I thought the entire point of a jury is that they do live under a rock. You seek out people who know nothing about the case, and then (if necessary) sequester them to ensure that they continue to know nothing.
As I understand it, lawyers seek to ensure that anybody with any domain knowledge is excluded. The jury is intended to be informed solely by what the lawyers present.
I know even less about UK law than I do about American law, so I could easily be wrong here. But from what I have heard, "not your concern" is exactly the design of the system. That system failed in this case, and I imagine they'll be trying to figure out how (and prevent that in the future).
Thought experiment: You are a juror in a case where a minor is accused of small-time theft, some cans of Coke. There is video evidence, clearly they stole. In the two cases
- the punishment is a small fine
- the punishment is the amputation of both hands
does your verdict depend on the expected punishment?
I'm unclear on why you're asking. You're written the question to presuppose an answer, but I'm not clear on the point you're making. It doesn't seem germane to my comment above.
That it is humane and morally correct to not follow the rules of justice in some cases, one of those being excessive punishment. I believe that this was the motivation in the subject trial -- I would have acted in the same way. In the UK this is a "perverse verdict", judges and government don't like them, but there's not much they can do about it except restrict trial by jury (which is exactly what the UK government is planning to do).
Isn't the reason obvious? You said the jury is supposed to lack domain knowledge. Domain knowledge apparently includes knowing the possible sentence. The given example is a case where knowing the possible sentence would alter the verdict given by any reasonable person. Therefore the jury should have knowledge of the possible sentence. What is unclear about that?
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I thought the entire point of a jury is that they do live under a rock. You seek out people who know nothing about the case, and then (if necessary) sequester them to ensure that they continue to know nothing.
As I understand it, lawyers seek to ensure that anybody with any domain knowledge is excluded. The jury is intended to be informed solely by what the lawyers present.
I know even less about UK law than I do about American law, so I could easily be wrong here. But from what I have heard, "not your concern" is exactly the design of the system. That system failed in this case, and I imagine they'll be trying to figure out how (and prevent that in the future).
Thought experiment: You are a juror in a case where a minor is accused of small-time theft, some cans of Coke. There is video evidence, clearly they stole. In the two cases
- the punishment is a small fine
- the punishment is the amputation of both hands
does your verdict depend on the expected punishment?
I'm unclear on why you're asking. You're written the question to presuppose an answer, but I'm not clear on the point you're making. It doesn't seem germane to my comment above.
That it is humane and morally correct to not follow the rules of justice in some cases, one of those being excessive punishment. I believe that this was the motivation in the subject trial -- I would have acted in the same way. In the UK this is a "perverse verdict", judges and government don't like them, but there's not much they can do about it except restrict trial by jury (which is exactly what the UK government is planning to do).
Isn't the reason obvious? You said the jury is supposed to lack domain knowledge. Domain knowledge apparently includes knowing the possible sentence. The given example is a case where knowing the possible sentence would alter the verdict given by any reasonable person. Therefore the jury should have knowledge of the possible sentence. What is unclear about that?