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Order in the e-Court!
theodp writes "Every word spoken in the e-Courtroom where Branden Basham is on trial for his life appears immediately before the judge on a computer screen. There's a flat-screen monitor between every two seats in the jury box, a witness-box monitor with touch-screen features, and large-screen monitors for public viewing. Lawyers say e-Courtrooms help reduce trial time by making evidence display and tracking documents more efficient. 'It made the Chadrick Fulks' case three to five days shorter,' said an Assistant U.S. Attorney, referring to Basham's co-defendant, who plead guilty and was sentenced to death."
In fact, while we're at it, let's just put the whole thing up on a Fox News Poll... no better justice than majority!
I wonder what they'll have to start charging to make up for the loss in billable hours?
I don't know if I should laugh, be sick, "tsk tsk" the story, or contemplate why the hell we really exist.
..I'm relieved at the fact that we can get people into the chair more quickly. Texas prisons are going to have a line out the door!
(Seriously, though, the right to a fair and speedy trial should be helped by this. Not a troll.)
that eMotion.
I work for CVision (the closed circuit IP based system used in the article). Frankly, this type of technology has to be stopped. When we're testing the systems in new installations we're ordered to cut back on the gamma and hike up the contrast for the cameras that focus on the defendant.
The reason? To make the defendant more menacing.
Cameras focused at the witness stand are lightened up and softened somewhat to make the witness appear more likeable. It's a total joke, fortunately my contract ends in just shy of 3 months.
Technology is fine, but this is an outright abuse.
Where's the e-judge? A non-bribable A.I. would go a long way toward achieving proper justice in this country... Bonus points if it's capable of throwing the book (literally or figuratively, I don't care which) at both clients and lawyers bringing stupid lawsuits.
His accomplise pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death, the article says. I always thought that the whole point of a guilty plea was to lower the severity of the maximum sentence.
referring to Basham's co-defendant, who plead guilty and was sentenced to death
Seriously, what's wrong with this guy? Why would he plead guilty without some type of consideration?
If I'm facing the death penalty, I'd at least take my chances with a trial. There's no point in pleading guilty KNOWING that the state is seeking execution.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
so it basically would have taken at least 3 days to look at the evidence in a conventional manner? Maybe I'm really missing something here, but this sounds like hype to me.
I don't read replies by ACs.
"Every word spoken in the e-Courtroom where Isaac Horowitz is on trial for his life appears immediately before the judge on a computer screen. There's a flat-screen monitor between every two seats in the jury box, a witness-box monitor with touch-screen features, and large-screen monitors for public viewing. Lawyers say e-Courtrooms help reduce trial time by making evidence display and tracking documents more efficient. 'It made the Levi Rubinowitz case three to five minutes shorter,' said an Assistant Third Reich Attorney, referring to Horowitz's co-defendant, who plead guilty and was sentenced to death."
I really don't think I want to be judged on the skill of my lawer in photoshop and powerpoint...
Seriously, powerpoint is one of the things that NASA reports have blamed for the lack of attention to some details... I really think that the old, hash though paper way keeps the legal system more secure from tampering... (as much as it can be anyhow)
I don't see anyone would be up in arms about this. Keeping track of evidence and testimonies, paying attention is difficult, to say the least, for individuals with no legal training. A method of keeping track of evidence to help juries make reasoned decisions will lead to more fair trials. Additionally, resolving issues faster is in the interests of everyone involved: the defendant, the plaintiff, and the jury. The only ones who lose are lawyers who charge by the hour!
Nice thought exercise in how such a system could be abused... but it has a glaring hole. Any time the defendant took the stand in their own defense, they'd suddenly gain the favorable witness camera as they spoke... if there was a glaring difference in the two cameras, it'd be as clear as daylight when the person moved to the better camera.
How dare you call for censorship. All opinions should be treated equally, even if we disagree with them. Why are you promoting muzzling of ideas you do not like instead of just allowing the marketplace of ideas to take place and letting all ideas be brought forth to the table?
Hypocrite.
