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If the court can force people to be jurors because it needs jurors, why can’t it also force people to be judges, lawyers, prosecutors, etc? Why can’t it force carpenters to make tables, chairs, and gavels? Etc. Why draw the line at jurors? Seems absurd.
… it is simply a matter of tradition.
Another answer suggests that “We are following a tradition that came from British law of having trials decided by volunteers…” (emphasis mine).
So while having a jury may be tradition, the force part might not be tradition but relatively new.
Making something voluntary doesn’t necessarily make it a profession. I buy sandwiches voluntarily, that doesn’t mean I work in that field.
Well, at least this response is an honest confession of one of the (potentially) true motivations behind jury duty…
It’s not clear to me that force is cheaper. On the contrary, force causes friction. Dealing with people who don’t want to be there results in additional overhead that may be hidden/not reflected in numbers.
[Force is] cheaper than paying jurors their market rate for their time.
Force reduces legitimacy because there’s a greater risk of abuse and bias in jury selection.
Voluntary choice makes the process more legitimate, not less.
The same issue comes up with conscription, say: there’s honor in defending your country voluntarily, if you decide it deserves defending. But if you’re forced to defend it regardless, your efforts aren’t a reflection of merit or legitimacy anymore.
Take the POV of a third party from another country. Let’s say you’re European and you observe, from afar, the US being attacked by a foreign adversary. You also observe millions of Americans signing up the next day to defend America. That would mean something. Europeans could note this development as proof that America has values that are worth defending. But if Americans were instead conscripted, this signal would be lost.
I think the best justification is legitimacy: people accept a court decision better if it was made by their peers, instead of a government employee. That is important in places where the government is not trusted, or trustworthy.
Making juries voluntary doesn’t mean getting rid of them.
Trial by jury has been central to English Common Law legal systems “since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.” So you could say it is simply a matter of tradition.
It’s still arbitrary if it doesn’t address your objections. That’s a violation of consent and thus irrational.
If the legislature approves, doesn’t that mean the force is not arbitrary? Since whatever they decide goes through an objective approval process.
By that logic, the government could arbitrarily force you to do anything the legislature approves of.
The difficulty of finding volunteers alone means that jury duty must be mandatory.
Not necessarily. It might just mean that courts are bad at persuading people to be jurors.
… if it were voluntary, it wouldn’t be fair for those who did serve.
By that ‘logic’, America never could have abolished slavery because freeing the next generation would have been ‘unfair’ to slaves. What a stupid argument.
Why does John Doe deserve your best effort? He’s a random stranger to you. Why should you care what happens to him? What has he done to deserve your effort and consideration?
This stance sounds like sacrifice/altruism.
https://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/sacrifice.html
https://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/altruism.html
This sounds like sacrifice/altruism.
Shouldn’t use ‘this’ in isolation. Use a noun with it.
You actually want people who don’t care. You need neutrality.
This might be a difference in dialect. In New Zealand (and I assume other places, like maybe Australia, UK and Ireland) it is common to use ‘must not’ to mean:
a) ‘ Is forbidden to’ (the meaning you are familiar with),
or
b) ‘necessarily cannot’, usually in a deductive way.
Example: “His shoes aren’t here. I guess he must not be home then.”
This is much more natural to me than “His shoes aren’t here. I guess he cannot be home then.”
This might be a difference in dialect. In New Zealand (and I assume other places, like maybe Australia, UK and Ireland) it is common to use ‘must not’ to mean:
a) ‘ Is forbidden to’ (the meaning you are familiar with),
or
b) ‘necessarily cannot’, usually in a deductive way.
Example sentence: “His shoes aren’t here. I guess he must not be home then.”
This sentence is much more natural to me than “His shoes aren’t here. I guess he cannot be home then.”
This might be a difference in dialect. In New Zealand (and I assume other places, like maybe Australia, UK and Ireland) it is common to use ‘must not’ to mean:
a) ‘ Is forbidden to’ (the meaning you are familiar with),
and
b) ‘necessarily cannot’, often in a deductive way.
Example sentence: “His shoes aren’t here. I guess he must not be home then.”
This sentence is much more natural to me than “His shoes aren’t here. I guess he cannot be home then.”
I mean ‘mustn’t’ as in ‘must not’.
I realize that. The linked Wiktionary page covers the contraction. The contraction isn’t the issue.
This might be a difference in dialect. I mean ‘mustn’t’ as in ‘must not’.
Example sentence: “His shoes aren’t here. I guess he must not be home then.” —> “I guess he mustn’t be home then.”
This sentence is much more natural than “His shoes aren’t here. I guess he cannot be home then.”
mustn’t
Maybe this is the non-native speaker in me, but do you mean ‘can’t’? I thought ‘mustn’t’ means ‘may not’: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/must_not