mr_sniffles
TNPer
Last minute fine tuning? (This means you Grosse!!)
FD - Jury Reform
- Thread starter mr_sniffles
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Last minute fine tuning? (This means you Grosse!!)
Unterwasserseestaat
TNPer
Here's something I just thought of: How could a player's being aware of their position on the list affect their actions in the region? For instance, would we have to put some sort of constraint on the preselecteds bringing forward a case, given they know they'll have a fair shot of being on the jury?
We also need to make sure that any defendant retains their right to counsel of choice, even if that choice is on the preselected list.
I suppose the obvious solution would be to "randomize the list minus any parties involved in the case" in part b (and define involvement).
Also, should the preselected jurors be required to issue an initial response, acknowledging that they know they're on the list, in order to remain on it? The main problem with the current system seems to be that we simply don't hear back from most people.
We also need to make sure that any defendant retains their right to counsel of choice, even if that choice is on the preselected list.
I suppose the obvious solution would be to "randomize the list minus any parties involved in the case" in part b (and define involvement).
Also, should the preselected jurors be required to issue an initial response, acknowledging that they know they're on the list, in order to remain on it? The main problem with the current system seems to be that we simply don't hear back from most people.
Grosseschnauzer
TNPer
Request noted, and added to my list of things to do as I have the time. (I am moving cross-country on Monday; but I should have time in the evenings as I stop each night. Once the move is completed I should have nearly unlimited access to the net again. 
The Southern Acre
TNPer
It just speeds jury selection up since there are less possible jurors, although it does not really speed it up that much...
mr_sniffles
TNPer
Southwest Asia
TNPer
Does this need to be legislation? Or can it just be a kind of informal procedure? It seems a waste to have this as a piece of legislation, especially in the case that either 15 people will be:
1. Too many people
2. Too few people
Plus, it doesn't make sense that you would select 15 people, choose 5, and then reselect 15 new people. Why not just exclude the 5 selected and then select 5 more and keep randomly selecting from among those in the list?
1. Too many people
2. Too few people
Plus, it doesn't make sense that you would select 15 people, choose 5, and then reselect 15 new people. Why not just exclude the 5 selected and then select 5 more and keep randomly selecting from among those in the list?
mr_sniffles
TNPer
Because we cannot pre-select the specific 15 in advance. What we're doing is narrowing the field when needed, that they might be needed in the future.
We actually don't re-select 15 ppl, we select the fifteen people then use std jury selection procedures as written out in NP Law (such as why we need to pass this instead of just having a change in Interim Court Rules) so if we have three trials but only 12 jurors are eligible (the three being involved in the case like being the defendant, prosecutor, judge, mistress) then we just follow normal procedure again except instead of looking for all five, we're just looking for three. Speeds things up a bit.
Blackshear
TNPer
We can't keep half a dozen Ministers, usually drawn from a pool of the most active players in the region, to follow through on their commitment to the electorate. Heck, we've spent the vast majority of our history without the full contingent of three Court Justices. I don't see 15 people meeting this commitment.
You can bombard me with all the idealistic rhetoric at your disposal, you will not convince me that a jury system will ever become a workable component of our judicial system.
I submit to the court, as evidence of this assertion, every trial that has ever been conducted in this region in the post-constitutional era.
You can bombard me with all the idealistic rhetoric at your disposal, you will not convince me that a jury system will ever become a workable component of our judicial system.
I submit to the court, as evidence of this assertion, every trial that has ever been conducted in this region in the post-constitutional era.
Poltsamaa
TNPer
Congratulations, Sir!! You win a lollipop!!
Emperor Matthuis
TNPer
Blackshear makes a very good point.
mr_sniffles
TNPer
So where's your reform package?
Blackshear
TNPer
My support for the idea that all trials be heard before our triumvirate of Justices rather than juries (something that is actually done in democratic countries in the real world) is already on the record.
I support a realistic concept that would actually work in our region rather than an idealistic concept that has been proven, repeatedly, not to work.
I have read post after post suggesting that eliminating juries and entrusting our judicial system to a trio of political appointees (whom I must note are ratified, usually unanimously, by the RA) might cause harm to the region somewhere down the road when we aren't as lucky as we are now to have such respected Justices.