That was when using a 2GHz CPU. Now if we used a dual 3GHz CPU with a better graphics card, the whole trial could be over in 15 seconds.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"The only ones who lose are lawyers who charge by the hour!"
They're not losing that much. The majority of their money is made outside of the courts.
A trial is becoming a more rare occurance in U.S. District courts. Most judges now use summary judgments to knock out cases before they even get to trial. It's easier, cheaper, and clears the dockets faster. Most cases are won in pre-trial motions where technology doesn't really matter.
An aside: in the rare event a case does make it to trial, the new technology doesn't change the fact that all a trial is is just two conflicting stories of the same event. The lawyer who can tell the story better, with more passion and zeal, who really, truly believes in their client's cause will always win over PowerPoint, guaranteed.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Technology in the courtroom is great up to the point where we are called to function without it, and find we are unable to do so. For example, imagine tryng a murder or rape case without the use of DNA evidence. The defendant may have confessed, and performed the act in front of a nun and two priests... but the jury expects expensive DNA testing, and you cannot get a convition without it.
Likewise with courtroom technology - When lawyers and jurors are over-used to the presence of touch screens and video equipment, what will they do when called to a courtroom in rural South Dakota that has barely the budget to keep the furnace running?
Also consider that, where human beings are doing the work, someone is ultimately responsible for a mistake. Court reporters and Notary Publics post bonds and can loos big money if they make a mistake. When is the last time your software vendor assumed liability for a computer crash?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
The honorable judge Dr.Sbaitso, now presiding over the courts
Lawyer 1 : Your honorable Sbaitso, a bloody glove was found in the bushes of Branden Basham's front yard. If you'll just look at exhi..
Judge Sbaitso : Yes. But why?
Lawyer 1 : The glove was found within a 50 meter perimeter of the murder. Er, uh, if you'll just look at exhi..
Judge Sbaitso : I am just a simple computer program without a math-coprocessor.
Lawyer 1 : Your honor, if you would simply look at exhibit A
Judge Sbaitso : Yes, but you could be mistaken.
Judge Sbaitso : Did you know you can change my colors?
"You and your third dimension."
My sig seems appropriate.
"-- James Fenimore Cooper
The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge, and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal."
ntizzow.
"Confronting your accuser" and "facing a jury of your peers" works both ways. Human communication is extremely high bandwidth, a gestalt of not only extremely high resolution sights and sounds, but also smells, odd as that might be to consider. In-person communications don't have the distracting "grids" that communications technologies impose on the experience, or other distracting problems like color curves and transmission glitches. Then there's the selection of subject of the communications: you have to look at the cropped content the recorder sends you, not at the subject's twitching foot, or your neighbor's incredulous face. And rather than face a camera to compose your message, you face another person, who's facing you.
People are not nearly sophisticated enought to ignore the noise introduced by these technologies, and to notice the edited experiences they ignore. Does "can you hear me now?" mean anything to anyone? We can barely use these technologies in a cooperative conference call, with little more than "where should we meet for lunch?" on the line. It's unconscionable that people's lives are on the line with these technologies in the mix.
--
make install -not war
To be honest, they are using technologies that have been in use in schools and many other places for a long time. It looks like most of what they are doing is letting everyone get a better look at the evidence by aiming a camera at it, and networking the court's stenographer. This kind of stuff isn't really newsworthy to me, as we've been using the same kind of technology at my high school for over four years.
However, at least they're providing a users manual for the thing. I've seen quite a few teachers waste time with technology that they don't know how to deal with, and IT people who dont feel like taking the time out to ensure that things are setup correctly in the first place.
parent obviously doesn't understand irony
I've thought for a long time that the entire case should be recorded and then shown to a jury. Both sides can present their best cases and nobody can get away with theatrics.
Atty 1: "So has your buggering of small animals caused harm to your eyesight making you an unfit witness?"
Atty 2: "Objection"
Judge: "Sustained - the jury is instructed to disregard."
Atty 1: "No further questions"
Any question/response ruled inadmissable would be deleted - no chance of influencing the jury either intentionally or by accident.
