Do proponents of jury trials see it as a means to an end, or an end in itself? Let me explain the question. In the U.S., it is common place to hear people express enthusiasm for the fact that many cases are determined by juries. Such enthusiasm may be motivated by the efficiency/accuracy of jury trials: that they are more likely to find the true facts and can more accurately determine whether the defendant is guilty (liable) or not. Such enthusiasm can also be motivated by seeing jury trials as an end in itself: it allows people to participate directly in the judicial system and is more democratic, and thus is more desirable (irrespective of the efficiency/accuracy of jury trials). What is the main motivation behind the enthusiasm? The true answer is likely a mix, and the exact weights may differ by layman vs legal experts. I’m curious what you think. Thank you for your thoughts.
The reality, and to some extent the conventional wisdom, is that jury trial as less accurate (and jury trials are without a doubt, in modern times, less efficient). But there is also a widespread belief that jury trials are less biased than bench trials. Judges are probably more accurate but are perceived as being biased against most kind of criminal defendants, so that the average result is worse of innocent defendants, even though jury trials probably cause more guilty defendants to go free than they would otherwise. The empirical evidence is mixed and is system and context specific (judges might be biased in favor of law enforcement defendants, for example). But the revealed preferences of criminal defendants show an overwhelming belief that the average results of jury trials for them are better than the average results of bench trials for them. The fear of judicial bias also illuminates the circumstances under which the British retain civil jury trials (e.g. in eminent domain valuation proceedings, where judges are seen as having something of a conflict of interest since their department's budget competes for scarce funds with those funds used to pay eminent domain claims). Sometimes being fair is more important than being right, and that is what the jury system strives to do. The belief that judges have some inherent biases overlaps with the notion that the jury may bring a broad range of insight into interpreting the factual presentation and the credibility of witnesses based upon their wider range of personal experiences. The removal of the class and occupational biases of judges generally from the system also does have a democratic aspect to it. It gives granular active control of a key form of state use of power involuntarily over someone to the democratic populace making the system more democratic. Juries also turn a decision made by a lone judge (because unlike civil law systems, common law judges with only rare exceptions conduct bench trials individually, rather than in panels of judges), guarding against the idiosyncrasies of any one individual decision maker. Also, as a practical matter, in the U.S. and pre-modern England, there was a scarcity of legally trained judges so adopting a system calling for far more judges per capita, as civil law legal systems of Continental Europe did, would have been expensive, and juries made collective decision making possible, leveraging scarce judicial resources. Another important facet of this is jury nullification which gives a jury the practical, although often not formally acknowledged, power to disregard the law when its application seems unfair. The revolutionary Americans figures that their fellow citizens would be less likely to convict them of wrongs against an unjust state than British appointed judges had been to do so, and in practice, even in modern times, juries have often been lenient with politically motivated criminal defendants charged by the state with crimes. It also reflects a political calculus on the part of the judiciary collectively. In a bench trial, the public will seek to hold the judge responsible for decisions with which it disagrees and to blame the judiciary collectively for bad decisions. A jury trial deflects blame from the judge to an effectively anonymous and ephemeral group of ordinary citizens so that decisions perceived as bad don't taint the long term reputation of the judge with the public. More generally, bad decisions in high profile court cases can undermined the legitimacy of the government as a whole if made by a judge, but not nearly so much, if made by a jury. Finally, there are decisions that mosts often come up in tort cases (such as personal injury cases, defamation cases, and money claims for violations of civil rights) where a big component of any damage award involves compensatory non-economic damages (e.g. for pain and suffering and damage to dignity) and non-compensatory punitive damages claims, where a jury serves what amounts to an opinion survey-like role by translating intangible harms into fixed sums of money in a way that reflects community opinion, where there is no easy way to define that sum of money in a flexible way to cover myriad situations that a judge can follow in a principled way.
