You raise many good points, and I don't disagree with many of the faults you point out. However, there's other considerations at play.
The purpose behind a "trial by one's peers" is to ensure that the people, and not the government, is delivering the verdict. The judge's role is to instruct the jury on the points of law being argued on, because he or she (along with the other lawyers in the room) is the trained expert.
For the trial to have gotten to this point, the judge needs to determine that there's enough evidence to even bring the case. There's already been an expert check prior to the jury stage to determine if there's a case at all.
Of course, as the article points out, many cases aren't exactly "Law and Order". (This has been cited as having an influence on cases), in that there simply aren't the resources on behalf of both the prosecution and the defense to pile together tons of evidence or research every possible defense. I liked the references to 12 Angry Men for this reason, because the case in that story had little to go on.
The jury trial system, while seeming strange in all of the restrictions, are intended to try and obtain an untainted jury pool and find those who are as objective as possible. To the author's point that "all of the people of color had been weeded out", I'd note to the defense that it'd be wise to ask the jury pool if they believed people of color to be more likely to commit a crime, or other question to determine a presumption of guilt (just as the prosecution had weeded out those with a presumption of innocence.)
I can think of far worse systems of justice whereby state-appointed judges hand down judgements and sentences behind closed doors. So I'm skeptical about the USA's system being the worst.
But it's certainly imperfect, and that's because judgements are handed down by imperfect people. And as I'm sure as any African-American will attest, it's hard to feel you're being judged impartially when you're looking at a jury of 12 white men.
But you could switch to any number of systems, and at the end of the day it's simply men judging men. The problem is not solved completely by a system, but by solving ourselves.
I found it heartening though that in this story, the structure of things helped. With everything arrayed against the defendant, there was no conviction. It just takes one person, one doubt, to look and go "I'm not certain" and that's it.
And that's exactly what happened. And exactly the way it should be.
The purpose behind a "trial by one's peers" is to ensure that the people, and not the government, is delivering the verdict. The judge's role is to instruct the jury on the points of law being argued on, because he or she (along with the other lawyers in the room) is the trained expert.
For the trial to have gotten to this point, the judge needs to determine that there's enough evidence to even bring the case. There's already been an expert check prior to the jury stage to determine if there's a case at all.
Of course, as the article points out, many cases aren't exactly "Law and Order". (This has been cited as having an influence on cases), in that there simply aren't the resources on behalf of both the prosecution and the defense to pile together tons of evidence or research every possible defense. I liked the references to 12 Angry Men for this reason, because the case in that story had little to go on.
The jury trial system, while seeming strange in all of the restrictions, are intended to try and obtain an untainted jury pool and find those who are as objective as possible. To the author's point that "all of the people of color had been weeded out", I'd note to the defense that it'd be wise to ask the jury pool if they believed people of color to be more likely to commit a crime, or other question to determine a presumption of guilt (just as the prosecution had weeded out those with a presumption of innocence.)
I can think of far worse systems of justice whereby state-appointed judges hand down judgements and sentences behind closed doors. So I'm skeptical about the USA's system being the worst.
But it's certainly imperfect, and that's because judgements are handed down by imperfect people. And as I'm sure as any African-American will attest, it's hard to feel you're being judged impartially when you're looking at a jury of 12 white men.
But you could switch to any number of systems, and at the end of the day it's simply men judging men. The problem is not solved completely by a system, but by solving ourselves.
I found it heartening though that in this story, the structure of things helped. With everything arrayed against the defendant, there was no conviction. It just takes one person, one doubt, to look and go "I'm not certain" and that's it.
And that's exactly what happened. And exactly the way it should be.