem with that is that e.g. someone who testified that they show OJ killing the woman would have gotten the "punishment the accused is facing" when OJ was found innocent.

So this has the potential to put an innocent man (testifying correctly, but where the accused for BS reasons is free of charges) to jail just as a false testimony now has the potential to do so.

I realize that distinction may seem pedantic, but I think it's actually quite relevant in this case.

It's not sufficient that someone testified about what they saw, and have the case decided the other way. To start a perjury case against the witness, I would still demand all of the strictures of due process that apply to a criminal defense case.

That is, you would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the witness was _lying_ about what they saw. It would absolutely _not_ be sufficient evidence just to have a "not guilty" ruling. You would need to prove that they _could not have seen_ the testimony they provided.

Absolutely, this standard would make _some_ prosecutions against police for perjury hard or impossible. However, there are a number of cases that I believe could meet this evidentiary standard that are simply not pursued by the prosecutors office.

A problem with this is that people giving false eyewitness testimony often believe they genuinely did see the thing they could not have seen and are telling the truth. So, a system like this would have the potential to punish as "liars" people who simply fell victim to what seem to be built-in foibles of the human memory system.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-...

https://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&tversky.h...

(Note I'm not doubting that some witnesses really are consciously lying. The problem would be the potential to sweep up the innocent with the guilty, if the standard used is "what they said they saw is impossible, therefore they are lying." Additional factors showing they were consciously lying would be needed.)

The standard for perjury is not "their testimony was inaccurate, or was false". The standard for perjury is "they _knowingly_ made false testimony".

My complaint is not about changing the standard for perjury. My complaint is that prosecutors often avoid a perjury charge towards police, even when there is the evidence to support a perjury charge.

In order for anyone to be found guilty of giving false testimony the burden would be likewise. It would require that it be shown without a doubt that they lied.

Well, if the accused is considered non guilty of what they said they saw them do, then doesn't that "prove" that they lied? (as much "without a doubt" as the other person is innocent).

Video that contradicts officers testimony.

Physical evidence that proves the testimony was a lie.

All of the above would have to be sufficiently different from reality that would suggest that its impossible to consider the possibility that the officer misremembered.

Example fake scenario:

I heard violent screaming coming from inside the home so I had to break down the door and search for the person in need of help and I just happened to find drugs.

Contradicted by video from the ring door bell which recorded the officer just walking up and kicking the door down so he could conduct an illegal search.

For real examples see the article. None of the listed scenarios suggest any reasonable party could think that the police officer misremembered.

No. It absolutely doesn't prove that they lied. That's simply not what "not guilty" means in the criminal justice system.

Mark Furhman was definitely a liar and just a few months later the Rampart scandal happened.

Theoretically a sound idea, but people misremember things. It is possible to give false testimony without actively lying, and difficult to prove conclusively whether someone is actively deceiving or misremembering.

So for law enforcement, any lies or withholding of evidence to ensure conviction would automatically mean that the penalty being asked for is applied to all of those law enforcement and prosecutors involved. There would be no "free passes" given to law enforcement or prosecutors.

This, of course, will not happen any time soon in most jurisdictions.

This conflicts with the feminine imperative.

Of course, this would disqualify me from ever sitting in a jury box.

I sat on a jury that included testimony by a police officer.

Many months had passed since the incident and the cop said a bunch of things, then the defense said "You just said X, but in your incident report you wrote Y."

One of the jurors was stuck on "We should believe the police officer because he is a police officer" for about 60 minutes, before eventually becoming convinced that nothing he said added up.

I know many of us dread jury service, but really, if we don't go, then we're leaving all of these decisions to people like that, who are willing to blindly believe the police.

A trial that largely relied on eyewitness testimony (all of which differed from individual to individual in important details) for evidence. I knew from my Psych studies that eyewitness testimony is a smidgen better than bullshit (see: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-...) but I was unable to hang the jury (the rest of whom wanted to throw the book at this kid, and yes the jury was all white and the kid was black and this was Boston, one of the most subtly-racist places I've ever lived in) because the defense did not present the inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony as evidence/argument. You are (paradoxically and incredibly frustratingly) not allowed to use outside knowledge to inform your decision... Only what was actually presented at the trial. I literally left that jury in tears, being consoled by the older women on the jury who applauded my valiant but unsuccessful defense (yeah, I'm a guy, but I give a shit).