If the jury pool is tainted or unable to reach a verdict, just seat a new jury and replay the recordings.
If evidence or judge's instructions are ruled incorrect or inadmissable by a higher court just edit the recording and show it to a new jury. This also eliminates the problem of a witness who dies before a retrial.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
I think that if there was a situation where the evidence required more tactile understanding I think this system will do the case a disservice. But this particular case - man - those people were first class assholes. I'm not for the death penalty - I would prefer to hand out a sentence of life imprisonment with Bubba The Butt Bandit. Torture is so much more amusing. But I know that's a big point of contention - Suffice to say, I think these asshats are going to get something similar to what they deserve, and the technology had no bearing on the distribution of justice.
It seems they were guilty Guilty GUILTY of really bad things.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
IANAL, but I believe I'm right here. Common sense comes into play.
one of the most basic rights americans have is the right to face the accuser. the monitor, or any technology like that is one more obstical between the witness and the accused takes away that right. the accused has a right to be in the courthouse with the witness, to watch them, to see how they respond, to ask questions. there is a human element that defense lawyers have, they are expert at understanding body language. having monitors instead of people in the same room would make it easier to lie.
Come and say hi. http://forum.penpals.com/index.php
I do hardware design. I'm doing my best to make sure that nothing that I do helps anyone to kill anyone else. Now it seems that even designing an LCD monitor might be making someone's death happen sooner.
Let's just be clear about this: killing people is considered WRONG out here in the "rest of the world". The U.S. is in the company of a few places like China, Saudi Arabia and the former regime in Iraq by killing people convicted of serious crimes. IT IS NOT NORMAL. Let's all boycot the United States and everything that comes out of it until they stop this unpleasant practice.
Plead guilty and was sentanced to death?!?
I dunno, I tend to be very anti-death-penalty. But, when someone comes into the court room and tries to get off on a technicality, or convince the jury to reduce the charge to manslaughter, or whatnot, I think we'd be more likely to hand out a death sentance.
When someone walks in and is like, "Yes, I admit I did it", how does that work? Thank you for saving the taxpayers lots of money by not going through a trial, and thank you for being upfront and honest about your crime; now, die!
It's not punishment, it's prevention, right?
~Will
sig?
I am concerned about the impact of this technology on people's ability to understand the word as it is said in a courtroom. IANAL, but something about this really bothers me.
As we all know with our email communications, the meaning of a joke is easily lost when we send it to someone without the benefit of context. I have been threatened with severe beatings from people who did not know I was kidding because they could not see my body gestures change and could not hear a difference in my inflection. There is a difference between saying something and writing it, and I worry judges and juries could give more importance to the words on the screen than the person on the stand.
While I never thought I would say what I am about to say, the great thing about court is someone has to be there saying what they believe. Sometimes the message is in the medium, and before now there was no medium in a courtroom. Judges and juries sat there and heard the evidence from people, this eCourtroom is putting a layer of transmission between court personnel and witnesses.
Just as lawyers play to the juries with courtroom theatrics so can they play to monitors and video screens, and it may be easier to mislead people without the benefit of direct interaction. I know this is considered an add-on to the witness stand, but think about it: if someone is listening to someone speak and there is a TV on, are most people's eyes really on the person speaking? It would be bad to be convicted of a crime just for not being able to play to the camera.
M
I don't know about you, but I think there is something kind of depersonalizing about being tried in front of cameras and monitors. I would much rather think that all of the parties involved would serve the legal system much better by being in the same room. For instance, being in front of a jury, having them watch over you, being examined by a prosecutor right in front of your face while also having people in the cheap seats watching over you has a certain effect which I think brings out the defendant/witnesses true self. It's much easier talking in front of a camera then in front of a hundred or so people.
Lawyers say e-Courtrooms help reduce trial time by making evidence display and tracking documents more efficient
Maybe so, but I don't see how that couldn't be done in a courtroom with some computers and projectors. Besides, I think the legal system is one of the few places where nothing should be compromised. I think looking for shortcuts trying to make things shorter and cheaper can have pretty dangerous consequences
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
The article says he plead guilty to kidnapping but not murder.
