Answer:
When the epic Oscar Pistorius murder trial finally comes to an end, a judge and two court officials will decide his fate — not a jury. That’s because South Africa banned juries in 1969.
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This Is Why Juries Shouldn't Decide Court Cases
Erin Fuchs Jul 3, 2014, 1:36 PM
12 Angry Men
A scene from the iconic jury movie "12 Angry Men." IMDB
When the epic Oscar Pistorius murder trial finally comes to an end, a judge and two court officials will decide his fate — not a jury. That’s because South Africa banned juries in 1969.
South Africa ditched juries amid fears of racial prejudice among jurors and a reluctance on the part of many people to serve. We should do the same thing in the United States.
Jurors with zero legal training in the U.S. often have to decide cases involving mind-bending issues like patent law. Many intelligent people who could best understand those issues, like our executive editor Gus Lubin, try to duck jury duty because they don’t want to miss work.
As a result, juries may consist of people who are least equipped to understand the issues before them. Even if a jury does have intelligent people serving on it, those people are most likely not legal experts.
Explanation:
HOMEPAGE
HOME LAW
This Is Why Juries Shouldn't Decide Court Cases
Erin Fuchs Jul 3, 2014, 1:36 PM
12 Angry Men
A scene from the iconic jury movie "12 Angry Men." IMDB
When the epic Oscar Pistorius murder trial finally comes to an end, a judge and two court officials will decide his fate — not a jury. That’s because South Africa banned juries in 1969.
South Africa ditched juries amid fears of racial prejudice among jurors and a reluctance on the part of many people to serve. We should do the same thing in the United States.
Jurors with zero legal training in the U.S. often have to decide cases involving mind-bending issues like patent law. Many intelligent people who could best understand those issues, like our executive editor Gus Lubin, try to duck jury duty because they don’t want to miss work.
As a result, juries may consist of people who are least equipped to understand the issues before them. Even if a jury does have intelligent people serving on it, those people are most likely not legal experts.
The law professor Peter Van Koppen explained why this is problematic in a 2009 essay arguing that jurors often have to decide "technical issues beyond their aptitude." In that essay published in the e-journal "Anatomy of a Jury Trial," Van Koppen pointed out that you wouldn't want a panel of lay people acting as doctors. So, why would you want regular people deciding the fate of defendants? The work done by a jury isn’t that different from the work of a scientist like a doctor, he wrote.
