Here Comes The Judge!

Ok, good, a panel of judges is slightly better. And even though judges are to follow the letter of the law, there are many that still don't because politics are involved. Everyone is supposed to follow the law. But then why do so many people break it? There are many examples of this, as politics can influence the judges' way of thinking. And we believe judges are just regular people. And to an extent, that is very true. But judges have a different agenda then most people, one that deals with politics and can influence their behavior. And no one knows for sure what happened with the OJ Simpson case or the Casey Anthony trial, and we people, who aren't even the jurors, know even less. The jury was presented with evidence for several months, over 600 pieces of it. People like us watch CNN for a couple of minutes every night. We don't know as much as those jurors, and I trust that they made a good decision. Happy mylotting!

When i say judges should decide criminal cases i'm certainly not referring to one but a panel of judges, just as it is in Supreme court where a panel of judges decide the merits of an appeal. No matter how you look at it, whether it be a panel of judges or 12 jurors these are all human beings and even if politics become involved, judges are to follow the letter of the law the same as jurors do. No one is claiming jurors are stupid or unable to decide the guilt or innocence of a defendant, but there are way to many times where juries have left their common sense at home and have used reasonable doubt to mean without a shadow of a doubt and the best examples of this were the OJ Simpson case and of course the Casey Anthony fiasco.

And if you say that regular people have their own personal opinions against the defendant, that would be true with judges as well. We are all human, and we can't help having personal opinions of the defendant. But what regular people DON'T have are political agendas at hand.

Can't add much more to this then to say i agree with you. the jury system in my opinion has failed way too many times, so maybe it's high time it was looked at and possibly revamped

Well,judges do play a very important part in the courtroom since they are there to make sure certain evidence is either allowed or disallowed, over ruling or sustaining the questioning of attorneys and of course instructing jurors on the law and whatthey can or cannot base their decisions on. If there were no judges in the courtroom trials would become free for all's where anything and everything would be allowed.I think attorneys would love if there weren't any judges there it would afford them the opportunity to ask any questions they wanted to without worrying about them being inappropriate or prejudicial.

What I do not actually understand is why do they even need a judge when the one who does the judging are the common people? And the most confusing part is that judges are actually the one who studied law...LOL...that can be hard to explain, right?

Sorry..Should have put an "Until" in there after "Disappointed!"

Hi Friend: In the case of Casey Anthony i still can't believe she was found not guilty,the evidence may not have been complete, but i do believe there was enough for a conviction of some sort.The jury themselves now claim they're sorry they voted that way, which makes it even harder to accept the outcome and Casey's case is just one reason i think the jury system is flawed. How do you make sense of the fact that 2/3 of the country believe she murdered her little girl? and yet,the jury found her not guilty,it just doesn't make sense to me.That is why i think a panel of judges deciding the guilt or innocence of a person on trial would be a much fairer, especially if they had no personal opinion and would decide purely on the evidence in the case.

That's a very good point. Disallowing good evidence in court can really take away a huge portion of the story. I'm really sorry about your sister. An example, as everyone probably knows, is the Casey Anthony trial. A lot of evidence that was discovered never made it to court, and the jury would never know part of the story. There was something about decomposition being in the air of the trunk of the car, and the lawyers managed to persuade them not to show that piece of evidence to the jury. It would have been important, too. I also agree that I don't believe the jury system is flawed, more as parts of the justice system itself are flawed. There are things like this that can really damage the integrity of the definition of justice in the US. Happy mylotting!

it's the bias and discrimination that worries me when it comes to juries handing out verdicts in criminal cases. A perfect example of this was the OJ Simpson verdict, did you know that 2 of the jurors actually admitted that they couldn't find him guilty because he was a famous football player? if that isn't bias,i don't know what is. Judges may not always be objective in their decisions but they are much more likely to hand down a fair and appropriate verdict based on the evidence and rules of law then 12 random people who are not schooled in these areas. Suffice it to say that there will never be a perfect judicial system and i do agree that whether it be a panel of jurors or judges handing down verdicts,in the end they are all human beings with flaws of their own. You have a nice day as well.