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But both sides will sometimes also veto qualified jurors, because they sense they might not be amicable to their plea. So, I don't necessarily know that you need this ample level of expertise either, as that is sometimes passed too by the parties.
Its definitely impossible when you consider jury selection. There's quite a large amount of people out there who are flat out incapable and they make a huge percentage of the population. Furthermore, when someone is picking from that group directly its a guarantee there will be people of that group on the jury.
But both sides will sometimes also veto qualified jurors, because they sense they might not be amicable to their plea. So, I don't necessarily know that you need this ample level of expertise either, as that is sometimes passed too by the parties.
lol they dont even supply lunch, only 5 bucks to pay for a public transport ticket, which doesnt even cover full fare adult ticket down here...fkn lame. No wonder why ppl cbf doing jury or appearing in court as a witness....no gain or benefit
I was paid $6 some years back. More than worthwhile.
I'll answer the more specific stuff later on, but I took a second to step back and think. I realized that the problem I'm having with Elnonos argument is that he hasn't presented much of a justification for the jury system.
I think it's ed for a couple reasons: 1) jurors tune out, get bored, and generally are not interested in trials; 2) those few jurors who do pay attention typically convince the others who weren't paying attention to view things their way when deliberation time comes; 3) jurors are usually uninformed and unsophisticated - at least when it comes to large, complicated pieces of litigation; 4) jurors no longer serve the "democratic check" they used to (I.e. A check on colonial abuses); 5) modern litigation is better served by more professional and specialized "arbiters" (whether those be judges, arbiters, or some other professional).
The democratic check argument isn't being made. Nor is the claim made that jurors are good representations of their communities. What is being argued is 1) juries are diverse en ies and 2) they're transparent. I'd take issue with those two points, but even before getting to that point, I'm asking myself so what? Sure, they might be diverse and sure there could be some measure of transparency associated with them -- but so what? Jus because they're diverse doesn't mean that, in practice, they are capable of properly deciding cases. Sure, any individual juror could try to grasp what's going on - but what does that have to do with diversity or transparency? And just because they could understand doesn't mean they do understand in practice.
Ultimately, I think I could concede the two points above and still be able to claim that juries are not effective arbiters of complex commercial disputes. If there is some connection between transparency, diversity, and effective conflict resolution, please help me out. But from the looks of it, this emperor isn't wearing any clothes.
You could use this argument to claim that juries are not effective arbiters of ANY "complex" dispute, really. Do jurors have knowledge of forensics? Can't judge a murder trial then. Biology? Can't determine damages in an accident. Etc etc.
They watch too much CSI and think that science can solve all cases with 100% certainty. Somehow, before all the high tech forensics, we were able to prosecute murdered.
We're talking mostly civil cases. As for criminal cases, high tech forensics like DNA analysis has indeed turned convictions around an exonerated completely innocent people.
Much to your chagrin, I see.
You resumed this well, props for that. I don't disagree that there's better suited persons than mere jurors to tackle on complex cases.
We also have to make a clear distinction here: Jurors (for the most part) tackle questions of fact. Judges are in charge of tackling questions of law. So it really is a misnomer to say that jurors need to know x, y or z statute, or understand how patent law works. They simply need to determine whether abstract, isolated X is true or false. They're presented with evidence in regards to X and the case on either side for true or false, and then a decision is made. The judge already pre-established whether the selection that needs to be made is framed into law, and instructed the jurors how the law operates (ie: the judge instructs the jurors that a criminal case will only be true if the decision is beyond reasonable doubt. Jurors are not instructed on the entire spectrum of criminal law, because they're not instructed to give opinion of law [except rare cases like jury nullification, but I digress]). Heck, some courts ask jurors to make their decision by checking a multiple choice questionnaire.
Is abstracting, isolating X sometimes turned into a circus? Yes. Does nuances sometimes get lost in that process? Absolutely. But you got there after exhausting other options. Pre -trial settlement, mutual agreement to arbitrate it, at least one side avoiding a bench trial. You fell to the bottom level, and at that level, the rules are simply different.
As far as the transparency and diversity, let me tell you why I think they're important. Transparency is somewhat self-explanatory. You're having a dispute with a 3rd party and obviously you want as an impartial jury as you can possibly get. That impartiality is at great lengths defined by the selection process of the jury, and the inference both sides have on it. The fact that neither side can influence the base pool of jurors adds transparency to the selection process, which in turns strengthen such impartiality.
