[wdoefczz] Jury of peers narrowly

To prevent abuses by the judicial branch of government, you have a right to a trial by a jury of your peers.  But what does "peers" mean?

Consider this narrow definition of peers: a defendant should be judged by people who understand the entire nature of the crime, especially including the society and social circumstances within which it was committed.  If the jury did not have this pre-existing knowledge, it would be unreasonable for the defense to attempt to explain it, to teach it, because it is the sum of a lifetime, if not generations of lifetimes, worth of experiences.  A jury is asked to interpret the law within society: a jury has better knowledge of society "on the ground" than a legislature, so serves as a check and balance.

A jury may decide that a law should not be applied in such circumstances: jury nullification.  Juries may also return a verdict: we're not qualified to judge this case, feeling out of touch with the circumstances of the defendant.

It is the prosecution's responsibility not just to show that a law was broken, but also to defend the law, to argue the legislature did intend for a law to apply in this kind of situation , and was not corrupt.  Perhaps this is unreasonable?  But that which convinced a legislator to vote in favor ought to be enough to convince a juror to uphold the law.

Juries nowadays are merely asked to judge facts, and jury nullification is avoided as much as possible.  If you believe the prosecution's facts, conviction must follow.

This proposed interpretation of "peers" is a radical departure from current practice: a child molester would have to be judged by other pedophiles, a terrorist by other terrorists.  It might seem disturbingly wrong.  But the status quo also seems disturbingly wrong, with a defendant to be judged by 12 random people who have no understanding of the world the defendant comes from and has to live in.

Convictions will become much more difficult with jurors likely more sympathetic to the defendant, which is not necessarily a bad thing:  I propose this as an explanation and solution to our extremely high prison population.  The high incarceration rate is a sign of a break in the social fabric: what one half of society, creating the law and judging it, considers as deviant, imprisonable behavior, the other half considers normal and does it all the time.

Interestingly, convictions of one-of-a-kind crimes will also become more difficult if a jury can return such a "not qualified" verdict (and they should).  Consider Bobby Fischer, accused of violating sanctions against Yugoslavia by playing a chess match there.  You need to find 12 other people who can relate to his life experience, becoming an American world chess champion at the height of the Cold War.

Deeply embedded in the status quo practice is the assumption that you can change society by changing the law.  With enough lobbying, you get 51% of legislators to agree with you, and your bill passes.  Then, you are done: the justice system will "automatically" enforce the law, with the now-criminal behavior disincentivized by punishment.  You don't actually have to change how people think, and that, to a certain extent, is a fallacy.  To actually change society, you have to change how people think.  If not, things go wrong: a huge prison population, lots of people covertly breaking the law, or wanting to.

However, changing how people think can also be done by sinister means (propaganda, taking advantage of people's ignorance and stupidity), and may open the door for abuse, though the opportunity for abuse of jury nullification has always existed.