Quote:
Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!
Why are we talking about the death penalty and if it's right or wrong?
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I appreciate your noble effort to keep this thread on topic.
A jury should be held accountable if they knowingly, willingly, and wittingly violate a law. Making a mistake, in good faith, should not be punished.
With some exceptions, juries are in "receive mode" only. They listen to what is presented by the prosecution and the defense. I believe that in all cases, the jury is instructed, by the judge, to only consider that which was presented by the prosecution and defense in making their decision.
This places a great responsibility on the prosecutor and defense to, combined, give the jury the most complete accounting, from the two different viewpoints.
I have never understood how many people can denigrate defense attorneys but not equally denigrate prosecutors. Both should be equally suspect and both need to be held accountable. If I were king, I would have both prosecution and defense attorneys under oath during the trial.
There should be a line, that when crossed, would require prosecution of a prosecutor or defense attorney who blatantly corrupts and perverts the justice system.
I do know that if I were on a jury, I would have a hard voting for conviction, for a serious crime, when the
only evidence is a
single personnel testimony. There has to be some evidence, no matter how circumstantial, to collaborate human testimony.
I have a hard time trusting a system where the prosecutor is rewarded by number of convictions.
Speaking from the position of an innocent person, I strongly believe in the schema "better to let 10 guilty people go free then to wrongly convict an innocent person".