Diversity matters from a different, more philosophical aspect, IMO, which I still think it's important. As Tocqueville said, Jury trials provide a way for regular citizens to educate themselves on self-government. They also provide a venue for the regular citizen to legitimize the law by directly applying it in specific cases. You obviously want as many people, from all backgrounds, to get introduced and involved in this process as part of their civil education.
Anyways, I try to keep being more concise on my posts, but I'm having a hard time, as it's a very interesting topic (IMO anyways). Hopefully it's easy to read.
The intricacies of a patent infringement case? Really?
Its more like they stopped looking for duplicate patents five or so years ago at the behest of the justice department.
The reason why they get 'disinterested' is because it is a bunch of illogical arbitrary bull that they are supposed to wade through.
Here's article extremely relevant to S&P downgrade
Apple's patent could prevent all OEMs from building tablets
Take a look at the above design and tell me that doesn’t look like EVERY TABLET on the market. Apple has just chosen the most compe ive Android tablet on the market and taken it down. This Community Design patent by Apple has only been around since 2010 so clearly Apple didn’t invent the tablet, Bert Keely, in 2000 at Comdex in Las Vegas the showed off Microsoft’s vision for the Tablet PC. Look familiar? Kind of looks like the images above, how can Apple patent an entire product category? At any moment Apple could decide that any tablet is too much compe ion and file a suit!
I’m used to seeing pretty generic designs submitted in patent do ents, but you’ve got to admit that those line drawings are very, very generic. But remember that it is on the basis of this that Samsung can no longer sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Europe.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/a...75?tag=nl.e550
==============
So will Apple kill all tablets with their generic tablet patent won 10 years after tablet was shown at COMDEX?
Well, this got twisted quickly. In vy's defense, I brought up a patent case as an example. I don't know that's the example of complex case he was going for. I'll adventure that it wasn't.
We're getting somewhere. I'm not going to harp on these points anymore. I think the real debate is below.
The problem I have with this is that jurors, like everyone else, have their biases. I think this entire debate started with someone's snarky comment about how Bank of America does not want to sit in front of 12 people pissed about the economy. That's not a knock on the process - which is what you're talking about. But it is a knock on the end result - juries aren't impartial.
As for transparency itslef, I'm not so sure things are as open as you'd like to believe. Voir Dire isn't open to the public. Jury deliberations are private. You're right that the base pool isn't tainted by lawyer-preferences, but I don't see the value in the choosing-people-at-random process that gets them on a jury when the lawyers exercise their strikes to get a jury that they think will likely be favorable to their client. Basically, people's inherent biases + lawyer manipulation through voir dire = a less than objective jury.
Sure judges are biases, just like a juror. But they at least are more sophisiticated and capable at properly deciding a case. In my mind, if both judges and juries are biased - why not choose the en y that is at least more intelligent?
I had a feeling this was coming.
I'm not so sure that a jury trial fulfills the same purpose that they once did, 200+ years ago. I'm not so sure that hearing a dispute about lender-liability or securities fraud or patent infringement - discreet, highly technical subjects that are largely, if not entirely, commercial in nature - is the best way for people to educate themselves on self-government. Does it educate them on the law covering these discreet areas? Sure. But there's a gap between that and self-government. And there's still the issue of juror strikes negating the diversity of the pool.
I'm also not so sure how they legitimize the law in these cases. I thought jurors only determine factual, not legal, issues? Accepting your characterization earlier, it seems like jurors aren't touching the law - but are only determining, for example, whether the light was green or red when the driver passed it. If that's true, then juries aren't affirming laws; they're just triers of fact
Regardless of that though, Why is a court room a proper venue to legitimize the law? Legal conservatives would claim that the proper venue for this type of democratic function would be public debate and/or pressuring the legislative branches of government.
Lastly, you still have the problem of those jurors who tune out/aren't paying attention.
I won't argue that jurors have no biases. They do. There's no doubt about that. However, the selection process affords both sides the same ability to screen those participants.
As you know, Voir Dire has it's limitations. While there's seemingly no limit to challenges for cause (conflict of interest, racist Johnny kind of clear bias, etc), peremptory challenges are limited both in count and kind. The fact that the pool is random constrains the ability of lawyers to exclude jurors indefinitely purely on SJS opinion.
If the pool would be of a known amount or quality, then you can arguably 'hedge' your peremptory challenges and effectively 'game' the process up to an extent. But when you don't rightly know if the guy that's coming next is better or worse than the one you just walked away from, then that kind of activity is simply impossible to do.
I would argue that if the biggest problem you see to juror impartiality is peremptory challenges as part of the Voir Dire, the easiest way to fix that is to do away with peremptory challenges altogether.
