I got a notice today....

[Char-Gar]

To answer P&P. Yes I would be ok with that. Not that I liked it. That’s the reason for a jury trial. And unfortunately in our justice system it’s a crap shoot any more going to a jury trial. Flame on and say what you will.

So what system that decides a person fate is not a crap shoot? Is three vigilantes with rope a better system? Is an elected Judge not a crap shoot. Is an appointed judge not a crap shoot. What pray tell, is the system that eliminates the human element and the possibility of a wrong decision?

[1911sw45]

I am ok with it being a crap shoot. Better than any other Countries way of law. I am all in favor of the jury trials. Rather have that than just one person deciding. I.E just a judge.

[Petrol & Powder]

Lets talk about jurors violating their oath and disregarding the law:

You're at a gas station late at night filling your tank. A 17 year old approaches you and asks for money. It's clear he's a bit mentally challenged. You politely tell him that you're not going to give him money and he starts to walk away. While your back is turned, the 17 yr. old tackles you to the ground and pulls out a knife. You're on your back fending him off with your weak hand as he cuts you. You manage to draw your pistol and shoot him 8 times before he falls off of you and dies.
Several hostile bystanders start to yell and curse you for killing little Bobby. You retreat to your car, reload your pistol and call 911.
There are several witnesses and the entire event is captured on the store surveillance system.
The police respond, you go to the hospital and Bobby goes to the morgue.

A newly elected liberal Democrat prosecutor that ran on a gun control platform indicts you for murder despite the fact the police advise him that it appears to be self defense.

The event took place in a community populated by very liberal voters and Bobby was a different race than you are.

The facts at trial are undisputed. You were attacked by Bobby and shot him in self-defense. There's video, eye witness testimony, an autopsy report, the knife, the gun, your 911 call. It is very clear what happened.

The jury gets the case and the judge provides the jury with several jury instructions, including an instruction that if the jury finds that you acted in self defense they must vote not guilty on the murder charge.

The jurors all agree that you acted in self defense BUT they are appalled that a civilized adult would carry an evil Automatic handgun and shoot a mentally disabled child.......EIGHT times! They decide that even though they all agree you were acting in self defense and the law provided to them by the judge requires that they acquit; they're going to disregard their oath to follow the law. They think that law is immoral and unjust. How could the law possibly allow a person to shoot a child 8 times?

They deliver a guilty verdict for murder.

NOW, DO YOU STILL THINK IT'S OK FOR JURORS TO VIOLATE THIER OATH ?

When jurors violate their oath and acquit because they don't like the law, is sounds cool and people label that behavior "Jury Nullification"
BUT
When jurors violate their oath so that they can disregard the law and substitute their own law, it's not so cool anymore.

Subverting the law and subverting the Constitution is never a good thing.

[dangitgriff]

Yes—that’s the way it works.
Perhaps a better question to ask is, why don’t we hold the elected officials to THEIR oaths to uphold the Constitution? They ignore it every day.
As far as I’m concerned, THAT is the greatest threat this country faces, by far.
The War of Northern Aggression killed between 600-800 thousand Americans because our own president ignored the Constitution (Article 3, Section 3–TREASON, as defined) and our own Congress allowed him to get away with it, instead of removing him from office (Article 2, section 4–The President...SHALL BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE ON IMPEACHMENT FOR, AND CONVICTION OF, TREASON...).
It appears our anger is woefully misdirected in the matters of the U.S. Constitution and the revered oaths of our elected representatives to uphold it.
R/Griff

[Geezer in NH]

I do not get the cost of a trial.

Judge is on a salary and benefits from the .gov Yearly payment stays the same whether he is on a case or not.

Prosecutor and his minions are the same.

Court officers, deputy's, sheriffs, police officers again the same.

Jail officers etc. the same.

WHAT COST DIFFERS?

Only the defendant's law fees but no one stated care about that.

As a former fire INVS/FF/Deputy sheriff. DA's always wanted the cost of a false alarm for restitution for the found guilty and I had a problem giving one other than the cost of the desil fuel as the FF's were paid regardless of responding or not and the fuel was pushing it as the may drive around the districts the covered for many reasons other than alarms. [getting lunch, ice cream run on hot night, just to keep from going stir crazy in the fire house.]

Adding all the costs of fuel, manpower, mechanical wear is the same as if they did not respond IMHO unless there was an accident causing harm property or personal.

I cannot figure how the court is much different than that. Momey paid out is the same if not on a trial other than the pittance the jurors are paid.

It is called SPIN

[Winger Ed.]

I do not get the cost of a trial.
Judge is on a salary and benefits from the .gov Yearly payment stays the same whether he is on a case or not.
Prosecutor and his minions are the same.
Court officers, deputy's, sheriffs, police officers again the same.

You're not supposed to ask that.

There is an expense of these fixed things. If we didn't have crime, we wouldn't need the criminal court and prison system at all.
But we do. So we have to hire people, and build a justice system. The 'Court costs' fees are a way to make up at least some of it.
All things considered, they are usually kind of cheap.
If you 'use' a judge, a DA, a baliff, some office clerks, the govt. buildings, etc., maybe a day or two of jail-- its costs a bunch.
If your court cost is a thousand dollars,,,, that won't cover the payroll much less all of what it actually costs the govt. to use those services.



