What Chance Of Innocence Can Be Tolerated For Conviction?

[chezlaw]

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But it also helps protect us from a majority jury view that may be biased by prejudice. If I am on trial for my life, I want that protection.

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True but that may be balanced by you also wanting protection from criminals. Would you want someone who threatened your family to be released when there's no real doubt but one of the jury is an outliner.

chez

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Maybe. I think it's a judgement call. I'm disposed toward the current unanimous system for criminal cases. But you have a point.

PairTheBoard

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no big disagreements here. i'm disposed towards the current system as well though in my case that's the majority system [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

chez

[tshort]

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You claim this is only "moderately precise" and should be replaced by a Number. I definitely do not agree with you on that point.

PairTheBoard

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Where does David advocate changing the system other than for assigning a number probability for this hypothetical question?

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I don't see anything in there that requires me to put the question in terms of "chance" or some kind of psuedo-probability model.

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The hypothetical question does. How does "reasonable doubt" not equate to say "reasonable 'chance' of innocence"?

Why do you avoid answering the hypothetical question?

[tshort]

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no big disagreements here. i'm disposed towards the current system as well though in my case that's the majority system [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

chez

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Refresh me if this is correct for England: If 12 jurors can't decide unanimously then the judge can allow for a majority? What is the majority number?

[beakachu]

Let me say first that I don't particularly have a problem with the idea of putting a (more or less precise) number on the likelihood of an event having happened. But I don't believe that putting a probability on guilt fits with many people's ideas about knowledge.

The problem here is much-discussed in philosophy: on an intuitive basis, it seems that you can know A will happen, but not know B will happen, despite B being more likely than A. The typical example involves B being the outcome of a lottery. Having bought a lottery ticket, I can't say I know I won't win, or else I clearly wouldn't have bothered buying it. But people can reasonably claim to know much less likely things (or else we'd never have knowledge).

It could just be that intuition is off in these cases, but they're taken fairly seriously by philosophers. We can imagine similar criminal cases. What if a man is on trial for murder as part of a 10-man firing squad, one of whose guns fired a blank? Surely he can't be convicted (although presumably he could be convicted of attempted murder), but I don't think it's on the basis of his 1/10 chance of innocence. Personally, I'm not sure you could convict him if the squad was 100 or 1000 or more men.

Or maybe you could. Intuition only goes so far.

[tshort]

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you can know A will happen, but not know B will happen, despite B being more likely than A.

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P(A) = 1, P(B) <= 1. B > A.

????

[PLOlover]

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To all:

How would the degree of punishment affect you, eg (prison, death)? I would think the reversibility of a wrong conviction should matter too.

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there have been numerous juries who have publicly stated that they never would have convicted if they had known the severity of the punishment.

[PLOlover]

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True but that may be balanced by you also wanting protection from criminals. Would you want someone who threatened your family to be released when there's no real doubt but one of the jury is an outliner.

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The chance of anyone actually going to a jury trial who is a real criminal is so miniscual as to be laughable.

[chezlaw]

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no big disagreements here. i'm disposed towards the current system as well though in my case that's the majority system [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

chez

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Refresh me if this is correct for England: If 12 jurors can't decide unanimously then the judge can allow for a majority? What is the majority number?

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from the government website [ QUOTE ]
There is a need for a retrial if the jury cannot agree or at least reach a majority verdict. In the High Court the jury is 12 in number, so a majority can be 10 - 2, but in the County Court there are only 8 jurors, so the majority permitted is 7 - 1. It is very rare for the parties to agree to take a verdict based on a smaller majority.

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chez

[chezlaw]

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True but that may be balanced by you also wanting protection from criminals. Would you want someone who threatened your family to be released when there's no real doubt but one of the jury is an outliner.

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The chance of anyone actually going to a jury trial who is a real criminal is so miniscual as to be laughable.

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?

[soon2bepro]

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Given that. What chance of innocence in your mind is an acceptable risk?

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What's the punishment? The harsher, the less acceptable risk.

I'm going to go with 1/25,000 chance of innocence for death penalty, 1/1,000 for life imprisonment (with possibility of parole after say 30 years), 1/200 for 10 years inprisonment, 1/50 for 5 years inprisonment or less. Of course I'm assuming the sentence could be adjusted a posteriori, that is, you can change from death penalty to 5 years inprisonment if after the trial the jury decides there's a 1/150 chance that the defendant is guilty but not a 1/10,000. I'm also assuming sentences could be reversed fairly easily in the face of new evidence. (maybe not in the death penalty case [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

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Also should it be OK for different jury members to have different opinions on this matter?


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It should be irrelevant. The jury should simply state what's the chance of innocence they've calculated. (not that I think the whole jury system is best, but that's not the point here)