Before we can bring in personal recorders and cameras?
Great advertising slogan if this system is running on windows.
I wonder if they've had any Newton-esque misinterpretations
Cut the welfare budget by 50% at a minimum and transfer the money over in each state to building more courts, hiring more prosecutors, judges and public defenders (good ones) and pass laws requiring the police to prioritize all property crimes above anything specious like drug crimes. Why? It'll kill two birds with one stone: slow trial dockets and much of the poverty in America.
What I am talking about isn't the shrill left wing bullshit of "OMG they want to lock up all the poor people" but rather a strict libertarianization of Giuliani's "Broken Windows" enforcement program. The idea is that you prosecute all minor property offenses and you treat even something as simple as an inner city teen stealing an inner city child's bike as a "gateway crime." It does two things: tries to nip the problem of repeat offenders in the bud by showing them the law always applies, and it shows the poor that the law can work for them just like the rich.
Without strong property protections, the poor don't have an incentive to believe that hard work really pays off. For every cop that genuinely believes that they have a moral imperative to protect that inner city single mother and her kids' property, there are probably 5 that feel that it's "not worth it the trouble to the tax payers." To which I, as a voting Libertarian, have to ask, "then WTF am I doing paying your salary and letting you hide behind a badge?" Seriously, sometimes with this kind of attitude I think we'd be better off in most areas in America with firing 90% of the cops and letting the average law abiding citizen own military-grade infantry weapons and waste any mofo that tries to steal from them. As Heinlein said, an armed society, is a polite society.
Seriously, just cut the welfare programs, gun control laws, let people use force to defend their property and make the cops accountable for when they don't do a damn thing to take down petty property rights offenders. Within a few years, the poverty in much of the urban areas in America will sharply decline, along with the crime rates, especially the violent crime.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
It is amazing that a country so technologically advanced can be primitive enough to still have the death penalty.
Judge Ito: "Defense, you may cross-examine the witness."
atty: "Denny Crane!"
Witness: "What?"
atty: "Denny Crane."
Witness: "Did you ask me a question?"
atty: "Denny Crane!"
Witness: "What?"
atty: "The defense rests...Denny Crane."
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Am I missing something? I live here, I didn't know we had any of that new fangled technology stuff!
This was just a local trouble but they were still using the interactive/plasma screens for witness protection, so I wouldn't be surprised at all that these guys are being video-trialled.
Wonder if I could get the link to this trial, though...
If you are too pussy for that, "Three Stikes" (where you just summarily lock up 3-time offenders no matter what the 3rd offense is) has demonstratively reduced crime in California.
The old saying "one bad apple..." is true for criminals too. If you got rid of the worst of them, a LOT of crime would stop.
...you aren't making wood, paper, pens, pencils, metal, clothes, etc
I can't even imagine how many times those evil things have been used to help kill people!
You've watched wayy too much Star Trek. The Death Penalty is neither 'primitive' nor 'barbaric'. It is, in fact, the honest response to the fact that sometimes people can do things for which there is no recompense and after which that person can never again be trusted to act as a human being. The Death Penalty isn't primarily a 'deterrent', it isn't a 'punishment', it's the best means of insuring that a person who has utterly broken from civilization and proven so through his actions can never again harm an innocent person.
What can you say of a society that pretends there is 'some good in all of us', or that evil people deserve 'mercy'? Or worse yet, that there is no such thing as 'good' or 'evil'? Is that 'advanced'? Is that 'enlightened'?
The idea that only a 'primitive' society could still have the Death Penalty is bizarre, bordering on the contemptibly stupid.
In other words, I'm sure it's all the rage on college campuses.
One man's religion is another man's belly-laugh. - LL
How is it racism if they are actually committing crimes? Granted, a lot of socio-economic reasons help encourage black youths to commit a disproportionate amount of crime, but does that mean we should just ignore it and not arrest them? (Wouldn't that be racist to give preferential treament to people based on their race..?)
