Re: Please poke holes in this (was Re: Optimal location of world capital)

On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:23:39 +0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (James
Nicoll) wrote:

>In article <fptluk$koi$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>Andrew Plotkin  <erkyrath@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

[Trial by opinion poll]

>>Also, you get a society in which it's guaranteed that nobody can be
>>held responsible for the major decisions. I suspect you'd be better
>>off hiring Ming the Merciless as your country's CEO.

Jury trials frequently make major decisions, and there doesn't seem
to be any mechanism by which jurors can be held accountable.  Possibly
someone at some point thought that was a feature rather than a bug;
it isn't entirely obvious though.


>	That was a plot point with Bass' megajuries: extremely large 
>juries seemed to be more likely to go for the death penalty, since
>responsibility was smeared out over so many people.

Also, extremely large juries realistically have to be able to convict
and sentence on a majority vote, possibly supermajority but not the
unanimity of the traditional Anglo-American criminal trial.  And there
will probably be rather less in the way of deliberation, as it becomes
impractical for everyone to have their say - most jurors will be mere
spectators voting on the performance, and the decision will be made on
the first vote.

With a unanimous-jury requirement, the winning verdict is the one which
can claim the "It's not my first choice, but I'll settle for this if it
means we can stop arguing and go home" vote.  That is necessarily going
to be a compromise, and the death penalty is rather uncompromising. 


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