[HN Gopher] 'How to Murder Your Husband' Writer Convicted of Mur...
___________________________________________________________________
'How to Murder Your Husband' Writer Convicted of Murdering Husband
Author : tosh
Score : 25 points
Date : 2022-05-25 21:02 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| sokoloff wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220525193041/https://www.nytim...
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| I feel like the prosecutors would remember this movie line:
| "Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book."
| gambiting wrote:
| "In closing arguments this week, prosecutors conceded that their
| case was based on "all circumstantial evidence," saying that the
| jury needed to join together the pieces of "a puzzle" to reach
| its conclusion."
|
| I hate the whole idea of a jury system. It's insanity. Either the
| prosecution has proof that she comitted the crime or they don't -
| the idea that 12 random people can just decide you are guilty
| based on nothing more than prosecutor telling a nice story is
| literally insane. Thank god most of the civilized world doesn't
| use juries like US does.
| necovek wrote:
| It may sound crazy to you, but relying on a single judge, no
| matter how versed in law, to make the call is not much better.
|
| The property of a jury I like is that any decision has to be
| unanimous.
|
| The thing I dislike more is the entire precedent approach,
| where laws are made through the court system, instead of
| strictly through elected officials (though that has drawbacks
| as well).
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > any decision has to be unanimous
|
| non-unanimous results are also decisive, causing a "mistrial"
| Kranar wrote:
| That's a most unusual definition of decisive.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Well there was evidence to consider, it is not like the entire
| trial was based on conjecture.
|
| The main evidence seems to be that she was on video driving in
| the area he was found dead and it didn't match her statements
| to the detectives.
| legitster wrote:
| This is confusing to me. Jury systems _are_ used across the
| civilized world, and the requirement for 12 unanimous guilty
| verdicts is incredibly favored towards defendants.
| lurquer wrote:
| You have it backwards.
|
| You are only acquitted if it is 12 to 0.
|
| Anything less than that is a mistrial, and the state can try
| you again (and you sit in jail until they do.)
|
| Didn't used to be that way originally. It is now in nearly
| all jurisdictions.
|
| In any case, for this reason and many others, the system is
| grossly tilted towards the prosecution in the US. The US has
| more prisoners per capita than any country in earth.
| legitster wrote:
| The number of prisoners has much more to do with the number
| of laws we enforce and how much effort we spend enforcing
| them. Actual trial procedures are irrelevant. If anything,
| there is a _lack_ of jury trials - the majority of cases
| end in pleas.
|
| > In any case, for this reason and many others, the system
| is grossly tilted towards the prosecution in the US.
|
| The prosecution wins more often than not because of
| selection bias - the prosecution gets to pick which cases
| they take to trial and more often than not they pick ones
| they have a good chance of winning.
|
| I am not sure what your alternative to a unanimous jury
| would be, but I think I would take my chances with the
| jury.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The standard for any criminal trial in the US is "proof beyond
| a reasonable doubt"; I'm sure the defense has hammered on this
| point. If a juror has reasonable doubt, she will not be
| convicted.
| goto11 wrote:
| If proof was a binary thing, then you wouldn't need prosecutor
| and defense either. you could just have some clerk examine the
| evidence and establish guilt.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Jury nullification is a good feature:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-05-25 23:02 UTC)