I will also add that Voir Dire is a necessary tool because you definitely know that when you draw from a random pool you'll end up with some jurors with actual cause that should not be part of the jury, and I also think the process, by making both sides participate on it, and giving both sides ample room to investigate the potential jurors, gives the verdict more value. After all, both sides ok every single juror.
Is it the ideal venue? Probably not. I have no problem stating that the obligatory requirement has more to do with functionality of the system than actual education.
But I don't outright discard there's no value whatsoever in it. Observing the system at work first hand, and being active participant of it has an intrinsic educational value. It also gives jurors the experience of being part of the system they live in. And I don't think you get the same kind of value by merely attending a public trial, etc.
As far as legitimizing the laws, that modern american jurisprudence is intolerant of the practice of jurors using a check on power like jury nullification, it doesn't mean it's not legal. While the use is marginal, and the current system actively discourages and even obstructs the ability to use such power, it's a power that it's there and can be used. Functionally, jurors are instructed to only answer questions of facts, but legally, they're allowed to answer both law and fact.
One other perspective is that by being an integral part of the process where the law is being applied (even if they don't directly decide on the merits of the law), they are legitimizing the application of such a law.
Well, like I said, you COULD make it optional. Normally people grow a lot of apathy towards anything they're forced to do. But when the obligatory requirement isn't there any more, you could find some genuine people that want to participate. I told you earlier about obligatory vote. Another one is the idea behind obligatory military service (same country). The excuse to make it obligatory was the same: "If you make it optional, nobody will enroll". But once they went away from obligatory to optional, some people still enrolled. It's not the same volume, but it was people that genuinely wanted to be part of that process.
Last edited by ElNono; 08-11-2011 at 02:03 PM.
Impossible! Those plebians could barely wipe their own ass, let alone determine a murder case!
I'm not so sure about that. They did a study on judges in.. Israel, I believe it was? And the study showed that the punishments/guilt of the people they were judging tended to sway at certain times... specifically lunch time. People who saw judges after lunch tended to get off with lighter sentences, people who saw judges before lunch got harsher ones.
http://www.litigationps.com/litigati...ch-breaks.html
I think you're overestimating the ability of a judge to be rational/intelligent at all times.
SEC Investigating S&P Over Leak of Downgrade to Investors
tandard & Poor's downgraded the US credit rating late last Friday, and the news wasn't much of a surprise. Wall Street had heard a rumor early on that the downgrade was coming. News sites reported the rumor all day.
Unless it was all a huge coincidence, it's likely that someone in the know leaked the information. The questions are who and whether the leak led to early insider trading.
That's what the Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly investigating. The SEC has asked Standard & Poor's to disclose who exactly knew about the downgrade before it was announced, the Financial Times reports. It's the start of a preliminary look into potential insider trading.
It will be a tough nut to crack. It's one thing to ask who knew the downgrade would take place. It's entirely a different beast to figure out where the information went from there - and then to find out whether any improper insider trading was committed based on the information.
There's a very real consequence at stake. A 2006 law says a credit ratings firm like S&P could have its license revoked if it did leak information about the downgrade, Marke ch reports.
http://www.readersupportednews.org/n...e-to-investors
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46202656Concerns over the size of United States debt reared their head once again as ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned that health care costs for a number of highly-rated Group of 20 countries, including the U.S., could hurt growth prospects and harm their sovereign creditworthiness from the middle of this decade.
i dont like speculators expecially these credit rating agency's who can have an effect on the market by just openning their mouths...its fkn bull .
If you look for the past 2-3 years, you will see who has benefitted from the stockmarket every time these idiots were upgrading/downgrading a bank/countrys credit rating.....what fkn right do they have to speculate about a company etc...
credit agency = a bunch of ex bankers/economists who dont know , when they cause the to happen
ratings/credit agency = just another division of the financial army, doing like they'er paid to do by the financial sector.
Credit rating agency Egan Jones downgraded the United States Thursday on concern over the sustainability of public debt. Egan Jones is one of the most important ratings firms in the world; they lowered our credit level from AA+ to AA. The firm reduced America from AAA to AA+ in July 2011, just before Standard & Poor's did the same.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...ment-halo.htmlhe first time I wrote about Sean Egan and his small, independent credit-research firm, Egan-Jones Ratings Co., was in December 2007 for a column about the bond insurer MBIA Inc. (MBI) And man, did he nail it.
