Sudoku-playing jurors force drug trial to be aborted

Sudoku-playing jurors force drug trial to be aborted

www.news.com.au

A MILLION dollar Sydney drugs trial has been aborted after it was found jurors were playing sudoku while evidence was being given.

Sydney District Court Judge Peter Zahra yesterday aborted the trial of two men facing a possible life sentence on drugs conspiracy charges.

He discharged the jury in the trial which had been running for 66 days over the past four months and had cost taxpayers an estimated $1 million.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I have little faith in the legal system, or any form of constructed human justice.

The law is a rule book that people have made, to which we ae supposed to live. What a load of crap. The law is flawed, when it can be circumvented by rich and powerful people.

This news story shows how ridiculous the judicial system is, when jurors don't even pay attention during a trial.

I'll never willingly stand before twelve people and let them judge me. Never.

www.news.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

You'd rather stand before one corrupt judge and let him/her decide your fate?

Personally I believe we should strip the entire legal system down to bare bones and rebuild from the ground up. Every judge, local, state, federal, Supreme Court, all of them should be elected officials with full case record transparency available for every voter and with 2 year election cycle for their first 2 terms, after which if re-elected a second time their term limit increases to 4 years. From there we should go to a system in which we have paid and educated jurors. These jurors cannot be elected because, unfortunately, that would be a task in futility as voters would scarcely be able to keep track of everyone running and such. However, we should have an elected official, on a 2 year cycle, who is responsible for the jurors. After every trial on which a juror has served, there should be a review board composed of the elected jury board chief and a selection of senior judges... these review board minutes should be public record with some outlet for inquiry from members of the public who are concerned over any percieved trends or impartiallities from any given juror.

The main problem with the revised justice system I just laid out is public apathy. Let's face it, though, that could be said about virtually anything pertaining to our government today. The majority of the public only cares enough to whine and bitch, but refuse to take any time to educate themselves and then attempt to get involved in the processes to whatever degree is needed to ensure transparancy and government accountabillity. Hell, we've spent 30 years with activist judges making laws from the bench instead of interpreting laws, which is in clear violation of the Constitution, and very few have become alarmed enough to demand accountabillity. If that hasn't sparked a fire under the public, nothing will.

Originally posted by burdman30ott6
You'd rather stand before one corrupt judge and let him/her decide your fate?

I won't stand before ANYONE to be judged.

What right does another person have to judge me?

Uh, how else do you propose keeping the entire system out of anarchy? If you have a set of laws, then clearly you must have a set of officials whose duty entails ensuring those laws are followed and issues penalties for violating them. Even the most anti-government individual has to acknowledge the need for some form of penal system.

Originally posted by burdman30ott6
Uh, how else do you propose keeping the entire system out of anarchy?

Sometimes I wonder if what we have now is actually better than anarchy?

We're sliding towards being a Police State more each day. Look at the DC police checkpoints happening now... it's nuts.

I'm not talking about police, I'm talking about the actual justice system, though. We can spin our wheels discussing whether or not we're heading towards a police state until the cows come home, but it really doesn't pertain to this current discussion. Let's assume that a person actually committed a serious crime and was taken into custody totally by-the-book, he wasn't tasered, he wasn't beaten, he wasn't shot by a space gun that liquified his bowels and made him ruin his drawers, just a peacefull "There he is, officer! Arrest that man!" cuffed, read his rights, brought before a judge.

If your argument is that the current crop of judges we have include some very corrupt and very activist minded judges who should be disbarred, then I agree with you completely. This country has entirely too many judges who believe that setting precidents are synonymous with interpreting the law, when, in reality they're actually making laws from the bench and that's very wrong and very illegal. So I support 100% the idea that a major shakeup complete with a lot of new blood is long overdue on this nation's benches. However, if your point is that you believe "No one has the right to judge me!" as you said, then you're making a ridiculous statement. No man is above the law, no man. While it may hurt your pride and your machismo may feel some pain, when the system is working the way our founding father's envisioned and constructed it, it isn't "a man" sitting there judging you. It is a duly appointed representative of all the people in this nation determining whether or not you violated this nation's law and, if you did, what the punishment will fulfill the will of the people.

