I read this story this morning and I just had to shake my head. Juries as collectives of individuals seem to be stupid enough, since defense attorneys do everything in their power to remove anyone with a brain from a jury. Now, we see that people need to see hard evidence, fingerprints, someone saying they did it on an audiotape, rather than be able to piece together the more likely and common evidence in crimes, which tend to be circumstantial, connect the dots type evidence.
This jury actually told the prosecutor that they needed to see a fingerprint on a file or a confession on an audiotape in order to convict. We're in real trouble if people feel that CSI is the standard for judging evidence in real life criminal cases.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Is CSI making us stupid?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
wasn't the story more focused on white collar crime than anything else?
Actually, I take it (and the article, though I may have read a different one on the same subject) as a good sign that juries are no longer susceptible (sic) to verbal acrobatics from an attorney, either defense or procescution, the kind of verbal barriage that leads to an OJ acquittal - it says to me that juries simply want to know the facts and to decide from there without the lawyer theatrics -
And if the evidence isn't solid, then there is reasonable doubt and if there is reasonable doubt, said defendent should not be punished - that's the beauty, flawed as it sometimes is, of our justice system.
seeing a murder means squat now I suppose...
Post a Comment