Lets all rate down people we disagree with us when they make us look like idiots!
Maybe the French just hate being proved hypocrites out in the open? (-1000 here I come!)
This article totally pisses me off. No single person nor group of people (aka government/society/etc) should be granted a right to take the life of another. There is no such thing as "justice."
A lot of people seem to have gotten their panties in a bunch about the right to face your accusser, etc. Please RTFAs. This isn't some system where the jury is in one room, the judge is some other location, the attornies in their office, etc. This is an electronic system that is put in place inside the courtroom to make proceedings faster. The fundamental system is unchanged.
I've long believed that an important step toward greater justice and less waste of time would be to forbid attorneys from appearing before the jury. Questions to witnesses should be submitted in a way that the jury neither sees nor hears the attorney. It's important for the jury to know the questions and to see and hear how the witness reacts and responds, and how the accused reacts. But there's no need to let the lawyer do their song and dance, putting spin on questions and role-playing how they want the jury to react to the answers.
Really good lawyers know how to size up jurors, decide which of them to "work on" and play to them individually, knowing that a purely psychological reaction by one person can deadlock the result. Technology like this being installed in courtrooms would make it physically possible to move the lawyer offstage. But I doubt very much that the Johnny Cochrans of the world will let go of their bread and butter merely for the sake of justice.
It really needed to throw Microsoft Word documents.
...referring to Basham's co-defendant, who plead guilty and was sentenced to death
A lot of murderers go free or get convicted of lesser crimes on some technicality. Don't prosecutors realize that a greater overall justice will be served if criminals are encouraged to confess in exchange for a small favor, like no death penalty and a 30 year maximum sentence unless there is an evidence and maybe let the see the sunshine as old men/women?
No jail sentence can be undone, and governments are often unwilling to reimburse such victims anyway (britian, anyone?). How exactly do you suggest we "undo" a misplaced fourty year life sentence?
Magic?
(And the reference to Britian has to do with them wanting victims of false sentences to have to pay back the state for food and lodging costs...absolutely sickening.)
*Sigh* When will the death penalty ever be abandoned in the few remaining countries that still have it?
And IMHO, there's nothing honourable in throwing away something that you don't own; that's why suicide is a crime in many countries.
--
Try Nuggets , the mobile search engine. We answer your questions via SMS, across the UK.
That's the ticket...
And if you are truly reformed, God will reward you.
That should be consolation enough.
Apple's going to be coming out with a snappy multimedia app that makes giving multimedia depositions really easy... you can even add a soundtrack!
Yup, look for iWitness soon...
Anyone feel like Hangman?
*Sigh* When will the death penalty ever be abandoned in the few remaining countries that still have it?
Who said I was for the death penalty? The last execution in my country was in 1962. It was removed from civilian law in 1976 and from military law in 1998. I think it's a pointless form of punishment, does nothing to deter crimes, and has resulted in too many innocent people being executed.
And IMHO, there's nothing honourable in throwing away something that you don't own; that's why suicide is a crime in many countries.
You don't own your own life? Why should others be allowed to decide when my life ends? I didn't really explain my point very well. If you know you killed someone else and have a choice between killing yourself and going through trial, killing yourself saves the family of the victim the grief of going through trial, saves the state from spending resources on the trial, and saves the executioner from having to live with himself. The goal is to lessen the amount of suffering for everyone involved.
Just my take on it.
Is to prevent tampering. I mean it sounds like a good idea on the surface, but it would introduce the possibility that the jury saw an incorrectly censored version of the events. I mean the events will be censored, the system is all about that, what happens if someone censors something they shouldn't to help one side or the other?
When the jury is in the courtroom, that's just not possible. They'll know if someone is trying to play fast and loose and claim something wasn't said since they were there.
Not saying it's totally unworkable, but you'd want to be really careful. An overzealous prosecutor would try and get things editied they didn't like, and probably justify it to themselves as ok because the judge made a bad ruling.
