Cleopatra said:
Amateur Scientist I have a question.
Before posing my question allow me remind to the rest of the people here ( I think that I have mentioned it to you in our previous discussions) that in my country the criminal law is a question of the victim versus an individual, it's not the State that prosecutes but the victim which is represented by a criminal lawyer who does the job a DA's office does- he has to prove the guilt of the accused. The State is present just to secure the procedure.
So, here is my question regarding your case.
When we see such a dichotomy between the Procecution and the Jury ( you said that their decision was unanimous-- that was impressive-congratulations BTW) don't you think that there is a problem?
Don't you think that we miss something? When it comes to such cases, personally I have the feeling that Justice wasn't served.
Your question is quite substantial, even if you didn't mean it as such.
The simple answer is yes, but I don't think it's the kind of problem you presume.
As an aside, thanks for congratulating me. In my jurisdiction criminal jury verdicts must be unanimous, otherwise there is a hung jury, which means they couldn't agree on a verdict. In such a case, if the judge is convinced they cannot agree, then the judge is obligated to declare a mistrial and the state is free to prosecute the case again in a new trial. In practice, this sometimes results in a renegotiated plea to a lesser offense, or in no new prosecution at all. In other words, a hung jury is nearly always regarded as a win by the defense, as it results in the defendant's not being found guilty (read that carefully--not being found guilty is not the same as being found "not guilty"), at least for the time being.
Back to your question. The "problem," if you wish to regard as such, is that investigators, prosecutors, and grand juries have access to only one side of the case. They only hear from the accuser or accusers (The defense has no right to be present at grand jury proceedings. Indeed, they are secret and take place in the district attorney's office). Thus, they get a very biased view of the facts. Add to this the very real tendency of many of those on the side of law enforcement to assume that nearly all accusations of criminal activity are true. This results in a big criminal justice machine which gathers momentum easily once someone has placed a call to the police to begin a criminal prosecution. It can be very hard to stop that machine once it is in motion.
Unfortunately for many, once an accused is placed in that machine, it can be very difficult to get out without a jury hearing the case at trial and hearing and seeing the accused's side of the facts. Thus, the jury is the last wall of protection for an accused between the awesome powers and resources of the state to imprison him or even to take his life, and his remaining freedom as an individual.
Juries often find that there is reasonable doubt about the facts as the state presents them which are necessary to establish a crime. When they do that, the accused is found not guilty and goes free. To characterize that as a "problem" is due either to a misunderstanding of the intended framework of the American criminal justice systme, or to an oversimplication of the issue.
At the top of this post I said the simple answer is "yes." By that I meant that the "problem" is that often the law enforcement side becomes overzealous and fails to use its critical analysis skills to recognize that it has serious problems with its proof that is admissible before a jury. Too often they just "know" that the person they have accused is guilty, and they become rigid in their stance and refuse to negotiate fairly or in good faith. Often, such refusals result in defense attorneys or their clients deciding the best course of action is to "roll the dice" with the jury.
In short, criminal justice in the U.S. is very much a balancing act between the prosecution and the defense. It is intended to be that way. It is not a broken system because it often results in guilty persons going free. We designed the system to allow that on the premise that such a result is much more preferable to one in which innocent persons are freely and often wrongly convicted.
In short, I lament that the public too often has the impression that persons in the criminal justice system rarely are wrongfully accused. Most practising criminal defense lawyers have seen many of their clients wrongfully accused of conduct that they probably didn't do. That is not the same as declaring them "innocent." It means that not only does the state sometimes target the wrong individuals for prosecution, but also that the state often overcharges defendants by exaggerating the nature of the charge, by stacking one charge after another on the same set of facts, and by exaggerating the facts pointing to criminal conduct.
You are simply offbase to declare that justice isn't served in served in cases in which a not guilty verdict is the result. To make such a statement is to misunderstand criminal justice in the U.S. as it was intended to function. The system isn't broken. What is broken are the public's understanding and perceptions about it.
AS
