Can you think of any circumstances where a defendant might not prefer a jury trial? explain your answer?
If its a clear cut issue of the law then someone may prefer a judge trial over a jury trial. The Judge is the best one to interpret the law, hopefully in your favour. If the issue is more complicated or cloudy then a person would be wise to pick a jury trial. After all, you only need to have one of the 12 on your side to get off.
Why do the US laws favor the criminal?
I don't think US laws favor the "criminals". It's just that one can never know with 100% certainty who is really guilty and who is really innocent, and that introduces a lot of human error into the process. Here are some problems with the American legal system: -Many states have different types of jail sentences, ranging from very short jail sentences for pretty serious crimes to very long sentences for relatively "minor" ones (such as the "three strikes" laws in states like Texas and California). These discrepancies mean that you might go to jail for life in Texas because you were caught a third time with a small quantity of an illicit drug but might only spend ten years for murder in one of the more liberal New England states. -Often, your legal counsel is nowhere near as important as jury selection. In the OJ case, for example, had the jury been majority white (as opposed to majority black) it is highly likely that OJ would have been convicted. Jury demographics matter a lot. Juries also are relatively poorly educated and have short attention spans. Studies have shown that juries are often more moved by courtroom theatrics and good-looking lawyers and defendants than they are by facts. Good-looking people tend to get more "fair" trials than bad looking people. And race is also involved (white juries will be more inclined to convict a black man than a white one). -The Supreme Court has shifted from a more liberal stance to a more conservative one. For example, while the liberal Court of the 1960s and 1970s gave us "Miranda" rights, the more conservative Rehnquist Court has tended to side with police and law enforcement. Whereas a defendant might once have gotten off the hook if evidence was obtained without a warrant or if a legal "technicality" was breached, nowadays the courts give a lot more leeway to law enforcement (for example, police might come to a person's house with a warrant to search for illegal firearms and arrest a person on the possession of illicit drugs- even if drugs were not specified in the warrant). With the Patriot Act and now wire tapping, the Federal givernment has immensely expanded its ability to search individuals without court warrants. It remains to be seen if the Supreme Court will weigh in on these measures and whether or not it will deem them un-Constitutional.
Do law precedents in criminal cases generally favor defendants?
Typically, what would happen is that the prosecution would appeal the decision while the trial was going on, rather than wait for the trial to complete, in order to avoid the double jeopardy risk of the matter resulting in an acquittal based on a faulty decision at the trial level.As to whether more appellate cases are filed by defendants, that's because the Constitution protects the individual from the State, not the State from the State. Both the prosecutor and the judge are representatives of the State, and don't really have a lot of protections "against" one another. The vast majority of our Constitutional law is based entirely on limiting the power of the government over individual rights and liberties, not within a given sphere of State power.Also, while appeals are disproportionately filed by defendants, the case law itself doesn't necessarily reflect a bias toward the defendants. In fact, I think many people would say that they believe that many recent cases overwhelmingly favor the state rather than the individual.
Do you agree with rape shield laws?
YAC, my question wasn't about prostitutes. Is English a second language for you? I've noticed you often don't address the actual question asked.
Do you think the present jury system is outmoded? And............?
Perfect for more American style coruption
Could someone tell me the public indecency law for MN and WI?
oops accidentally asked first in the uk didn't mean to go there. Anyway, i need to know if it is illegal to go to a bar with my nipples showing even with a see through shirt on. for Duluth MN and Superior WI, I want to go with a guy friend to a bar with my nipples slightly exposed, but need to make sure im not going to be ticketed or arrested. I am old enough and would not be exposing myself to any minors, please tell me if this is legal or not
Why does the justice system favor women so much? If equality is the goal, shouldn’t women also suffer harsh penalties for taking advantage of men?
This is actually a huge problem that men's rights groups are actively working on. Many people interested in social justice will complain that blacks receive disproportionately longer sentences than whites for equivalent crimes. When you compare men with women, however, there is a much, much bigger difference than between blacks and whites. In other words if you are being sentenced for a crime, you are actually much better off being a black woman than a white man.There have been attempts to estimate the disparity in sentencing between women and men. A frequently cited figure is that a man will receive a 60% longer sentence than a woman for the equivalent crime. A major methodological hurtle when computing these figures is that many times the woman won't even make it to the sentencing stage: the disparity is there at the conviction stage as well. In fact the bias exists at all levels in the justice system (and honestly I'm not sure how any sane, observant person could have failed to notice its existence.) When you take into account favouritism at all levels, it's quite likely that women are just as or almost as criminal as men.Here is a paper that attempts to calculate the sentencing bias as well as address the methodological problem discussed above:Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal CasesIf the justice system favours women so strongly as defendants, it seems silly to suggest that it doesn't also favour them as plaintiffs. In regards to false rape claims, I'm not going to offer up any numbers as these are much more hotly disputed than the above. Rather I'm going to leave you with a thought experiment.Which is more difficult, sticking a soft body part inside a small hole in an unwilling other person's body, the punishment for which, should you get caught, will be many years of hard time in prison after which it will be impossible to participate in public life in any meaningful way? or is it more difficult telling a lie, the consequences for doing so, should you get caught, will almost certainly be negligible? And you might even get invited to a White House dinner. But no, women are perfect. They never lie.
Law and Order: SVU "Young Man Blues" verdict not said? Why?
My god I just watched that whole show and they dont say a verdict???? For those of you who dont know what happened in the show by the name of it, Young Man Blues is about a girl who accuses her teacher of raping her. It goes back and forth on who the victim really is the whole show, it finally gets to the end and the last line is "We find the defendant..." *End show* What the heck? I know its nice to sometimes leave people in suspense, but in the case of a non season finale episode of a show based on finding out whether or not someone is innocent or guilty, and to leave you hanging without a part 2? Augh! Why was the verdict not said???? This is seriously going to kill me...