Trial by jury or not?

If you were on trial for something, would you rather present your case and defense to a jury, or would you waive rights to a jury trial and just settle for trying to convince the judge you were innocent? I'd take my chances with a jury, 12 people are harder to convince on something than just 1, I really can't figure out why people would WANT to limit it to only a judge to decide.

Look at people in public & some of the ones you encounter on the internet. Those are the people who serve on a jury. I'd be tempted to go with a bench trial hoping the judge would at least consider the actual evidence & not their own biased crap they bring in with them. And even though the jury is told to base it on the evidence & disregard certain things that come up during trial, the truth is that doesn't always happen.

CeCe wrote:Look at people in public & some of the ones you encounter on the internet. Those are the people who serve on a jury. I'd be tempted to go with a bench trial hoping the judge would at least consider the actual evidence & not their own biased crap they bring in with them. And even though the jury is told to base it on the evidence & disregard certain things that come up during trial, the truth is that doesn't always happen.

I don't think it EVER happens, the judge can tell them to disregard anything he wants, but once something is said or presented, nobody's going to forget it.

Supernova wrote:


I don't think it EVER happens, the judge can tell them to disregard anything he wants, but once something is said or presented, nobody's going to forget it.

And THAT'S one of the problems.

I'd go with the judge. The judge understands the law better (at least he should) than most of the public and would uphold the law based on the evidence (at least he should) rather than emotions.

I would go with the judge. I think jurors are idiots for the most part and play follow the leader too much.

I expect I would listen to my lawyer.