While I can't go back to that guy and apologize for being a part of the system that let him down, I do now contribute monthly to https://www.innocenceproject.org/causes/eyewitness-misidenti... ... "Eyewitness misidentification is the greatest contributing factor to wrongful convictions proven by DNA testing, playing a role in more than 70% of convictions overturned through DNA testing nationwide."

There is some effort to reform the system going on based on the evidence that continues to emerge, but it will take years.

From what I understand (I'm not from US), you are told this by the judge, but in fact you can (and are allowed by law) to use anything you want to form your decision.

If I could do it again I would have hung the jury. Let's just say the system in place makes it veeerrryyy difficult to do so... which is of course a perverse incentive.

I'm still kicking myself (this is years later) because normally I'm a person who sticks my neck out for my own principles, and that time I succumbed. I won't make the same mistake again.

People do it anyway, and it's highly unlikely that they'll be found out, but the problem is it's a double-edged sword: in this case, justice might have demanded it; on the other hand, a Klansman could use the same approach to get another member off the hook for an obvious murder conviction.

> juror picks one

"But a police officer produced [the other one]! We should trust it!"

It's along the lines of jury nullification. The people have some recourse in overriding court rules and court rulings when the court is not behaving in accordance with justice.

The risk here is that there are people fighting to get out of prison for things they're not guilty of. If you have realistic expectations that police and their representative prosecutors can and do lie, please exercise caution.

If you say "You shouldn't believe anything a cop testifies to" will get you booted pretty quickly.

If you say this you won't be selected. Engineers and Scientists routinely get denied because of the application of logic.

You'd be surprised. The DAs/lawyers on the other side can see right through this, and don't want it. They want someone that is more likely to show blind trust to the law side.

And guess which answer got people dismissed?

Remember the prosecution have a limited number of dismissals and statements like that are desired by the defense.

If the system considers police testimony as ground truth, why bother with judge and jury?

There's no such thing as impartial. Unless you either have no emotions or have omniscient knowledge of everything (robot or God, basically), you'll always view a set of facts through an emotional lens that's been tinged by your past experiences, which are a tiny subset of everyone's past experiences. Part of the reason we put multiple people on a jury is to average out those differences.

Then again, I brought up unconscious bias and implicit association tests last time I was called for jury duty, and was excused by a very impatient and skeptical sounding judge. Questioning the whole premise of the legal system doesn't go over very well with the legal system.

The criminal justice system _does not think_ jury nullification is a legitimate use of the powers of a juror. Rather, the criminal justice system more views it as something of an unfortunate trade-off.

Why not? That's often by far the best case scenario.

I’m not saying our system is perfect but where’s the better alternative?

The bare minimum I'd need would be "yes, so long as they're not contradicted by less inherently unreliable evidence than that which relies on human memory".

In my experience, the defense asked specific questions related to this exact topic and sought out jurors who agreed that police testimony is not guaranteed to be factual. I have to assume this is common. They had no problem filling the juror box with jurors approved by both sides.

That question came up the last time I was called for jury duty. But it was the people who affirmed that they believe police are always truthful who were excluded.

Do they get punished if they say yes to that and somehow it becomes obvious they're not doing that?

My own limited experience on a jury is that, because of the way jurors are selected, they tend to be fairly deferential to authority (especially the judge's authority). Arguing for jury nullification or any similar concept is at a minimum going to freak your fellow jurors out, and I wouldn't be surprised if in practice they might ask the judge to kick you off the jury and use one of the alternates (regardless of whatever the legality of the situation calls for).

That's not my experience, and mere reservations about the credibility of police wouldn't usually justify a challenge for cause, and prosecutors have a finite number of peremptory challenges. (Now if you say cops are all liars and everything they say must be disregarded, sure, that’ll probably get you tossed.)

Jurors are asked if they will treat the word of law enforcement as always true. Jurors are disqualified if they don't say yes. Jurors are sworn, as you say, to tell the truth. Presumable jurors get punished if they end up acting counter to their previous word?

Thus, jurors that end up on the bench are forced by law to act as if every word by law enforcement is true, even if it contradicts physical reality. No?

If a juror stated that they believed that the word of law enforcement were always true, the defense attorney would almost certainly challenge them for cause, as that is clear bias, and they would not be selected for the jury.