Anarchy certainly isn't a "better system" as true anarchy would basically permit me the personal right to take my gun and shoot you purely because I felt like it and because we're in anarchy, the absence of law. Same goes for rape, stealing, randomly beating people with blunt objects, arson, any crime you wish to name. Name me one society in the history of this Earth that has survived long enough to even scribe their story with that system in effect.

Originally posted by burdman30ott6
Anarchy certainly isn't a "better system" as true anarchy would basically permit me the personal right to take my gun and shoot you purely because I felt like it

No, not at all. You can take your gun and shoot me now if you choose.

With today's system, you will plead not-guilty by reason of ______ (insert false defence here). You will then be found guilty and probably spend 10 to 15 behind bars. Then, after paying your debt to society you will be free.

With anarchy, after shooting me, you will be hunted down and killed by my family. That's justice.

In some ways, anarchy is natural justice, without the need to write laws down on paper.

Originally posted by tezzajw
With anarchy, after shooting me, you will be hunted down and killed by my family. That's justice.

Sure it is...

And then my family rises up to shoot back, so you bring friends, my family brings in friends, and pretty soon you have a war going on. Over a death. At best, a feud that goes on for generations, at worst, a decimation of countless lives over something as pointless as a random killing.

Of course, that even assumes that your family had the capacity to come back and hunt down your killer. What if you are alone? Does anyone alone and without family automatically forfeit their right to live and let live? If you had no friends or family to avenge you, where is the justice for someone randomly killing you?

To which you might reply "well then I would make sure I banded together with someone who would help protect or avenge me."

In which case, congratulations, you have re-invented the Social Compact, which is the agreement of people living together to give up certain inherent licenses (such as randomly killing, stealing, raping, etc) towards each other in exchange for mutually assured protection from one another and the outside world.

Of course, some people's definition of what constitutes a violation of that Social Compact, and how to punish against it, will be different from someone else's, so it'd be a good idea to clarify where the line is, and what happens to those who cross it. Congratulations again, you've now got Laws.

Of course, you couldn't just trust anyone to carry out the Law... I mean, old Grampa who is blind and deaf and can't walk could hardly be entrusted with taking down your killer. Likewise, you wouldn't want your friend's pregnant wife going into combat, and a child would have little idea what they were doing or why. You also wouldn't want an argument breaking out about who "has" to go do it, because crimes never happen at convenient times. So you'd need to pre-select people to carry out these laws, and they would have the responsibility of doing so. But since this places them at significant risk, and takes time away from what they could do otherwise, some compensation like pay would be in order. Congratulations a 3rd time. You've got Peace Officers and Judges.

And even if you refuse to have any part of Social Compacts, there's yet more bad news: your potential killers won't care about your ideals or your desire to not be a part of society. Because even in an anarchy, people band together under agreement of social compact, and at that point, there is no anarchy.

This is probably the biggest failure in logic of those that propose Anarchy. Anarchy is not a system, it is not a solution, it's not even a desireable state. It is a result of poorly transitioning from one system of Social Compact to another, and nothing more. Otherwise you reduce mankind to forever wandering solo, raping mates, killing each other on a whim, stealing each other's stuff, and in general, reducing everyone to a-hole status.

That's nothing to look forward to unless you've just got a natural bent for that sorta thing, in which case, it makes me glad we have a system of defined laws, punishments, and peace officers to at least discourage you from attempting it, and at best apprehend you when you do those sorts of things.

Sure, it's not a perfect system, but until it's so awful that heinous crimes actually seem preferable, I'll take the current system over any fool's anarchy any day of the week.



[edit on 6/11/2008 by thelibra]