I’ve always been confused by this.
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Why would you want a bunch of randoms to decide your fate, and not the actual judge with a law degree and years of experience?
Why do those people have more power than the judge? They can decide anything they want and the judge is basically just the guy who signs and does the paperwork.
In: 2634
A few answers OP:
1) the main premise behind a jury is that they can’t be corrupted, and generally would be free of bias, compared to say a judge whose seen 20 other drug addicts who’ve stolen cars come through and decides he or she is tired of giving them second chances and decides to start throwing them in prison.
2) some people do argue that there should be “professional jurors” but again that would cause corruption problems etc.
3) a Jude still usually does decide the fate of someone whose CONVICTED of a crime. Juries usually have no say in what someone’s fate is, only wether they are guilty or not, and then the judge decides what sentence is best
4) a judge has laws that require them in some cases to sentence a certain ways (mandatory minimums) so this would be problematic if it suddenly became “oh they are suspected of a crime so now I’m legally obligated to convict them” compared to my next and final point:
5) jurors are under no legal obligation to find someone guilty/not guilty and thanks to the double jeopardy clause we have what’s called jury nullification. Which means even if the evidence is clear cut 100% a suspect committed the crime? The jury can decide they don’t think what that person did was a crime and that that person guilty of any crime, and vote not guilty, which then protects that person from ever being tried criminally again for that crime.
The reverse also works… if the jury believes you DID commit a crime but there’s no reverse to the double jeopardy.. so that’s when you get appeals and retrials and all that
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