The U.S. is one of the few countries in the world that uses the jury to decide b

Question

The U.S. is one of the few countries in the world that uses the jury to decide both criminal and civil cases. Although many other options for resolving disputes are available, Americans value their right and ability to access the court system and be heard by a jury of their peers. Of course, the U.S. is also known for being the most “litigious” country in the world – where everyone wants to sue everyone else for even the most minor injuries. Everyone involved in the legal system (the parties themselves, judges, attorneys, and jury) has been faulted for something or another. You have probably heard of cases in the news where “justice” did not prevail. Just think of the OJ Simpson trial (if you are old enough to remember the mid 1990s) and other cases in the news media.

Requirements:

Drawing from your own experience and what you’ve heard or read, discuss whether the American legal system is actually effective in resolving disputes among people, businesses, and other entities.

Would you trade this system in for another system?

What kind of legal system would you prefer?

What would a more effective system look like?

Explanation / Answer

There a quite a few aspects in which the American justice system is flawed. Here are a few

Coming to the part of jury system.

It is a possibility that juries with layman knowledge on several technical issues might not be having the best minds to decide on a particular case. For example, cases involving patent laws… how can someone who has zero knowledge on patent laws decide on such a case. Even if someone has technical knowledge, legal knowledge is still a requirement to decide on cases. Defeats the entire purpose of spending thousands in a law school if at the end of the day, a local school teacher will decide what is fair.

As an alternative, I think the French system is somewhat better. The US has the British/Viking adversarial system wherein court cases are more towards conflict resolution and judges acting as a referee, where as the a French judge is more of an inquisitor who is trying to find out the truth and establish justice through that. The jury system is not there in the French system. Furthermore, the judges have a lot more power in controlling investigations and prosecutions.

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