What are the advantages of jury trial?

Question

I'm doing a debate in law and we have to find out what are the advantages of having a jury, I was wondering if anybody had any ideas.

Answer 1

You are judged by the jury, not the court. If you have committed a capital crime such as murder or arson a jury trial would give you a better chance to bring forth a defense. Allowing a judge to determine both sentence and punishment other than a misdemeanor is a lot fairer with a jury trial.

Answer 2

Advantages of a jury system are that being arrested and charged is no proof of guilt, so instead of arbitrary sentencing the prosection has to prove the charge and the defence has the chance to disprove it.

This is done before a panel of 12 citizens who must then decide if the defendant is guilty or not. The judge presides over the trial, instructs on matters of law and sums up the case for the benefit of the jury. If the defendant is found guilty the judge will pronounce sentence. Most importantly the judge does not decide whether the defendant is guilty or not. That is left to their peers. This was first laid down in Magna Carta ("No [person] may be taken, imprisoned, [etc.] without the lawful judgment of [their] peers").

Main disadvantage is that juries are only human and may acquit a guilty party or convict an innocent one, but that is just as likely to happen in a trial without a jury.

No justice system is perfect but justice should above all be fair and the jury system is the fairest.

Answer 3

An interesting question of which I could not resist answering although I am no expert.
I would think the benefits of a jury trial would be the same as is with brainstorming or troubleshooting in a group.
Take a simple tooth brush and write down all the things you might use it for?
Now take that same toothbrush into a group of 10 people and brainstorm for answers together what are all the things you could use it for?
What you will get is a huge difference in the number of answers you have as a result.
Why?
Because we think differently, feel differently, see things differently, will question different things, will bring various values and ideals, tolerance levels (due to life experience) with us.
Interesting you should ask as you already have a good understanding of this as you are looking to the world to offer you additional ideas.
Good luck.

Answer 4

The jury is supposedly made up of your peer group and it requires
a unanimous decision to stick it to you. Otherwise, mistrial and
a good chance of subsequent acquital. When a jury there needs to be a fair share of bringing all facts to bear in order to come up
with a unanimous descision. Being that all people find and think
differently, there'll be a broader spectrum of opinion, thereby giving
a better understanding of the individual on trial and the circumstance
(to decide if a crime was commited, or simply a regretable incident)

With just a judge, hope you don't get a hangin judge, because he/she
IS the law for all practical purposes.

Answer 5

If you only have a judge, he will be less likely to be bamboozled by arguments that have nothing to do with the law and go to emotion. The jury allows a lawyer to open their bag of tricks and use smoke and mirrors to trick the audience, oops I mean jury (I guess) into applauding their magic show. The evidence is the same, but the jury gets to discredit it after the lawyer makes up specious arguments about it.

Answer 6

Here's my thought. If you have just a judge, one then have only one view. Yes, he is supposed to be non-judgmental, but come on!!! We all are, even judges.

So, if per chance I was stupid enough to get caught for something (murder, or whatever) then I'd rather have judge and jury. Why? Hoping against hope that I hit someone with my sob-story and that one person is able to reduce my charges or totally wipe it clean. Besides, you never hear of a "hung judge", but "hung juries" are everwhere!!!

Answer 7

It gives the suspect a chance to kill whomever he needs to kill or threaten anyone so they don't testify. I'd start putting a watch out on guys like that. You see the crime movies and you'd think they'd watch suspects when they're out on the streets for that short amount of time.

Answer 8

It depends on whether you're prosecuting or defending. If defending, you only need to convince one person that there's a doubt. If prosecuting, you can...hmmm...

Answer 9

one advantage is its fair and both the victim and suspect is given chance to put his point ..

Answer 10

it is better to have 12 people decide your fate, then one biased judge do it.