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
The fact that they’re a bunch of randoms is a feature, not a bug. As people unrelated to the case, they (ostensibly) are not bringing bias to the proceedings since they should have been thoroughly vetted by the defense and prosecution during jury selection. Since they (ostensibly) have nothing to gain from your conviction or non conviction, they’re preferable to, say, a judge who wants to look “tough on crime” and speeds through convictions in order to get elected. Or perhaps a judge with his or her own prejudices based on race, ethnicity, or class status–this is why the “jury of your *peers*” part of the constitution is so important and in the modern day means that there’s generally a drive to keep juries demographically neutral. There are cases where a woman killed her physically abusive husband and was tried by a jury consisting solely of men and they found her guilty within 15 minutes simply because they didn’t like the idea of a woman defending herself.
It should be noted that the judge actually does more than sign and do paperwork, as they’re able to throw out evidence that is deemed unsatisfactory, hold counsel accountable if they do something that’s considered outside the realm of ethics (leading the witness, badgering the witness, etc), and generally keep things moving smoothly while protecting the rights of the witnesseses/defendants involved. Also, in civil court the judge often makes the decisions, so it’s not as though they’re just sitting on their thumbs all day.
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