[Cons] Article III, Section 1 (4 of 10) What role the judge?

So in this empowered jury world, what role does a judge play?

Let's start with what they don't do.

They do NOT cite contempt.  That's for the jury.  That means the court rises when the jury enters.  That means that people refer to jurors as 'the honorable' etc.

They do NOT determine the opportunities for opposing council.  "Approaching the bench" means approaching the Jury.

They do NOT cite what evidence is seen.  The jury sees that.

They do NOT determine what law or explain the law to the jury.  The law is simple enough for them to understand (see the next post for that.)

But the thing is, if the Jury is made this powerful, then someone must hold the JURY in check.  The Jury cannot be racist, cannot lie, cannot be sexist or make decisions based on religion or social status.  The jury must serve justice and be fair.  And thus, the greatest and most important power a judge has is to REMOVE a juror who is behaving with conduct unbecoming a public servant.

There must be serious consequences for this.  If a judge does this, a majority of the remaining jury can remove the judge and get a new one subject to their approval.   A judge removed must face a review by another jury about whether or not they get to keep their judgeship.

An honored judge could have powers delegated to him by a jury, but it should be THE JURY'S choice about whether or not they choose to do so and they should be able to take it back at any time.

A judge is honored in court because they are supposed to represent justice, but the political decisions made by conservative judges in US courts are anything BUT honorable or just.  Perhaps after a few centuries they might deserve the honors they receive, but not now.

[Cons] Article III, Section 1 - An Empowered Jury (3 of 10)

So how exactly would this work? I think as far as selection is concerned, most jurisdictions already have pretty good randomization methods in place; often using voter registration or the like.

1) I think the first fix we need is to remove the ability of prosecutors and defense attorneys from being able to remove jurors.  Jurors should have a questionnaire on a trial and be able to recuse THEMSELVES, but there is a definite conflict of interest when a prosecutor is able to remove someone because they might be too smart, too informed, or biased against law enforcement.  An excellent protection against prosecutor over reach or failure to disclose sufficient evidence to the defense is to remove their ability to tamper with the Jury.

A stronger argument could be made in the case of the Defense in order to avoid a prejudiced jury, but given how things are already rigged in favor of the prosecution, removing the prosecutions ability to do this helps the defense, and it will be easier to maintain this state of affairs if the defense can't do it either.  More importantly, juries lie all the time.  If evidence comes to light that a member of the jury lied about certain prescreening questions that they voluntarily answer, it becomes grounds for appeal and the juror is convicted for felony perjury.

What does not happen anymore is that just because someone knows something about a subject they are instantly removed from a jury.  Our justice system should not be the lowest common demoninator, it should be the greatest most intelligent people we can get.  Random selection and intelligence are hard, but at the least we can stop the brain drain.

2) The Jury should set the length of the trial.  Look, you can argue legal quandries all you like, but the fact of the matter is, ultimately its the jury that decides what goes on.  In our current system, judges can shanghai people for weeks at a time while the lawyers go back and forth with mind numbingly complex testiomony with conflicting witnesses and they're just a pair of eyes in a box.

The best, most important way to empower juries is to ensure that THEY set the length of the trial and that they determine the length of testimony presented to each side.  Note, the defense should always get at least as much as the prosecution, but if the prosecution can't make its case in a week, then the Jury should get to tell them to go to hell.

3) The Jury can ask as many questions as it likes and see whatever evidence it wants.  Lawyers and judges pretend they know more about 'fairness' but in reality they lie all the time, twist evidence that would determine a trial if the jury could see it, and generally make juries stupid.  Even beyond this, Judicial 'instructions' to juries often tie their hands so much that the trial is a farce.

The jury should be allowed to ask questions, with a certain amount of time given to each Juror to speak to any witness or the defendant.  By placing the investigation in the hands of CITIZENS, it means that the law must be simple enough so that anyone can understand it; not just lawyers.

4) All appeals must be to juries, not judges.  A jury should determine if another jury has followed the law, not judges.  Judges can and are bribed and corrupted, destroyed by their own sense of entitlement and power.  A randomly selected jury is there to ensure that a trial is properly conducted.  After the behavior of our Supreme Court, I have more faith in a federally selected jury than I do in judges that have to bypass the gauntlets of corrupt conservative legislators.

[Rant] Why Reason with Conservatives Is Impossible

On Facebook the other day, on a liberal page I saw a conservative lady DEFENDING the following statement from Rush Limbaugh.  Not all conservatives love or defend Rush, but the majority of them do.  But even those who do not take their talking points from Rush.  This man is human filth, saying more and more monstrous things and has poisoned the political well in this country for close to two decades.

Until conservatives stop tolerating this monster or tolerating conservatives among their own number who defend him, peace and reconciliation is impossible.  And I for one don't even intend to try.