okay um we're talking about uh trial by jury and whether or not we thought it was a a fair way to do it do you think that they ought to have the uh the judge do the sentencing to try to make it more uniform or more fair or or what do you think
uh
well um
i think that uh when you're tried by a jury of your peers they probably uh the collective
mind of the jury is probably a better vehicle for sentencing than the judge himself uh because then there's the consensus thing rather than a uh a single person
well there there is an argument in that uh a judge has seen a lot more cases and you know perhaps he sees one crime
um-hum
and and he can compare that crime to you know his long history of of of dealing with with criminals and uh
um-hum
the the jury you know this is you know maybe they've sat on sat on a jury once before maybe this is their very first time the only they've really seen is like Gaudy on TV or something like that you know and and they just you know they just kind of
um-hum
you know making guesses how bad they think it is
yeah well i would i could i would argue back that uh
a a single person being able to pass a sentence on someone um leaves it open to his or her own uh biases and they may consider
arson to be a heinous crime and child molestation to be less severe so the sentence wouldn't be all that uniformed i mean obviously it would be uniform within the parameters of that judge himself him or herself
yeah yeah as as uniformed as i mean he would he would
figure out the severity based upon his own personal scale the only thing i worry about is like one
um one murderer or or let's say one one thief
um getting like
a tenth of the penalty of of another thief simply because perhaps he impressed the jury more or or you know just because because his presentation was better
uh-huh
yeah that's a that's one of the biggest uh biggest problems i think in our society is that uh the the justice system
uh basically goes by who's got enough money for the best lawyer and uh the presentation is is everything um so you know you you could have a real dirt ball
yeah
be portrayed by his lawyer as a loving family man and and uh color the color the jury's opinions but um i don't know
exactly
see i would almost argue i would consider i i i don't understand i don't know i haven't thought it out long enough to figure out all the ramifications but getting rid of the entire trial by jury and and having the judge decide guilty or not guilty
well we could do that or we could explode it to it's logical extreme or it's or
ridiculous extreme and
take uh the new interactive television uh
technology that's coming forward and uh have everybody in the country or everyone who chose to tune in
decide guilt or innocence and then uh have a sliding scale of you know the fifty nine percent of the people said you were guilty that means you get the life in prison you know um
oh oh man
Wheel of Justice we could have a game show you know we no there there it it does need reform uh i would worry about a single judge uh
uh
passing sentence uh especially in in a more involved trial uh
i i don't know i think that the founding fathers had a great idea and the reason the reason that we went away from the single judge or the the the triad i guess of judges that they have uh in some systems it just um
you know they become instruments of the government and
yeah but i think the the we the people that that our founding fathers were talking about were rich white males
um-hum
i mean i don't think
i i don't think they had a real high opinion of of the masses i mean Hamilton was was a prime case you know he he didn't i think he referred to them as the mindless masses he didn't want them to vote he didn't want them to have any say in government
oh yeah that's why they uh made election days on Tuesday in November you know Tuesday was a work day and November was a real pain to travel in November back in what seventeen eighty three um
right
you know that never occurred to me
so i you know they sort of arranged it so that and you know and the electoral college is all rigged anyway i mean in theory they have to vote for whoever the delegates choose but it's you know it they don't have to um
well i mean only one sense it seems like a needless step but i think there's only been one person who haven't voted as he was voted into or there's only i think only been one electoral vote that was not not voted at in the electoral college
um-hum
as the propular as the popular vote was voted
um-hum well we're straying from our topic of jury
so