In practice it's a balancing act, where the prosecution wants jurors who trust law enforcement and the defense wants jurors who are skeptical of law enforcement.

It is illegal to punish a juror for the decision they make during a trial. This is often referred to as "jury nullification" (or rather, is an important part of jury nullification).

Realistically, jurors will instead be challenged for cause by the defense if they do say yes to that question.

They might be challenged by the prosecution if they indicate a bias against police testimony (either for cause or as a peremptory challenge, depending on the details and the prosecutor and the judge.)

No. If that were the case, there would be no need for evidence, a judge, a jury, or a trial. "Just ask the cops" is not how this system works.

Both sides look for jurors who have bias where they will come with a pre-shared opinion. The last jury I was on included a former US Attorney, an insurance investigator and a NAACP regional director. We were asked to answer questions honestly and nobody had access to our process.

I’ve been on 3 juries, and in 2/3 we partially or fully acquitted a defendant based on many factors. Frankly, in each case I walked away with an appreciation that the system can work.

I have great respect for most parts of our justice system. This is not one of those parts, therefore I choose civil disobedience.

In my case, I'd have liked to think that I'm not particularly biased for or against police, though news stories like this one don't help in that regard. But when I sat in a jury box, I don't recall it coming up. The only question from voir dire that I can immediately recall was the defense attorney making sure I understood accusation != guilt.

With that said, I did up having to consider the police witness testimony unreliable. Not because I thought they were lying because they could get away with it, but because it was too inconsistent from one officer to the next. That was one of the first things we agreed on in the jury room, that the police testimony was too inconsistent to be useful, and that we would need to focus on the other evidence (video, DNA testing, call records, et. al.)

Being skeptical of witness accounts is fine, but you admitted partiality specifically based on their occupation - I assume they want people who as much as possibly will evaluate the account based only the facts at hand.

i served on the second jury; the police officer was blatantly lying but there was no evidence which corroborated their story anyway.

Probably not; I've been on a criminal jury where virtually all the testimony was from police, and the questions in voir dire wouldn't have he really revealed that attitude unless it was so extreme that the prospective juror themself felt it would prevent them from fairly evaluating the evidence.

In case you're wondering, me and mine are some of the whitest people you'll meet. It happens to black people more, but it can happen to anyone.

Perhaps bodycam footage could be required as corroboration for officer witness testimony to carry weight.

[1]http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1477370816643734

I don't really believe those "mixed results", especially if those doing the research/reporting have ties with the police that wants those cams gone. Or where the results depend on the cooperation of the policemen wearing them during the research.

Reading more into the article "Bronx dropped the case. Then the court sealed the case file, hiding from view a problem so old and persistent that the criminal justice system sometimes responds with little more than a shrug: false testimony by the police."

The judge themselves are obstructing justice. Where I am from the prosecutor would have turned and charge the officer on the spot.

Like as a judge how do you even trust the testimony of that officer or any officer anymore if the rate of perjury is half of what the article implies. They are not talking about "I don't remember correctly." or "Maybe he mistook him for the wrong person." They literally planted evidences and then perjured themselves.

I really don't understand the police organization in the U.S. It incentivizes

I think it would be a very disruptive idea at first, because prosecutorial discretion has been so deeply ingrained in our legal system.

I'm not sure sure that it's ultimately a terrible idea though. There are so many laws that we all unknowingly break a few per day. A paranoid person might even suggest it's intentional so as to always have some leverage whenever it's needed.

Without discretion, there's no possibility of leverage against honest citizens. Proposing such expansive laws would be met with much more forceful citizen opposition, and lead to the repeal of the existing ones. And the police wouldn't get the free pass they now enjoy for false testimony.

I can't claim to have all the details figured out, but it's not an absurd possibility off the bat. The scope and deliberate impenetrability of the law is a serious problem that I think will only grow worse over time.

Basically: A big headache for the poor DA. So it is easier to keep a secret list of cops to not be trusted or called to the stand, like they do in Philly.

Oh that’s interesting. I’ve never heard about that but I could believe it. Seems like Philly’s citizens are sick of it though: they just elected civil rights attorney Larry Krasner as District Attorney. He has promised to handle the problems that the philly PD causes, and he came out swinging. Fired 31 prosecutors in his first week.

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/20/larry-krasner-philadelph...

People of every race have trouble identifying people who are of some other race.