if a jury is not unanimous (if even 1 juror disagrees) a case will mistrial
jury nullification is when jurors think defendant is guilty but find him not guilty anyway (hence they are nullifying the law). jury nullification is not allowed to happen but happens anyway.
juries in criminal cases add to the realistic experience, which is really what is strived for in criminal cases
in civil cases on the other hand, the matter is generally pertaining to some form of dispute – it’s less about RP and more about solving the matter. civil cases are also generally more complex in nature, longer, and may require juries to interpret more laws than criminal cases would.
throughout my time here, every single jury ive had both as a lawyer and as a judge has been problematic in some grand fashion
that being said, i do still like them for the realism they bring, the added layer of decision making that lawyers need to consciously make (because dealing with a jury is WAY different from dealing with a judge), my general belief that you should be able to have another option outside of a bench trial should you need it, etc
id like to see some remolding in the way we do juries in criminal trials – what we ask of them, what we allow to be presented to them, etc
as for civil cases, im okay with juries being done away with. my initial reasoning for making that suggestion was that they just dont make sense practically speaking for the content or goals of civil litigation, which in firestone is closer to an arbitratory process than anything tbh at least in its effect. ive heard some other great thoughts on their impact civilly that i hope to see get shared here as well
why don’t you do jury duties rather than tagging everyone to see who wants to be jury. maybe there’s a better chance of finding better jury when people are forced to participate their due diligence.
id imagine that people who are forced to be a juror, like irl, are going to be less attentive, which in turn will cause more disputes and more mistrials (since they’ll end up being the 1 that disagrees)
logistically handling jury duty would also be quite complex, when (at least for criminal cases) most LEOs cannot participate by default due to department-COI-rules
Man… y’all really tryna abolish juries… I loved juries because almost everyone in firestone likes me. Which means when I get in trouble juries let me slide away from facing trouble.
Honestly this could cause more issues than it solves, at least with the way it is now the people WANT to be there and so will be more tentative and present in the case, if people were forced to do it they might not care nearly as much and half ass it, especially if they didn’t wanna be there in the first place
There should be a jury pool where anyone can enter or leave it. When a case needs a jury, the judge then randomly selects individuals who are within the jury pool to participate. Tagging everyone just annoys people and you’ll get noobs from time to time. Plus, you could then fine tune who should be on a jury and who should be banned from being on a jury through legislation on regulating the jury pool.
The problem doesn’t have to do with jury selection? I’ve found that most people who are willing to join the jury are fine, especially on the Courts Discord. Forcing people to join is logistically and ethically impossible and just causes more issues.
The problem is more so the substantive issues juries have. I would agree with Skye: although juries cause a heck of a lot more headache, they are essential to roleplay some realism. Also, we must stop asking of jurors to interpret the law. This is an especially important change which must be implemented: I do not believe lawyers should any longer be permitted to instruct the jury on the law and give their interpretation on it. I’m not sure how the legal community feels about this now, I tried implementing this a few years ago and people disagreed…
You could add payment compensation if the case did not miss trial. This would motivate them to become a great jury and they won’t cause any problems. Money is a great incentive and it should used.
money would motivate them to just agree on a decision, which may not be an accurate reflection on what the juror thinks is in the best interests of justice
Though rather unrealistic, instead of mistrialing because 1 juror does not agree, rather make the vote a supermajority vote like congress. Therefor there are less opportunities for mistrial unless a jury is truly split.
This brings up the lovely case of Ramos v. Louisiana, which basically says according to the 6th amendment all jury convictions must be unanimous. While I personally don’t have a problem with having Majority Verdicts, it would require a constitutional amendment to the FS const (article 3 section 12). But its something that definitely can be considered.
