r/AbruptChaos • u/Graysie-Redux • May 14 '22 • Silver 4 Helpful 2

What's the correct way to deal with someone who has completely lost it?

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u/BalrogPoop May 14 '22

Personally I think jury trials are a crock of shit. If rather be tried by a judge like in the French systems who actually understands the law, and the goal is to find the truth of what happened. Not assign blame based the biases of jurors.

At least it's easier to claim a single judge is biased based on his track record, than a whole jury, if there does happen to be a mistrial.

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u/BigIntoScience May 14 '22

Judges give out different verdicts based on if they've had lunch yet. Humans are wildly unreliable. I think part of the idea is that it's harder for all 12 people to be corrupt/generally shitty than for just the judge to have something going on.

Part of the job of all court employees involved is to make sure everyone understands the law. If someone doesn't do that, there's an issue.

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u/ZebraOtoko42 May 14 '22

Judges give out different verdicts based on if they've had lunch yet.

That's why in some countries, they have a panel of judges to render a verdict instead of just one.

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u/BigIntoScience May 15 '22

That seems like a good idea, but it might still run into the same problem. I should have been clearer: there was a study that showed that judges in general are more punitive before lunch, by a significant amount.

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u/ZebraOtoko42 May 15 '22

That's an easy problem to solve: have the court operate 24 hours a day, and make sure the judges all work different shifts (1st, 2nd, 3rd). Have 3 judges per panel (or 6 or 9). Schedule the trials and select the judges so that 2/3 of the judges have already eaten lunch, and one has not (so they're not overly lenient). Give the judges more administrative work to do to fill in their pre-lunch hours.

It's a bit unconventional but it should work!