Can we all watch the E-execution?
A doctor goes to court for a malpractice suit. Now he's screwed because dragon dictate didn't understand him:
He said, "I'm skilled at angioplasty"
But dragon dictate displayed:
"I KILLED THE FUCKING BASTARD"
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
We had a trial practice class when I was in law school, and this guy came in with some snazzy graphics he'd done for a DA's office somewhere... the problem with some of the use of courtroom technology is that juries are likely to believe "oh, this is how it happened" instead of "oh, this is how it could have happened" because they can see it played out for them on the screen.
I am part of what I hope is a growing number of people who think that "Powerpoint and Technology In the Courtroom" is actually a great leap backwards, and not a step forwards.
When prosecutors can out-spend a defendant and get super computer graphics to snow the jury into snuffing reasonable doubt, where's the justice in that?
Why not? We accept murder. We allow others to choose when others die. Actually, no, we don't allow it. We can't do a fucking thing about it, except deal with it after the fact.
To think that a fuck like Gary Gilmore, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, etc., still has any "right" to life is well...fucked.
*boggle*
He doesn't own his own life? Where do you guys come up with this stuff?
(Or is the IRS just getting REALLY agressive now?)
As a serial killer / rapist, I must now admit that you have discovered my deepest secret. I only target conservatives. In fact, all of my fellow killers and rapists only target conservatives. We figure that since the Liberals love us so much, we might as well try to leave them alone. In short, my selective violence is in fact political speech, thus protected under the 1st Ammendment. Take that, suckers!
Wow! Now *there's* a guy who got bad advice from his laywer.
"Just plead guilty from the start. We'll make a deal, get the sentence down to 20 years or so..."
You must think in Russian.
Huh? Of course he doesn't own his life. If he did he could sell it to somebody else. Contrary to the widely held view, there are many things that can't be owned: your children, land in many countries (you can steward it but not own it), ideas...
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
640 minutes court room time ought to be enough for anybody.
All right, I know this is /., but let's agree to skip the pedantry in this case, huh? GGP started with the verb "own", not I, but that doesn't change the fact that what was posted (and what I was replying to) boils down to "he isn't free to do what he wishes with his life."
I worked on designing and implementing one of these e-Courtrooms, and you have to appreciate that there's often a lot of resistance from established practises - remember these are typically old government agencies that are happy with the 'safety' of paper and physical evidence. It can often be quite a shock to them to use electronic mechanisms.
:)
Support is also an interesting one, and can give new meaning losses due to downtime. It all comes back to lawyer's fees
Sorry, I couldn't be bothered to read the article, so I'll just spew out some prejudiced nonsense.
So, 'every word appears on a screen...' - I assume this means speech recognition software. I remember last I tried that on; it was very good. When I spoke into the microphone it would interpret my words and write them into a document. The problem was, I was sitting in a wicker work chair, and each time I moved a little, it generated a surprisng amount of text, you would be surprised to learn what that chair had on its mind. And it didn't help much either that my wife was speaking loudly with her friend in the next room.
The courtroom was similarly equipped with LCD monitors in the jury box and a touch sensitive display at the witness stand. This particular trial made extensive use of an aerial photo which served as a map of the crime scene. Witnesses were able to point to specific places on their monitor and everyone in the court including the jurors could clearly see what was being indicated. Much more effective than a posterboard sized map on the other end of the room.
The monitors in the jury box were not used to show the defendant, only bits of evidence like security cam video, pictures and maps. Witnesses were similarly not shown on the monitors. In fact there were no cameras in the courtroom whatsoever, aside from an overhead projector that fed the courtroom monitor system.
The defendants sit at most 40 feet away from the jury - witnesses sit right next to the jury box. There was no video trickeration as the parent implies, not saying it's impossible, but in the SC Federal Court where I served as a juror there was no closed circuit TV system in evidence at all.
...just using the usual interface, with output to a screen instead of just a strip of special paper.
Yeah, but does the Constitution guarantee me the right to open a chat window with the witnesses against me?