You see the same effect when they say, "President so-and-so's trip cost up-teen million dollars".
No it didn't. There's fuel***, wear and tear on airplanes, overtime for Police, and some per-diem expenses for the crew and staff.
But the govt. isn't buying hotels, or new vehicles, they're renting a few, or using their own.
It costs a lot for the President to travel. However; it isn't millions and millions for a few days
unless you figure the retail price for hiring off duty Police Officers, renting a airliner, paying to transport everything on charter flights,
the pay of everyone that is involved as if you had to hire them just for that event..


***
That's not totally accurate either.
All the military planes and aircrew are going to fly so many hours a month just to keep up their 'papers'.
If you need to fly 10 hours a month minimum to stay current in those VIP birds, or any other military aircraft,
you'll do it either on a official state trip, or 'training flights'.
Basically, those planes and crew are going to fly so many hours a month, reguardless of where they go.

[Petrol & Powder]

It's the fallacy of the broken window.

A kid breaks a window and onlookers believe that because the kid's father will pay a repairman to fix the window, that influx of cash will add to the local economy. There's a theory that the money that goes to the repairman and the glass supplier will then be available to be spent elsewhere. This is completely false.

The expense paid by the father, REDUCES the father's disposable income. Money that the father could have invested elsewhere is now required to be used to pay for a broken window. There is no net gain to the community by the destruction of the window. There is only loss.

Consider the possibility of a drunk riding around and shooting out several traffic lights one night. That creates a situation that the highway department must immediately address. The highway department must stop working on projects for that day and divert resources to repairing those lights. They must spend money that was earmarked for other projects to buy new lights. They may must divert manpower earmarked for regular maintenance to fix the now broken signals.
Yes, we are paying for the highway department anyway but we weren't paying them to replace traffic lights that day.
That old snowplow that they had budgeted to replace; that replacement now must be delayed because we were forced to divert money for the purchase of new lights. That pothole in front of your house that a crew was going to fill today; that crew now must be diverted to repair several lights instead. Those guys that were on their regular day off; we had to call them in and pay them overtime to fix traffic lights.
Just because we're already paying for a highway department doesn't mean the destruction to the traffic lights occurred at zero additional cost to the taxpayers.

Now, consider a prosecutor that must re-try a case due to a mistrial. That new trial will require resources be diverted from other activities. Jury trials take days, sometimes weeks, of preparation. Meanwhile, the normal docket doesn't just stop.

Yes, we are paying prosecutors, clerks, judges, deputies, court reporters and others; but they're not just normally sitting around doing nothing. When we add work: resources must be diverted, overtime must be paid, other cases must be disposed of and people work longer hours.
That guy we were going to put on trial for burglary of your house.......now we have to offer him a plea to misdemeanor trespassing because we don't have people to try that case and speedy trial limits prevent us from continuing the trial.
That civil trial the judge, court reporter, clerk and deputies were going to handle - that must be postponed so that a re-trial on criminal case can be held.

It's the fallacy that the broken window adds to the economy.

It's a zero sum game. There's no such thing as government money - there's only your money and my money.

[Petrol & Powder]

Geezer in NH - When the false alarm forced those firefighters to respond to a bogus call were they just sitting around or were they: engaged in training?, performing required maintenance?, eating a meal after working 20 hours without a break? Did another engine company have to cover real calls in their area of responsibility while they were handling a bogus call? Were they sleeping after handling a full night of real emergencies? Were they exposed to unnecessary danger while responding to that bogus call? Did they expose the public to unnecessary traffic delays by their emergency response?

Yes - we pay firefighters to stand by so that they can answer calls for service but we pay them to answer REAL calls, not bogus false alarms that divert resources from real emergencies.

I have NO problem with requiring some jerk to pay restitution for a false alarm. I'd rather he pay that cost than to pass that cost onto the taxpayers.

[Char-Gar]

I do not get the cost of a trial.

Judge is on a salary and benefits from the .gov Yearly payment stays the same whether he is on a case or not.

Prosecutor and his minions are the same.

Court officers, deputy's, sheriffs, police officers again the same.

Jail officers etc. the same.

WHAT COST DIFFERS?

Only the defendant's law fees but no one stated care about that.

As a former fire INVS/FF/Deputy sheriff. DA's always wanted the cost of a false alarm for restitution for the found guilty and I had a problem giving one other than the cost of the desil fuel as the FF's were paid regardless of responding or not and the fuel was pushing it as the may drive around the districts the covered for many reasons other than alarms. [getting lunch, ice cream run on hot night, just to keep from going stir crazy in the fire house.]

Adding all the costs of fuel, manpower, mechanical wear is the same as if they did not respond IMHO unless there was an accident causing harm property or personal.

I cannot figure how the court is much different than that. Momey paid out is the same if not on a trial other than the pittance the jurors are paid.

It is called SPIN

Not nearly the same cost. A jury trial involves the extensive preparation of evidence, including witness fees, travel, expert witness fees, visual and graphic presentations and many such things. This consumes many days of work by prosecutors and their staff. If every case went to trial, the number of prosecutors and staff would be out of the question. You would also have to increase the number of judges, baliffs, clerks, court reporters etc.

Before the trial prep, the case file is just statments and perhaps some results from a crime lab. With a jury trial, the cost of evidence presenation to a judge or jury sky rockets.

Now throw in the cost of the defendants appointed legal team (lawyers, para-legals, expert witnesses, lab testing, cost of defence evidence presentation etc. etc.) and the cost skyrockets agains.

Bottom line is a jury trial costs a several hundred more times, or even a thousands more times the cost of a plea of guilty. You can figure each day of a jury trial costs a hundred thousand dollars or perhaps multiples of that amounts depending on the complexity of the evidence.