To Atheist and Christians, hypothetical question?

Question

If you an Atheist were accused of a crime and had to have
a trial by jury. If the jury was all Christians and they knew
you were an atheist, do you believe you would get a fair
trial?
Could you Christians be unbiased toward the atheist, weigh
the facts and evidence to give a fair trial as a juror?

Answer 1

I can only speak for myself. A person's religion should not come to play in a court of law, unless of course, it involves a religious hate crime (yea, they happen).
**JENN

Answer 2

It depends on the nature of the crime, an atheist would be much more likely to not get a fair trial by a Christian jury if the crime involved breaking into a church or something of that nature. that being said, the main thing that influences how good of a trial you get , is how much $$$$ can you afford to pay for a lawyer. I have been both a Christian and an atheist at different points in my life and i find that both groups would try to be a fair jury, except as i mention earlier if the case involved something VERY emotionally close to the jury pool.

Answer 3

Why is everyone here stuck into either the "atheist" or "Christian" corners? A bit short-sighted, in my opinion.

First of all, I would hope my lawyer would screen the jury properly so I actually received a fair jury of MY peers, not religious zealots. The next thing would be to present my case to the best of my (or my lawyer's) ability. However, if I truly did something wrong, I would take responsibility for my actions and accept whatever fate I received.

I would expect fairness from any juror, no matter their affiliation, as per the legal agreement they signed before they sat in the jury box. I am not responsible for their actions, only my own, and I'm sure their God, their conscience, or the universe at large will balance any unfairness from them.

Answer 4

Even as a hypothetical that situation is a little far fetched. A good defense attorney knows everything about his or her client and would know they are atheist. In the process of jury screening they would ask that some jurors be disallowed so that an all christian jury would not be obtained. The lawyer would go for a mix.

Answer 5

In a perfect world the Christians should give the Atheist a fair trial because if they are following their faith, true Christians should be righteous and honest and fair-minded.
However, the world is not perfect therefore there will always be people who will say they are Christians, but who are mean-spirited, spiteful and full of hate, and will try to punish other people under the guise of "just doing what's right".

My answer is yes, I could give a fair trial as a juror.

Answer 6

Hmm I love how the Christians get the ugly short end of the stick...

But to the question yes. Also that fact would most likely be hidden from the jury unless the defendant being atheist was the reason of the crime. Or something close to that.

Answer 7

To be honest, I don't know. I am usually a reasonable person, and I think I could do it. I tend to be pretty easy-going and try not to shove what I believe down other people's throats. I've also had a good education in logic, and I can focus on the facts of a situation without dragging externals into the situation.

I'm not sure if someone from a more fundamentalist Christian background could do the same or not. It would require a person who is capable of suspending their religious beliefs during the trial and not allowing them to color their decision.

I wish I could say, "Yes, all Christians could," but I don't know that for a fact.

Answer 8

Would you really want someone who's so biased himself that he thinks all Christians can't be unbiased, serving on your trial? You're playing with fire there. I've never met a person who was only closed-minded and prejudiced against only one single religion, heritage or gender. If he's so willing to think the worst of the Christians, who knows who else he blindly hates. You could be on trial and have him vote "Guilty!" not because of anything important, you know, like evidence, but because it turns out he also harbors the same misguided resentment for red-heads, or people from Kansas, or anyone who writes left handed, or any other trait you might possess that has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you committed the crime.

I'll take the person who doesn't pre-judge, no matter what his religious beliefs or lack thereof, any day over someone who says something like, "of course not its either their way or no way just ask those who were killed by christians."

Read all the replies here and ask yourself, "Who, really, of these people would I want to be sitting in on *my* trial?"

Answer 9

It would depend on the particular jurors -- you can't make a blanket statement about how "all" christians would act in this case.

I've sat on 3 juries -- on one of them (a drug sales case), two of the other jurors were hard-core fundamentalists, and used that as an excuse to ignore the judge's instructions and a jury's duty. As soon as we started deliberating, they said things like, "I don't care what the evidence says, it's our duty to punish this sinner." Scary, and mainly because of those two, in the end we had a hung jury.

On another one, there was a particularly hard-core fundamentalist who made many religious comments, but not once did he make them in reference to the case, and he was a model juror.

What's sort of ironic is that on the case with the two fundies spewing nonsense, the result of their actions was to nullify the jury -- while the guy who put his religion aside to do his duty wound up convicting the guy and it stuck. Goes to show that religion has no place in a trial by jury, and putting aside your own feelings and doing your proper duty as a juror gets the best results :)

Answer 10

ok, i will play alongside. just so which you would be attentive to, i'm an American atheist. difficulty a million: a million) The Christian military could be a techniques greater. 2) No actual atheist might convert to save their lives. If an atheist did convert, they could be neither Christian nor atheist -- purely yet another hypocrite. 3) historic previous demonstrates that many Christians have already died, fairly than resign their faith. difficulty 2: a million) Christians might have the biggest military on the commencing up of the conflict. 2) via fact there could be a lots greater preliminary pool of Christians, that's possibly that greater entire Christians might circulate over to the different area. Expressed as a share of the unique armies, i've got self belief equivalent possibilities might ailment. 3) in actuality no area ever wins any conflict. the two facets continuously lose. Even people who win the battles are lots worse off than had there been no conflict. conflict isn't a donning adventure, or a opposition. observe that i could be keen to do despite it took to stay to tell the story to combat yet another day. only non secular fools enable themselves to develop into martyrs. And for the record, whether I have been nonetheless youthful adequate, i might by no skill take part in this type of conflict. the only difficulty that ought to fairly set off me to combat is that if the damned Dominionists attain tampering with the rustic's secular government and start up amending the form to make usa a theocracy. i could be keen to combat to maintain each and all the rustic's democratic concepts -- even freedom of religion.

Answer 11

Sure. I'm not anti-atheist. Their religious beliefs - or lack of them - shouldn't even come up in trial. Even if it was an alleged hate crime against a Christian, I think I could remain open and impartial.

I understand my responsibilities as a juror require me to be unbiased and fair. To do otherwise would be unconscionable.