Comment on Erin Patterson found guilty of three counts of murder
Ilandar@lemmy.today 1 week agoI thought she probably did it, but I don’t think I could have returned a verdict of guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Have you watched the SBS reality TV series ‘The Jury: Death on the Staircase’? It was a frustrating insight into how difficult it is for some people to understand the difference between these two things.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 week ago
I don’t think the jury necessarily made a mistake here to be clear. They had access to far more detail than us. I trust that the jury did a good job here.
I have not. Is it good?
For me I think the problem might be the opposite. I’ve not been on a jury, but I think I might have trouble distinguishing between beyond reasonable doubt and beyond any doubt, and I might have trouble returning a guilty verdict in the face of anything other than 100% certainty. But I haven’t actually been there to know for sure how I’d react.
Ilandar@lemmy.today 1 week ago
I’m not sure if I’d blanket recommend it to everyone. Whether you get something out of it probably depends on if you have an angle of interest going in. Like for me, I didn’t know much about the way a jury in Australia (NSW) works so it was interesting to see a semi-real version of something I’ve only ever seen depicted in fictional films and TV series.
However, the producers obviously picked a few people based on their backgrounds/belief systems and that made it quite annoying as well. Like there were true crime fans in there who were obsessed with this idea that they had to “solve” the crime, even though they were repeatedly told that was not their role at all. Then there were people with very black and white ideas about crime or strong religious beliefs that meant they just completely ignored all evidence and insisted on pushing a narrative/verdict that they had basically arrived at from day one. It was so frustrating at times to witness the mental gymnastics these absolute morons would go through to defend an indefensible position, and even more frustrating knowing that there could actually be people as stupid as this out there impacting the lives of real people and that such a process could be called “justice”.
So yeah, if that second paragraph doesn’t put you off then maybe it’s worth checking out. But you’ve been warned!
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
After studying court verdicts a bunch by attitude has always been that if I ever end up in irons try my hardest to get a bench trial with sentencing after lunch.