I submit that the repeated failure of the jury system has and is causing harm to our region now.
I would rather fix a real problem rather than a hypothetical one.
The Southern Acre
TNPer
You proposal seems to make sense, however it does not create an appeals process. If found guilty by the justices, where would the defendant appeal to? The RA?
Blackshear
TNPer
Yes.
Every jury proposal I've ever seen involves recruiting a subset of the RA. Let's just use entire group. We know they'll show up.
To address bias concerns, the defence and prosecution should each be allowed to recuse up to 3 RA members.
Grosseschnauzer
TNPer
I had previously suggested this prior to the RA vote that rejected Heft's too broad proposal, and I'll mention it again.
I have serious reservations about an appeal process in the RA, because it will be ill-suited to deal with any issue concerning the interpretation and application of TNP law (as contained in the Constitution and the Legal Code) abd as reflected in the curretnt appellate system and the decisions of the Court in that process.
An appeal to the RA or the Cabinet might be satisfactory to determine whether the evidence was sufficient, but I seriously doubt it would prove workable on any other issues that might be raised. The inability of a large collective body to timely agree on the rationale and explanation of issues of law on appeal is, to me, a serious defect for such proposals.
What I proposed then is either the appoinment of hearing officers by the Court to conduct the trials, or the addition of one oe more Associate Justices to the Court so that one or more justices could conduct the trial, and preserve a panel of three justices to hear appeals. In other words, Justices would be involved in every case, either at the trial or appellate level. I still am not convinced that there is no possible way to reform the jury system, and I still think the appropriate first step is to address the problem as to the continued presence in the region and continued eligibility of RA members. I find it difficult to understand why any incumbent as MIIA would fail to fulfill this responsibility of that office, but I am certainly willing to explore alternatives to permit other officials of the government to exercise the responsibility, either as an addition to the MIIA or in place of the MIIA. This would be a far less drastic change that ought to be tried first before rejecting any form of a jury system.
I have serious reservations about an appeal process in the RA, because it will be ill-suited to deal with any issue concerning the interpretation and application of TNP law (as contained in the Constitution and the Legal Code) abd as reflected in the curretnt appellate system and the decisions of the Court in that process.
An appeal to the RA or the Cabinet might be satisfactory to determine whether the evidence was sufficient, but I seriously doubt it would prove workable on any other issues that might be raised. The inability of a large collective body to timely agree on the rationale and explanation of issues of law on appeal is, to me, a serious defect for such proposals.
What I proposed then is either the appoinment of hearing officers by the Court to conduct the trials, or the addition of one oe more Associate Justices to the Court so that one or more justices could conduct the trial, and preserve a panel of three justices to hear appeals. In other words, Justices would be involved in every case, either at the trial or appellate level. I still am not convinced that there is no possible way to reform the jury system, and I still think the appropriate first step is to address the problem as to the continued presence in the region and continued eligibility of RA members. I find it difficult to understand why any incumbent as MIIA would fail to fulfill this responsibility of that office, but I am certainly willing to explore alternatives to permit other officials of the government to exercise the responsibility, either as an addition to the MIIA or in place of the MIIA. This would be a far less drastic change that ought to be tried first before rejecting any form of a jury system.
Blackshear
TNPer
I agree with your assessment of the Ministry of I&IA, Grosse, and am considering rectifying the situation personally in the upcoming elections. Not that I believe an updated RA list will make its members any more willing to participate in jury duty.
An additional layer of justices (which I realize is not exactly what is being proposed above) is intriguing idea.
We could have a regional court with a single judge, perhaps drawn from a pool of three, hearing trial cases. If the parties are unsatisfied with the regional court's ruling, they could appeal to the TNP Supreme Court, which would be presided over by our current trio of Justices.
The Supreme Court would retain its role as interpreter of TNP laws.
The main problem with this proposal, as with most anything here, is finding 6 people willing and able to fill the positions. If the RA is used as the appeals court, there will be no doubt about the role being fulfilled.
An additional layer of justices (which I realize is not exactly what is being proposed above) is intriguing idea.