- - -
"The sixth sick shiek's sixth sheep's sick."
...it was discovered jurors were playing Solitaire most of the time.
That courtroom was hard wired for stuff, but now there is a portable unit that RSI makes that is called Atticus. I was in on the design of Atticus, which was a pretty cool project.
The Tao that can be spoken is not the one eternal Tao
You are not free to sell yourself into slavery. You do know that, don't you?
There's also the bit from Nietzsche where he basically stated that suicide is the ultimate expression of free will, basically telling God that you win because you choose not to play. *shrug* I can see a point in that. Honestly, suicide really is the most final message you can send. I think it may be more that than the lack of atonement that led to suicides not being buried in hallowed ground. (And for those who are reacting in horror, there was a different term than "suicide" for people who took their life due to mental instability. Cul-de-something or another)
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
"Should it matter how the defendant looks? If we have a system where looks matter, then we need a new system. " Then we need a new system. Actually, we need new citizens. The majority of people rarely think in depth. That's a large part of the problem with the current system. This technology is only going to make things worse. Hell, look at the OJ, Michael Jackson, and Scott Peterson trials. Few people at home watching the news stop to realize that they're not getting the whole story. Just the more sensational parts. But that's good enough for them. They're ready to cont the defendants as guilty, because that's what is being "suggested" by the media. Do I know whether or not they did it? No. I have no idea. But I at least realize that I'm usually only getting the worst parts of the story. It's like hearing all of the prosecution's testimony and then a 1 paragraph summarization of the defense's arguments. And as for appearance, do you think as many people would think Michael Jackson was guilty if he didn't dress in such a bizarre manner?
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Slavery as a concept is illegal. Death as a concept isn't.
Really reaching on this one, huh?
What is really neat is the jury can surf over to Groklaw to get commentary on the case.
> When will the death penalty ever be abandoned in the few remaining countries that still have it?
When the people of those countries decide that it should not be allowed. Until then, it's not your problem. Despite your attitude, not everyone agrees with your beliefs. And just because you have them, it doesn't give you the right to tell us we must not do something. You DO have the right to suggest that it's barbaric and ridiculous, but we have the right to ignore you and call you a pie-in-the-sky loony.
> there's nothing honourable in throwing away something that you don't own;
Who the fuck are you to tell me that I don't own my life?!?! That's the most arrogant thing I have seen anyone say in months. Who DOES own my life? You?
> Really reaching on this one, huh?
When someone that stubborn says something that foolish there isn't much alternative, is there?
My point is simply that being a great trial lawyer should imply a great knowledge of law and precedents, not a great ability to manipulate people to do what you want. We get enough of that every day in the commercial world.
Physically separating lawyers from the jury wouldn't stop them asking the same questions and saying the same things they do now. It wouldn't stop juries from relying on compassion or sympathy or their personal impressions of the plaintiffs, defendants and witnesses. What it would do is take the lawyer's tone of voice, facial expressions, fist shaking, mock laughter, etc, etc, out of the picture. These antics have nothing to do with the merits of the case or character of the people involved, yet they can take on the same weight and sometimes more. That's what I think is wrong with the system.
Then, there's war. I believe this to be a larger subset of the above cases. You're defending yourself and you're defending the people of your country against an armed agressor. Again, a large amount of the killings are in the heat of the moment. While you are prepared to kill and have trained in it, you generally don't know the guy you're offing. Even in an ambush type of situation, you don't have anything personal against the person and it's self-defense. Things get a bit stickier when it comes to snipers and assassination. I personally think snipers are seen in a bad light simply because it seems "not fair" in people's minds. Assassinations... those require a fair amount of planning and pre-meditation and are often done when the person in question is not actually directly threatening you. I see it as not actually murder as you are still defending innocent people (members of your country generally) from the threat this person poses, but I definitely feel it's not something to be entered into lightly.
As for myself, I've never been in a situation of life-and-death, I hope I never have to make that kind of a choice. I think I could kill a person if they presented a threat to me or my kin, but I don't think one can ever truly know until you're there.
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