How do you guys from the US live with your corrupt justice system?

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Same way you people from EU live with it?
Just ignore it start to finish. It doesn't effect my daily life so I couldn't give a damn.

[Argarock]

Name a justice system in whichever country that is not corrupt in one way or another. No system is perfect, no matter where you live.

Why do people think this is a good arguement?

"Well, things aren't perfect other places so that makes our broken ass system ok!"

[Stormdash]

We have an alarmingly high number of people who were falsely convicted in prisons, and an even higher number who went with a plea bargain because lawyers (counsel) know that being found guilty after a trial carries a MUCH heavier sentencing. Juries are also easily won over by circumstantial evidence.

Here's a pretty good article explaining why people will plead guilty even if they are not. It also requires insanely expensive lawyers to get you out of this. Like $700/hr+

It is both historically and legally ignorant to think that bench trials would improve any of these concerns. Is there any of the 1000 year history of individual liberties and legal protections that the intellectual fuck-ups of today haven't decided they are too brilliant for?

[Claborn]

I would be concerned about anybody in a jury. Every American knows how to get out of it so the fact that a person got picked, whether they know about the trial or not, is a huge red flag. how dumb are you that you couldnt get out of jury duty?? I rest my case.

[Armourboy]

I would be concerned about anybody in a jury. Every American knows how to get out of it so the fact that a person got picked, whether they know about the trial or not, is a huge red flag. how dumb are you that you couldnt get out of jury duty?? I rest my case.

With the way the system is you eventually get something, unless you want to lie in a court of law. If you are kicked out of the pool for one case they just stick you in the pool for another.

Also some people see it as their duty to do it.

Also if you want a case of why a judge based system isn't really better, check out the Amanda Knox case in Italy. That is the biggest mess of a case I have ever seen.

[Stormdash]

It's a false assumption that juries are "dumb" people. Some, most probably, are just... honest. Yeah, there are ways to get out of jury duty, most of which involve being a lying sack of shit during voir dire. People who are honest and/or just take the civic duty of it seriously just... get put on juries. Attorneys don't challenge people they think are too "smart", they usually challenge people who they don't think can be trusted to confine their deliberations to the evidence presented at trial because they have independent knowledge of the subject matter... like lawyers, lawyers are typically not welcomed by parties on juries because lawyers will have insight into why things happened during the trial and may draw conclusions about things that weren't brought up at trial, etc.

Juries are just ordinary people, and by and large, they take what they do very seriously, and where they tend to err, it's on the side of caution against falsely imprisoning someone. Yes, it happens, that's why there is an appellate process, it's also why judges can JNOV and acquit if a jury convicted against the weight of the evidence, and it's why executives can commute sentences or pardon offenses.

[Cthulhu 2020]

It is both historically and legally ignorant to think that bench trials would improve any of these concerns. Is there any of the 1000 year history of individual liberties and legal protections that the intellectual fuck-ups of today haven't decided they are too brilliant for?

Our system is fucked up, and burden of proof is all but irrelevant. Not saying I'm offering an alternative, but figuring that the jury will just magically figure out the right answer is pretty wrong. Circumstantial evidence reigns in our system.

[Smauldy]

I rant about the US "Justice" system all the time. It's horrendous and needs to be totally scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up.

[Stormdash]

Our system is fucked up, and burden of proof is all but irrelevant. Not saying I'm offering an alternative, but figuring that the jury will just magically figure out the right answer is pretty wrong. Circumstantial evidence reigns in our system.

So you're voluntarily stepping into the CSI effect bubble? Most evidence in all civil or criminal trials are necessarily circumstantial evidence, because reality. Changing who the finder of fact is at trial (i.e. the jury is the finder of fact) or arbiter of law is or isn't doesn't change the nature of the available evidence.

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I rant about the US "Justice" system all the time. It's horrendous and needs to be totally scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up.

Into what?

[Varaben]

Probably because most of us have never had any interaction with the justice system. It hasn't hit us personally, so it's hard to care too much about it. I've never been arrested and as far as I know, no one in my family has either.

That's not to say everything is peachy, but no impact to me means it's off my radar in most cases. Selfish? Sure. I'm sure the justice system is corrupt, but what can I do besides vote (I just started)? Start one of those white house petitions that doesn't mean anything? Use my scant free time to hold a protest or something?

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Our system is fucked up, and burden of proof is all but irrelevant. Not saying I'm offering an alternative, but figuring that the jury will just magically figure out the right answer is pretty wrong. Circumstantial evidence reigns in our system.

Worse than that, eye witness testimony is a bedrock of our justice system, and it's largely been proven unreliable. So not only are we going off circumstantial evidence, the "real" evidence we have in many cases is bullshit.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Worse than that, eye witness testimony is a bedrock of our justice system, and it's largely been proven unreliable. So not only are we going off circumstantial evidence, the "real" evidence we have in many cases is bullshit.

Even worse, DNA has been found to be incredibly unreliable and yet juries are all too quick to apply the guilty verdict on a supposed match because TV.