We could have a regional court with a single judge, perhaps drawn from a pool of three, hearing trial cases. If the parties are unsatisfied with the regional court's ruling, they could appeal to the TNP Supreme Court, which would be presided over by our current trio of Justices.
The Supreme Court would retain its role as interpreter of TNP laws.
The main problem with this proposal, as with most anything here, is finding 6 people willing and able to fill the positions. If the RA is used as the appeals court, there will be no doubt about the role being fulfilled.
The biggest problem with that setup that I'm immediately seeing is interest. The regional court would only be doing anything when a trial arises (which normally isn't that often) and even, if I understood your proposal, only 1/3 of the regional court would be doing something.
I'm not sure we could find three people that we would actually want to be in that position who are willing to take it.
I'm not sure we could find three people that we would actually want to be in that position who are willing to take it.
mr_sniffles
TNPer
In my experience, jury selection hasn't been the problem. Negligent judges has, excluding the Chief of course.
Blackshear
TNPer
A fair assessment.
My understanding is somewhat different. I've had experience (when I was running the diplomatic corps many moons ago) with wasting days waiting in vain for people to reply to PMs asking whether they intended to carry out responsibilities they'd previously agreed to. (Admittedly, I've been the other side of this equation as well.)
I've seen more genuine effort to keep our judicial system afloat come from the region's justices than the members of the jury pool.
The biggest problem with the current system is that the judge has to go a long way down the RA list to find 5 people who are active at the specific moment in time when a trial arises. This process takes an inordinate amount of time. The judge has to wait for responses from members who may not have logged on in weeks.
Suppose the judges were permitted to take that random list of all the RA members, and first call those members who have been active on the forum in say, the last 7 days. If he can't find 5 there, then he could call on those who were here within the last two weeks. If he still can't find 5... well then we really do need to scrap the system altogther.
Thoughts?
Suppose the judges were permitted to take that random list of all the RA members, and first call those members who have been active on the forum in say, the last 7 days. If he can't find 5 there, then he could call on those who were here within the last two weeks. If he still can't find 5... well then we really do need to scrap the system altogther.
Thoughts?
Grosseschnauzer
TNPer
The trial/appellate separation can be tested under the Interim Court Rules through the appointment of hearing officers by the Court. The hearing officers, with few changes in the Court Rules, could conduct trials of criminal and civil cases, while the Court itself could handle appeals an other proceedings where an intrepretation of law is needed. There is nothing that prevents the Court from "pre-qualifying" hearing officers, and would serve to crreate a pool of individuals who might be considered for appointment as Justices as the need arise.
Another option concerning juror selection is to discuss whether or not jury service should be an obligation of RA membership. i think we need to keep in mind that the size of the juror pool has approximatey doubled since juries were introduced. The question is whether the number of active participants gas doubled as well.
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mr_sniffles
TNPer
Wouldn't choosing jurors just by availability harm the randomness of it? (just throwing it out there, not saying anything definitive.)
In order for a jury system to work, there has to be a way to target those most likely to be available. The list would still be in a random order, so it would be difficult to stack the jury. The latitude to select from the more recently active nations would just give the judges a better shot at filling the slots more quickly.
Unterwasserseestaat
TNPer
Any jury we can pull together is already going to have some degree of self-selection, just because jurors get to choose whether they show up or not. I don't really think that this proposal takes that into account, in that there is no way outlined for the preselected jury pool to respond to the pre-summons, to accept, decline or say how likely they'll be around to do jury duty.
The above proposal doesn't do much more than a mass email to the entire RA telling us we may all be called for jury duty, it only potentially makes the preselected feel special enough to read their email notification when they get a PM on the board.
I'd either like to see some method of response with such a system (and even then, why not just ask the entire RA to get the largest possible pool?), or a system like our current one, but calling up 15 jurors at a time and making a provision to winnow those willing to be on the jury to a final team of five.
The above proposal doesn't do much more than a mass email to the entire RA telling us we may all be called for jury duty, it only potentially makes the preselected feel special enough to read their email notification when they get a PM on the board.
I'd either like to see some method of response with such a system (and even then, why not just ask the entire RA to get the largest possible pool?), or a system like our current one, but calling up 15 jurors at a time and making a provision to winnow those willing to be on the jury to a final team of five.