Here's an interesting thought experiment, from Richard Dawkins: "Should twelve jurors be locked in twelve isolation chambers and their opinions separately polled so that they constitute genuinely independent data? If it is objected that some would be too stupid or inarticulate to reach a verdict on their own, we are left wondering why such individuals are allowed on a jury at all. Perhaps there is something to be said for the collective wisdom that emerges when a group of twelve people thrash out a topic together, round a table. But this still leaves the principle of independent data unsatisfied.
Should all cases be tried by two separate juries? Or three? Or twelve? Too expensive, at least if each jury has twelve members. Two juries of six members, or three juries of four members, would probably be an improvement over the present system. But isn’t there some way of testing the relative merits of such alternative options, or of comparing the merits of trial by jury versus trial by judge?
Yes, there is. I’ll call it the Two Verdicts Concordance Test. It is based on the principle that, if a decision is valid, two independent shots at making it should yield the same result. Just for purposes of the test, we run to the expense of having two juries, listening to the same case and forbidden to talk to members of the other jury. At the end, we lock the two juries in two separate jury rooms and see if they reach the same verdict. If they don’t, nothing can be proved beyond reasonable doubt, and this would cast reasonable doubt on the jury system itself.
To make the experimental comparison with Trial by Judge, we need two experienced judges to listen to the same case, and require them too to reach their separate verdicts without talking to each other. Whichever system, Trial by Jury or Trial by Judge, yields the higher score of agreements over a number of trials is the better system and might even be accredited for future use with some confidence."
I like this idea a lot, although I think Dawkins would agree that it's only a partial solution, since consistency and accuracy may not be positively correlated. Even if the principle underlying the Two Verdicts Concordance Test is correct (that if a decision is valid, two independent attempts at making it would yield the same result), that does not necessarily imply that if two independent attempts at a decision yield the same result, that the decision is necessarily valid. For example, juries (or judges) might tend to make the same types of errors or be manipulated in the same ways by lawyers' tactics.
Should all cases be tried by two separate juries? Or three? Or twelve? Too expensive, at least if each jury has twelve members. Two juries of six members, or three juries of four members, would probably be an improvement over the present system. But isn’t there some way of testing the relative merits of such alternative options, or of comparing the merits of trial by jury versus trial by judge?
Yes, there is. I’ll call it the Two Verdicts Concordance Test. It is based on the principle that, if a decision is valid, two independent shots at making it should yield the same result. Just for purposes of the test, we run to the expense of having two juries, listening to the same case and forbidden to talk to members of the other jury. At the end, we lock the two juries in two separate jury rooms and see if they reach the same verdict. If they don’t, nothing can be proved beyond reasonable doubt, and this would cast reasonable doubt on the jury system itself.
To make the experimental comparison with Trial by Judge, we need two experienced judges to listen to the same case, and require them too to reach their separate verdicts without talking to each other. Whichever system, Trial by Jury or Trial by Judge, yields the higher score of agreements over a number of trials is the better system and might even be accredited for future use with some confidence."
I like this idea a lot, although I think Dawkins would agree that it's only a partial solution, since consistency and accuracy may not be positively correlated. Even if the principle underlying the Two Verdicts Concordance Test is correct (that if a decision is valid, two independent attempts at making it would yield the same result), that does not necessarily imply that if two independent attempts at a decision yield the same result, that the decision is necessarily valid. For example, juries (or judges) might tend to make the same types of errors or be manipulated in the same ways by lawyers' tactics.
1 Comments:
The current jury system stinks. It is full of unqualified people who think based on emotion rather than dealing with facts. There probably needs to be some minimum standard for jurors to meet.
Also, if you look at "Wisdom of Crowds" stuff, you get better decision making when the peopl who are voting come from different backgrounds. By giving people a trial with "a jury of their peers" we are not guaranteeing a sufficiently broad background to fully evaluate evidence.
By Anonymous, at 11:17 AM
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