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Re:The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longi... by deanCommie on Thursday January 13, 2022 @12:51PM (#29924033)
I find the very premise of trying to find an "impartial" jury very strange. It makes sense at first pass, but falls apart soon after.

Are these not to be a jury of my "peers". Are not all humans biased in one way or another. If being abused creates bias, why wouldn't NOT being abused also not create bias. We don't have perfect access to information. Sometimes in order to be considered impartial, jurors are basically expected to have no familiarity with basic fundamental news stories. Are people so disconnected from reality really "peers"?

Ultimately, I guess, it's the best we can do.

Re:The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longi... by woodruffw on Thursday January 13, 2022 @01:00PM (#29924169)
Impartiality in a jury trial context doesn't refer to the absence of biases (we all have them and truly getting rid of them is an impossible task), but a conscious effect by the jurors to discharge their office without prejudice, i.e., without allowing their biases to manifest as judgments independent of the evidence presented in court.

Put another way: there wouldn't be a point in deliberation if we didn't have biases. Our justice system trusts and (weakly) attempts to enforce the gap between those biases and prejudices that would actually interfere with the court's duty.

Re:The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longi... by jerf on Thursday January 13, 2022 @01:15PM (#29924406)
And to put it another way, the job of a juror is to convict or exonerate the person on trial, not to convict or exonerate their own abusers by proxy.

Vulcans might not have a problem with this, but humans so obviously do that pretending otherwise is impractical.

Re:The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longi... by bcrosby95 on Thursday January 13, 2022 @02:55PM (#29925930)
I've served on a few juries. From my experience, the average person thinks its much easier to get out of it due to biases than it actually is.
Re:The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longi... by Sebb767 on Thursday January 13, 2022 @02:11PM (#29925231)
If you're accused but innocent and provide a good case for your innocence, but a juror provides a crying testimony that no one believed them in the jury room, leading to you being sentenced, you'd probably think differently.

Sure, we can't get a perfectly impartial jury. But someone with a past trauma probably won't be able to judge the case for its merits.

Re:The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longi... by 300bps on Thursday January 13, 2022 @01:31PM (#29924631)
Are not all humans biased in one way or another

This appears to be binary thinking. There are nearly infinite degrees of bias. Strong emotions are one way to ensure that someone is heavily biased. That's what the jury system is trying to avoid.

So someone who has never been abused can still be biased in literally any way. But the presumption is that without having such an emotional personal experience with it means they are less likely to be heavily biased. They'll be more likely to be swayed by the testimony in court rather than their experience outside of the court room.

Re:The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longi... by not2b on Thursday January 13, 2022 @04:55PM (#29927432)
The "peers" part is obsolete. In the old English system, a peasant was tried by other peasants, a noble by other nobles. There's no longer a notion that some people are your peers and others aren't.