The &quot;why&quot; is pretty simple: the duty of the court is the ensure compliance with the law and uphold the rule of law. A statement to the contrary would undermine that obligation and would undermine a juror's oath to rule consistent with the law. But, out of institutional considerations, any rule that would make jury nullification impossible would also undermine other aspects of the jury trial that are designed to make a jury's determination of the facts of a case in a manner consistent with the law independently. And the oath of jury members to uphold the law is seen as adequate to secure the goal that juries uphold the law. One of the main points of a jury as an institution is to make random members of the general public who will never assemble together again and whose reasons aren't disclosed, rather than an identifiable individual who will continue to serve for decades and is identified with the government responsible for unpopular resolutions of particular criminal cases. If a judge could inquire about the reasons for a jury decision and punish them for making a decision for the wrong reasons, this appearance of independence and transfer of responsibility would be defeated. Another purpose of a jury trial system is to democratize the courts and to make a collective decision of the people at large look like one. But, even rare instances of jurors being disciplined for rendering a verdict in a manner that a judge grilled the jurors upon and found wanting would be problematic with respect to the cause of getting jurors (who already readily evade service) to serve. Therefore, continuing to keep in place the practices with respect to appellate review and the privacy of jury deliberations that makes jury nullification possible in fact, while not acknowledging this &quot;loophole&quot; in the system, is viewed as a suitable compromise. This isn't a breach of a human right to a fair trial because jury nullification is an extra-legal benefit to a criminal defendant to which they have not entitlement for the trial to be fair, and because governments don't have human rights. A jury nullification is in the same moral and human rights territory as an executive branch pardon. It can provide a safety valve that, because of the persons who are exercising it, we believe to be fairly safe from undue abuse, even though it does not implicate legal rights strictly construed.
united-states Procedures differ on such things. The closest I know of to an outcome of "not enough evidence" is the classic "scotch verdict" of "Not Proven. In the US, the prosecutor can wait to proceed with a criminal case while s/he does (or has done) as much investigation as s/he thinks is advisable. But once the trial starts, it normally proceeds to a conclusion. If there is not enough evidence to convict, the result should be "not guilty" and that will bar any future trial of the same person for the same offense under the doctrine of Double Jeopardy. Circumstantial evidence, as described in the question, can be enough to convict, if the jury (or judge in a bench trial) is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty. Exactly how much evidence it takes to convince a Jury varies, and there is not a clear standard other than the phrase " beyond a reasonable doubt". The judge, or a later appeals court, can set aside a jury verdict for insufficient evidence, but only by finding that no reasonable jury could have convicted on the evidence pre3sented, taking it in the light most favorable to conviction. Judges are reluctant to set aside jury verdicts unless they appear badly wrong. If further evidence is found during the trial, which tends to show the accused is not guilty, the prosecutor can request that the trial be halted. This may or may not bar a future re-trial of the same defendant, depending on whether the dismissal is 'without prejudice", a decision the Judge makes. But once evidence has been started to be presented, dismissals are usually "with prejudice" meaning that double jeopardy applies. The defense can also request a dismissal, most often at the end of the prosecution case. In rare circumstances the Judge may dismiss without a request from either prosecution or defense. These will most often be "with prejudice" It is possible for the trial to be recessed while new evidence is evaluated or sought, but this is rare and usually only for a short time -- a day or two, perhaps. In general a prosecutor is not supposed to schedule a trial if there is any reasonable chance of additional evidence coming to light. It can and does happen, but the system tries to avoid it, and does not easily accept that it has happened. This answer is US-Specific, and different answers may apply in other places.
It is possible that someone is convicted. Destruction of evidence an constitute circumstantial evidence that a crime was committed, and other evidence, such as testimony, could pin the crime to one of the four possible suspects. A jury has broad discretion to assess the weight of the evidence.
What are the factors in weighting whether to disclose substantive evidence vs. using it for impeachment at trial? In an adversarial system (such as that in the jurisdictions in the U.S.) the surprise factor is disallowed on trial. I am not knowledgeable on the procedural exceptions, but generally speaking the documentary evidence (including deposition transcripts) has to be filed during the discovery stage of proceedings. A discovery deadline is set up during case scheduling, and extensions of that deadline have to be requested via motion. There is the slightly related concept of sequestration of witnesses whereby inconsistencies may serve to impeach a witness's testimony, but that is different than withholding from the jury any pre-existing evidence that a plaintiff would like to be considered on trial (whether for impeachment or otherwise). Also, it is in the injured party's best interest that the jury get to see the evidence rather than have it merely rely on a witness's reaction of surprise. The wrongdoer's lawyer will try to confuse the jury and thus outweigh the jury's perception of a "surprised witness", but that attempt is likelier to fail if the jury has the evidence with which to compare the witness's testimony at trial.
