General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Should Democratic Underground switch to seven-person juries? [View all]defacto7
(13,485 posts)I have a different take on it and I'm sure we'll vote accordingly. Concerning your last paragraph, I think most comments in this thread are prejudiced in some way by their experiences and expectations of the system whether they feel victimized by the old system, feel they would be victimized by the new or are so fed up with it that they choose to make a decision based on how much they could disrupt it or flee from it. As I see it, the more we are cognizant of the fact we are to some point affected by our experience, the more likely we are to make decisions that are realistic if we are in fact seeking to be so. I like to break everything down to their lowest commonality and do the math if there is any. In doing so, I do see some possible advantage to 7 but my choice isn't fully based on some absolute mathematical probability, it's mostly my choice because of what can't be determined. I don't think the system has worked all that well but only marginally. I think the only real way to find out if it can be improved is to give 7 a try.
Just for the record not that it matters, I always do jury duty but rarely alert. I think I have alerted 3 times in the last year??? give or take with different outcomes. I don't put much weight in it but I do participate. I am curious to see if 7 would actually be an improvement even though the specs don't change the bias balance by much of a perceivable amount. It will be subtle if anything.