The three big credit raters -- Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch Ratings -- all had AAA ratings on MBIA’s insurance unit, their highest grade. Egan said it deserved much lower. Anyone reading MBIA’s financial reports could see the company was losing money and needed billions of dollars of fresh capital.
By mid-2008, the Big Three had cut their ratings. Once again, Egan, a lonely voice of reason who saw the financial crisis coming, had shown his larger compe ors to be incompetent or compromised. It was one of many great calls to come for Egan-Jones. As for MBIA, which had no revenue last quarter, it’s still struggling.
So if you had told me back then that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division more than four years later would be accusing Egan, and his firm, of securities-law violations -- but not any of the big rating companies -- there’s no way I would have believed you. That’s what happened this week, though.
Life isn’t fair, as they say. The big raters, which are paid by the issuers of securities they grade, so far have gotten a pass, even after helping cause the financial crisis by slapping AAA scores on countless tranches of subprime-mortgage dreck. Egan-Jones, with fewer than 20 employees, makes its money by selling subscriptions to investors, meaning it’s not beholden to issuers. Yet Egan and his firm are getting pinched, although nothing in the SEC’s administrative complaint indicates investors were harmed.
None of this is to excuse any infractions Egan-Jones might have committed. We will have to wait and see if the agency’s claims stick in court. That said, it seems Egan-Jones’s big mistake was to seek formal recognition from the SEC at all.
The allegations mainly concern the application Egan-Jones filed with the agency in 2008 to expand its license as a so- called nationally recognized statistical rating organization. The firm, based in Haverford, Pennsylvania, first received that designation in 2007 for rating corporate debt, insurance companies and banks. Its 2008 application, which the SEC approved, sought recognition as a rater of asset-backed securities and government bonds.
Egan-Jones at the time said it had about 150 ratings on issuers of asset-backed securities and about 50 on government- debt issuers. The complaint said those numbers were overstated and that the firm hadn’t made any such ratings publicly available. Attorneys for Egan, 54, and the firm say their clients filled out the SEC’s application in good faith based on their understanding of what the form required.
Additionally, the complaint accused Egan-Jones of committing numerous book-and-record violations, such as failing to maintain a system for retaining employee e-mails. It also said the firm let two analysts participate in determining ratings for companies in which they owned securities, in violation of agency rules. An attorney for the defendants, Alan Futerfas, said the claims are without merit and that “the hypertechnical complaints that the SEC has alleged in no way justify an enforcement proceeding.”
What about the big rating companies? McGraw-Hill Cos., S&P’s parent, in September said the SEC’s staff had issued S&P a “Wells notice” warning that the agency may seek penalties over its rating of a $1.6 billion collateralized debt obligation in 2007. S&P received its letter the month before Egan got its Wells notice. There’s no telling if the SEC will follow through.
i wonder if the 3 credit agencys rate themselves? seems like 3 bull artists sitting at a table speculating while they are already ahead of the market by a few moves to profiteer
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business...,7161497.storyThe U.S. government has launched a civil lawsuit against Standard & Poor's and parent The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc over mortgage bond ratings, the first federal enforcement action against a credit rating agency over alleged illegal behavior tied to the recent financial crisis.
The government said in a court filing it was seeking civil money penalties from S&P and McGraw Hill.
"Considerations regarding fees, market share, profits, and relationships with issuers improperly influenced S&P's rating criteria and models," the government said.
Shares of McGraw-Hill plunged 13.8 percent on Monday after the company said it was expecting the lawsuit, marking their biggest one-day percentage decline since the 1987 stock market crash, according to Reuters data.
The news also caused shares of Moody's Corp, whose Moody's Investors Service unit is S&P's main rival, to slide 10.7 percent.
It is unclear why regulators may now be focusing on S&P rather than Moody's or Fimalac SA's Fitch Ratings.
S&P, Moody's and Fitch have long faced criticism from investors, politicians and regulators for assigning high ratings to thousands of subprime and other mortgage securities that quickly turned sour.
"This lawsuit is significant because it could augur future government action or, even worse for the agencies, more litigation by investors," said Jeffrey Manns, a law professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
A civil case involves a lower burden of proof than a criminal case would, and could make it easier for investigators to uncover potential "smoking guns" through subpoenas, he added.
The New York Times reported that talks between the Justice Department and S&P broke down last week after the government sought a settlement of more than $1 billion.
I'm guessing DoJ will lose this one, or the "settlement" will be risible.
Their defense has been "free speech", iow, we can spew biased, market-skewing, Wall-st-enriching, fraud-accomplice , and it's free speech.
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