Judiciary Catering to Stupidity...At the Expense of Justice (1 Viewer)

[aquapub]

Catering to people who make choices out of weakness and stupidity only encourages more of the same. This incredibly basic truth eludes our government time and time again.

Our judiciary has just set a convicted murderer free because of a ridiculous ordeal that stemmed from the courts trying to accomodate, rather than punish stupidity. It began when the judiciary decided that having prisoners wear orange prison jump suits at trial inescapably biases the jury against the suspect.

Stop.

There's the first mistake. If our juries are so nose-pickingly stupid that they can't judge a case on its merits, or at least on something more substantive than the clothing of the defendant, then we've got far bigger problems than will be fixed by changing the clothes of the defendants.

We need to expect more intelligence than this out of our people or the situation is only going to get worse.

But since our judiciary apparently demands nothing of our citizens while they determine the fate of suspects, the problem has worsened...

Now a convicted murderer has been set free because the family of his victim wore 2 inch buttons into the court room that showed a picture of the victim. According to the reasoning of the jump suit ruling, this prejudices the jury by "making" them sympathize with the victim.

Of course, we could actually expect jurors to think for themselves, in which case, seeing 2 inch buttons from across a courtroom wouldn't enslave them to the views of the prosecution. :roll:

Associated Press Online. October 11, 2006. High Court to Hear Overturned Murder Cases. PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer.

http://web.lexis-nexis.com.proxy.li...z-zSkVb&_md5=da131fcf7b7867cdbcffe33b4b135214

 

[Patrickt]

"Now a convicted murderer has been set free because the family of his victim wore 2 inch buttons into the court room that showed a picture of the victim. According to the reasoning of the jump suit ruling, this prejudices the jury by "making" them sympathize with the victim."

I don't have a link but neither did you. I believe a new trial was ordered and no one was "set free".

I have more faith in juries than in the rest of the system but I believe emotion always trumps logic and the jury should decide on logic. I think things that call on emotions should be restricted in the trial but evidence shouldn't be.

It's impossible to eliminate emotion when the case involves a horrible crime but that's the goal.

As to dress, I think it's an important attempt to remove bias. Everyone connected to the trial appears looking their best and most innocent, accused and accuser alike.

 

[aquapub]

What message does that send? People have to dress a certain way so that the knuckle-dragging retards we put on juries can be protected from their own stupidity.

We should not have to fashion this perfect little microcosm to prevent people from having to think for themselves.

 

[shuamort]

I served on a jury not too long ago. Yes, there are some slow-witted folks on there. That said...

This article is ridiculous. I'm not much for the slippery slope, but knowing a lawyer's ideal of stare decesis, I can imagine them saying that the trial wasn't fair because of the defendant/jurist's race/color/religion/age/beady eyes/small hands/infrequent smile/et al.

 

[Kandahar]

What message does that send? People have to dress a certain way so that the knuckle-dragging retards we put on juries can be protected from their own stupidity.

We should not have to fashion this perfect little microcosm to prevent people from having to think for themselves.

Being biased by the way people dress doesn't make you a "knuckle-dragging retard." Would you show up to work wearing a beer T-shirt? Would you go on a date wearing pajamas? Would you go to a club dressed like a CIA agent?

People judge others by the way they dress all the time.

 

[Morrow]

People are stupid, and our jury selection process screens out smart people because they will bring in outside material onto their vote. They aren't as easy to control. There is no such thing as a fair trial in the United States, or anywhere else. And there never will be. Thats the system.

I agree it is stupid, but most people simply the lack the ability to abstract an orange jump suit from a criminal. An orange jumpsuit holds a one ot one coorelaiton in their mind. Our society has a lot of instances in it where something bad happens because everyone isn't a mature well developed rational human being. The question I ask myself is how I can help this.

 

[aquapub]

Being biased by the way people dress doesn't make you a "knuckle-dragging retard." Would you show up to work wearing a beer T-shirt? Would you go on a date wearing pajamas? Would you go to a club dressed like a CIA agent?

People judge others by the way they dress all the time.

But when you are judging life and death....making your judgements on clothing DOES make you a knuckle-dragging retard.

And we're not talking about what you elect to wear to one event or another. We are talking about the high courts ORDERING that clothing be changed so that idiot jurors don't have to think.

The courts are encouraging weakness here, thus they will only get more of it. Where does it end once you obligate the courts to compensate for people basing their verdicts on clothing?

 

[Patrickt]

Obviously, there are knuckle-dragging retards. But, I spent years going in front of juries and most were honest, intelligent, hard-working people who were trying to do a good job.

You can try your social engineering to change people opions all you want but not in a courtroom where important decisions are being made. Aquapub, you can make your point by appearing for job interviews in an orange jumpsuit and you get to lecture the interviewer on the lack of importance of dress as he shows you out.

 

[aquapub]

Obviously, there are knuckle-dragging retards. But, I spent years going in front of juries and most were honest, intelligent, hard-working people who were trying to do a good job.

You can try your social engineering to change people opions all you want but not in a courtroom where important decisions are being made. Aquapub, you can make your point by appearing for job interviews in an orange jumpsuit and you get to lecture the interviewer on the lack of importance of dress as he shows you out.

Ludicrous. Our jurors can grasp that the reason defendants are in orange jump suits is that they are in jail during the trial.

Acting as if that's such a complicated feat of intelligence only lowers the already ridiculously low standards we have.

 

[Kandahar]

Ludicrous. Our jurors can grasp that the reason defendants are in orange jump suits is that they are in jail during the trial.

Acting as if that's such a complicated feat of intelligence only lowers the already ridiculously low standards we have.

It has nothing to do with intelligence or "grasping the reason." Are you telling me you never make subconscious judgments about people based on the way they dress?

 

[Flea]

Have any of you served on a jury? Been called to jury duty? Sorry, but in general, smart people don't serve on juries. Attornies want stupid people that they can sway. Certain stereotypes. Bash this generalization if you like, but I have witnessed it, heard this from trial lawyers that I know, and from other credible sources.

Stupidity runs ramapant in juries.

:rofl

 

[aquapub]

From the Supreme Court's debating on this issue yesterday:


"A typical jury will understand that the victim is going to have a family, and they're going to be sorry he's dead, and they might be there at the trial," Roberts said. "The buttons don't seem to add much to what the jury will derive from seeing the family seated behind the prosecution bench."

Kennedy noted that displays of emotion in the courtroom are common. "If the family were there, and one of the members was sobbing, with tears coming out of her eyes ... that has much more impact than a button."

Even Breyer questioned whether the buttons were a constitutional violation. "Why isn't this a normal sign of grief?" he asked.

Also, at one point, somebody mentioned that buttons urge the jury to convict, and Scalia said, "doesn't the prosecutor also urge the jury to convict?"

THANK YOU!!! I love Scalia.

If our citizens are so incapable of thinking independantly of what they are urged to do, then we should be able to look back through case files and find that 100% of the verdicts side with whichever side got to do their closing statements last, right?

The courts catered to stupidity with the orange jumpsuits, and now a murderer's legitimate, solid conviction has been overturned as a result. This is why you don't cater to stupidity.