Imposing your own 'better' judgement on a situation by cheating... Hypotheticals...

[stan1980]

Lets say you are on the jury for a murder trial. The jury are discussing the case, but you feel their judgement is poor. For example, you hear them being swayed by factors such as the defendants appearance, presentation, speaking tone, accent etc. instead of taking into account the hard facts of the case. As much as you've tried to get them to get to be objective, they are going to make the 'wrong' or at least an unfair verdict in your opinion. However, you have a chance of cheating the verdict (and getting away with it) so that the verdict goes the way you want it to, and justice is done (in your eyes). Do you take this opportunity to cheat, or do you accept the juries verdict?

A second hypothetical, there is an election. You feel the better candidate is going to lose, due to a dirty tricks campaign, lies, bad judgement from the public. You are adamant the candidate who will lose will do a far better job, and will do far more good for the people, even if the public don't know it yet. You have a chance of rigging the election. Do you rig the election and make the 'better' choice on behalf of the public?

 

[WatersMoon110]

The entire point of trial by jury is that the jury has to collectively (or mostly collectively) decide the fate of a case. It would be unconstitutional of me to go against the wishes of the majority in this situation, as well as unethical by my own standards. If my opinion disagreed with the majority, it would my job to sway people to my side, not cheat to make sure that my opinion won!

In the case of an election, so long as the other side wasn't committing voting fraud, I wouldn't either. I'm not against using "dirty tactics" to sway opinion if the other side has first, though.

 

[TeddyKGB]

Lets say you are on the jury for a murder trial. The jury are discussing the case, but you feel their judgement is poor. For example, you hear them being swayed by factors such as the defendants appearance, presentation, speaking tone, accent etc. instead of taking into account the hard facts of the case. As much as you've tried to get them to get to be objective, they are going to make the 'wrong' or at least an unfair verdict in your opinion. However, you have a chance of cheating the verdict (and getting away with it) so that the verdict goes the way you want it to, and justice is done (in your eyes). Do you take this opportunity to cheat, or do you accept the juries verdict?

In the states jury verdicts must be unanimous. If I maintain my disagreement with the majority, the result is a hung jury and a conditional vacation of the indictment, which may then be brought again by the state attorney.

A second hypothetical, there is an election. You feel the better candidate is going to lose, due to a dirty tricks campaign, lies, bad judgement from the public. You are adamant the candidate who will lose will do a far better job, and will do far more good for the people, even if the public don't know it yet. You have a chance of rigging the election. Do you rig the election and make the 'better' choice on behalf of the public?

No. There are several legal alternatives to election rigging.

 

[B'alaam]

Lets say you are on the jury for a murder trial. The jury are discussing the case, but you feel their judgement is poor. For example, you hear them being swayed by factors such as the defendants appearance, presentation, speaking tone, accent etc. instead of taking into account the hard facts of the case. As much as you've tried to get them to get to be objective, they are going to make the 'wrong' or at least an unfair verdict in your opinion. However, you have a chance of cheating the verdict (and getting away with it) so that the verdict goes the way you want it to, and justice is done (in your eyes). Do you take this opportunity to cheat, or do you accept the juries verdict?

No need to cheat.
I'd just maintain my stance without giving into such things as appearance, presentation, tone, accent, etc.
In the end, it's a hung jury (no determination of guilt or non-guilt)
When the case comes back to trial, a new panel of jurists will be selected who (hopefully) won't be as idiotic as my fellow jury members.

 

[stan1980]

In the future, will the day come when people stop trying to find their way around hypotheticals?

In the first one, there will be no hung jury or anything like that, an innocent person (in your opinion) will be going to prison unless you cheat the verdict (or a guilty person will be set free).

In the second one, there is no time for counter measures, the 'wrong' candidate (in your opinion) will win the election unless you rig the election.

 

[TeddyKGB]

In the future, will the day come when people stop trying to find their way around hypotheticals?

It will be the very day that hypothetical-devotees realize that people do not like ethical ambiguity, and that imaginary situations with easily exploitable real-world disconnects will invariably result in the psychologically easy deconstruction of the hypotheticals rather than the psychologically difficult choosing between morally questionable options.

 

[Washington]

In the future, will the day come when people stop trying to find their way around hypotheticals?

As long as the hypotheticals are flawed, I would guess not.

 

[platzapS]

I'm not sure how you "cheat" a jury, but yeah I would probably do so to help someone out who deserved it.

Election fraud is tricky. I think McCain would be an awful president, but I wouldn't subvert democracy if he was in the lead. I think I'd let him win. If it was someone truly terrifying, though, like Giuliani or Mussolini, then I might figure election fraud is for the best.

 

[lawtonfogle]

Lets say you are on the jury for a murder trial. The jury are discussing the case, but you feel their judgement is poor. For example, you hear them being swayed by factors such as the defendants appearance, presentation, speaking tone, accent etc. instead of taking into account the hard facts of the case. As much as you've tried to get them to get to be objective, they are going to make the 'wrong' or at least an unfair verdict in your opinion. However, you have a chance of cheating the verdict (and getting away with it) so that the verdict goes the way you want it to, and justice is done (in your eyes). Do you take this opportunity to cheat, or do you accept the juries verdict?

A second hypothetical, there is an election. You feel the better candidate is going to lose, due to a dirty tricks campaign, lies, bad judgement from the public. You are adamant the candidate who will lose will do a far better job, and will do far more good for the people, even if the public don't know it yet. You have a chance of rigging the election. Do you rig the election and make the 'better' choice on behalf of the public?

As far as jury, the jury job is to judge a man based on the facts of a case. One thing I don't like about juries is that they have to be passively involved. But anyways, if any member of the jury was judging him based on things that are not facts, I would deadlock the decision, and as soon as possible approach an authority about the issue at hand. If dead locking meant we had to spend a few weeks on trail... just give me a good book or something to do and make sure my boss (I don't think college students can have jury duty, so I believe that my teachers won't need to be told) is told I'll be a while.


Then again, I figure that if I am ever jury for something bigger than a speeding ticket, I am probably going to have some 'fun'.

"Yes, the eye witness did recount the defendant was holding the gun, buy Psychological studies have shown that easily 10% of memories can be altered by the wording of a single question. Taking into account all the questions and taking into account how the situation was presented, I do not consider the eye witness' conclusive proof that the defendant was holding the gun."

So much 'fun'.

 

[lawtonfogle]

In the future, will the day come when people stop trying to find their way around hypotheticals?

In the first one, there will be no hung jury or anything like that, an innocent person (in your opinion) will be going to prison unless you cheat the verdict (or a guilty person will be set free).

Well, if they somehow forced my vote to be in line with the groups and took away my right to my own vote (which is what would have to happen), well screw me respecting their opinion, I'm changing it to what I believe.

In the second one, there is no time for counter measures, the 'wrong' candidate (in your opinion) will win the election unless you rig the election.

Well, we aren't speaking about America, cause the popular vote doesn't actually elect people.

Anyways, depends upon how close it was. If it was really close and I really thought they were making a stupid choice, then probably, if the guy had one by 2/3% or something, and I really thought he was a bad choice, I think I would buy a plane ticket to Japan or some place.

 

[lawtonfogle]

Considering the poll, I will quote something I heard along time ago:

A person is smart, people are stupid.

We don't live in a democracy because the founding fathers didn't want to give power to the people. They wanted to make sure the will of the people was a balancing factor in law, but not that it was law.

And no matter how many people go around chanting 1+1=7, it isn't true (assuming base 10, and other standard mathematics).