I don't think that's an accurate interpretation of the statement. The key difference between the two scenarios is the defendant's legal assessment of who owns the necklace. In the first he thinks he is the owner and can claim mistake of law; in the second, he he thinks someone else is the owner, so he cannot. To say he believes "the law allows for someone to do whatever they want with lost property even if they know who the rightful owner is" is very different from saying he thinks he's the owner. He doesn't think he's the legal owner, he just thinks he has legal rights that include some rights associated with ownership. So if the defendant's statement had actually been, "I thought I was the owner," that would have been a successful defense when the crime requires depriving the owner of the property. The defense was actually, "I thought I was allowed to deprive the owner of the property," which is an admission of guilt when the crime requires depriving the owner of the property. There are a couple questions here: a. A different crime that did not require intent -- or even required a different kind of intent -- could still lead to a conviction. A legislature is free to define larceny differently, so it could say that anyone who recklessly or negligently deprives another of property is guilty. Or it could say that your state of mind doesn't matter and that depriving another of property is larceny regardless of intent. b. In most cases, the mistake of law defense requires that the defendant honestly believe in the mistake; unlike mistake of fact, it does not require that his belief also be reasonable. Either way, the question of reasonableness would probably be a question for a jury, so a judge wouldn't be able to reject it (except in a bench trial). c. Mistake of law is a potential defense to any crime that requires an intent to do something that requires an assessment of what the law is. So if it's illegal to intentionally have sex with a woman who is not your wife, and you mistakenly believed you were in a legal marriage, sex with your non-wife would not be a crime. It has potentially very broad implications, but keep in mind that in many cases, the mistake a defendant would have to claim would be pretty far out there. If it were illegal to intentionally let anyone under 21 years old into your bar, I guess you could argue that you only let a 20-year-old in because you thought the law started calculating at conception, but I doubt you'll convince a jury. Mistake of law defenses still pop up pretty regularly. Here's one just yesterday from the Tenth Circuit. And this one is a Kansas case where a conviction for carrying a weapon while a felon was overturned because the court wouldn't allow a mistake-of-law defense. The Kansas case, though, uses the more modern definition of mistake of law, which also includes reasonable reliance on official statements from the government. In that case, the felon's parole officer had told him that it was OK to carry a pocketknife, but in reality, the law titled "Criminal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon" prohibited carrying knives, as well.
If an adult had physically restrained the miscreant brat, they could be sued for / charged with battery (which does not mean "beating up", per Cal Penal 242, it is the "willful and unlawful use of force or violence upon the person of another". In either case, there is a defense that can be mounted, the "defense of others" defense, to the effect that the person had a reasonable belief that it was necessary to prevent physical harm to others. Which means, the jury would imagine themselves in that situation and guess how likely it is that someone might get hurt. Lofting 5 lb chess pieces at a 2 year old could poke out an eye, especially since they haven't learned to duck at that age – however, I question (as would an opposing attorney) the characterization "quite dangerous". At any rate, it would depend on the level of danger posed. There is also a "proportionality" requirement for the defense of others defense: "The defendant used no more force than was reasonably necessary to defend against that danger" (CalCrim instruction 3470). The battery might not have been necessary, since simply getting between the criminal and his victims could have been sufficient. As to whether there would actually be a lawsuit, that depends in part on the mind-set of the parents. Assuming that the level of force did not rise above simple bodily contact, it is unlikely that a jury would vote to convict / find liable, but certainly not impossible. If under those circumstances the results would not be in serious doubt, then it is unlikely that the person would be prosecuted (the prosecutor wouldn't bother with such a case). We may also assume that a decent attorney would persuade the offended parent-client that it is not a good use of their money to pursue he matter. Still, the risk is not negligible, since you don't know whether you'll have bad luck with the jury, or whether the child suffers from eggshell skull syndrome and then you would be is serious trouble. I don't think the fears are unrealistic, though they may be improbable, and they could be definitive for people who live in fear.
We have all see on TV the judge instruct jurors that during trial they are not to speak about the case with anyone, even other jurors, unless all jurors are present and they are deliberating. However, contrary to the example given about England, in the U.S., those restrictions evaporate at the end of the trial. After a trial concludes, the court has no continuing control over the jurors and could not impose lasting restrictions without it. The Constitution provides the guarantee of trial by a jury of ones peers. In the U.S. for all general civil cases and all criminal cases, we have public trials. (special courts and tribunals are created to deal with cases involving classified information and issues of national security, and the courts have mechanisms for handling trade secrets, etc. to insure that information is not presented to jurors) So in that sense, there is nothing a juror could be exposed to in during their service as jurors that would require any type of continuing restriction.