What are the advantages and disadvantages of a trial by jury??
Coach Maldonado's 5th and 6th period Government class
Advantages of Juries
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Disadvantages of Juries
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A jury composed of a diverse and unbiased group of people can lend some definite advantages to a person being tried for a crime. For example, in the unlikely instance that a single judge would be unfairly biased against the defendant, there would be much less of a chance of all the jurors being biased. Unfair bias was what the trial by jury system was originally intended to prevent. Side: Advantages of Juries
A jury composed of a diverse and unbiased group of people can lend some definite advantages to a person being tried for a crime. For example, in the unlikely instance that a single judge would be unfairly biased against the defendant, there would be much less of a chance of all the jurors being biased. Unfair bias was what the trial by jury system was originally intended to prevent. Side: Advantages of Juries
The advantage of having a trial by jury allows a sort of "second trial." For example, in the movie Twelve Angry Men, every single jury member voted guilty, except for one. The other eleven men demanded his reasons for voting Not Guilty, and he gave them. In the end, they voted Not Guilty unanimously. Now, the defendant in question was charged with murder, to which the penalty was death by electrocution. However, the evidence, which most of the jury members did not question, was not as sound as they thought, and the man that voted Not guilty showed them that. If the defendant hadn't had a jury, then he would have been sentenced to death, whether he was guilty or not, due to the meager and circumstantial evidence. Side: Advantages of Juries
The obvious advantages of having a trial by jury is that they with hold the decision of deciding guilty or not guilty of the accuser. It gives the ability to try the accused case with a new set of eyes. They can only judge the person on what has been presented in court and so from the constitution it would be considered a fair trial. So it definitely has its advantages in the fact that it can assist in the biggest decision of someones life through having ordinary people like you and me use the materials presented and come up with a justified reason. Side: Advantages of Juries
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I support trial by jury because it gives the accused defendant or plaintiff a fair and adequate review of their argument. Without the jury, it would be left up to the minds and hearts of the judges, which are often times unrelenting due to their experience and knowledge of the matters at hand. Jurors tend to be emotionally tapped by the defendants plea which can cause them to not be as biased as a judge and make a beneficial decision whether it be guilty or not guilty. Side: Advantages of Juries
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An advantage of having a jury is that the person on trial gets a verdict from a neutral voice in the case from an unrelated outside group of people. The jury gets to hear both sides of the case, view evidence, and gets to view how the defendant responds to the case. The juror then gets to cast their vote, based on their feelings about the case. Without the jury the choice would be left up solely to the judge, who sometimes let their personal views on the case and/or defendant affect their better judgment. Side: Advantages of Juries
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When on trial a disadvantage of having a trial by jury is the fact that a jury is made up of 12 people, 12 citizens who may have done whatever they can to get OUT of jury duty but still got put on. This can easily make any person annoyed, biased, and uncaring to what happens to the poeple in the case but instead only caring about doing whatever they can to get out of the court as soon as possibe. A jury is as any are, open to human error, if the case has been prolonged, some may alow their judgement to be swayed so they can get out. Side: Disadvantages of Juries
One disadvantage of a trial by jury is that the jurors may not have any legal experience and may believe which ever lawyer sounds the most convincing and persuasive, which may also mean many of the jurors might not think straight and follow the rest of the crowd instead of actually putting an effort forward to explain why they choose the guilty or not guilty. The are everyday americans and among that group there will probably be people who feel like they had no choice but to be there and may not care Side: Disadvantages of Juries
The major disadvantage of have a trial by jury is that people tend to bring their own experiences and prejudices. Take the movie Twelve Angry Men, for instance. One of the jurors had a prejudice against people from slums. This prevented the man from seeing reason, so he stubbornly voted guilty, until the other jurors finally broke through to him. The defendant could have been sentenced to death because of one man's biased beliefs. Side: Disadvantages of Juries
Though having trial by jury is a fair process, it still contains many disadvantages. Having ordinary people partake in there civic duties doesn't mean that there aren't some that are prejudice towards the case at hand. In the movie "Twelve Angry Men" one of the jury member was blatantly calling the accused guilty based off of life threatening stereotypes. Also the fact that we are human and some people might have the tendency to associate there personal problem into someone else's verdict as depicted in "Twelve Angry Men" is also a clear disadvantage to the accused. The disadvantages are apparent and do occur in the court legal system today. Side: Disadvantages of Juries
It is true that some jurors do not know about the law and the responsibility that their duties carry. Some might take their job lightly and make a hasty judgment in efforts to get back to their jobs or lives. A judge, paid to judge cases in as much fairness as possible, would have no distractions and commit his full focus to the case. Side: Disadvantages of Juries
A possible, if unlikely disadvantage of a jury trial is that the jury may be generally prejudiced. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson is framed by a scared and uneducated girl, and though he is completely innocent, a prejudiced jury doesn't listen to the lawyer's logic, and Tom Robinson is convicted and sent to prison. Sometimes a jury does not reflect the moral sentiments of all the the jurors, but the biases and prejudices of a community. Side: Disadvantages of Juries
A disadvantage of trial by jury is that a jury is made up of 12 ordinary Americans selected by random. 12 Americans who had to take time off of their personal lives and probably have better things to do with their time then sit in a court room with a bunch of strangers for lord knows how long. For this simple reason there is no guarantee that the person on trial will have a completely fair trial. Those jurors are going to do whatever it takes to get out of there as soon as possible, even if that may mean following the crowd and going against what they believe and send an innocent person to prison. Side: Disadvantages of Juries
Furthermore, sometimes, corporations pay experts to analyze jurors to get a particular outcome. The jurors are not necessarily as random as they are supposed to be. Experts try to predict how a person will vote based on their occupation, race, economic standing, gender, and other factors. In this way, a jury can be rigged, and it might be in the defendant's best interest to have a trial by a single judge instead of a jury. Side: Disadvantages of Juries
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