Right now, it is up to the jury to decide whether convicted criminal lives or dies. Is it fair? Why should someone who has never experienced the pain of the crime decide the punishment? Why not let the victim's family decide the punishment that could allieviate their sufferings?

You only know how aweful the chemotreatment is when you have one. How many people have any direct or indirect experience of being a crime victim? I don't, so I don't know what kinds of pain a family has to go through. Jurors can hear how painful it is for the victims, just like a cancer survior can tell you how horrible the chemotreatment is. But only when it has a direct impact on you, you will know the sufferings. It is excruciating for the family to wait for the decision of a bunch of people who sit in the jury box and the only important thing on their mind is what to order for their lunch takeout.

Well, I think the victims' families might be a touch too emotional to make a rational, calm, balanced decision on something like this. And I would worry that they'd be so anxious to see SOME sort of retribution and justice for their loss that they'd be hasty and make decisions not based on evidence and deliberation, but based on the sheer overwhelming power of their grief.

The problem with letting the family be the jury is that the general populace of this country is made up of morons. If someone robs you and shoots you in the face, your family shouldn't be able to decide that the criminal must give them all HIS possessions as compensation and then execute him by shooting him out of a cannon. That is just ridiculous. That is like saying, all rapists should be castrated. Well what about Statuatory rape? You're gonna tell me that if your son is 18 and his girlfriend is 17 and he gets caught banging her behind the bleachers that he should lose his sack?[/quote]

mr_bunk wrote:

The problem with letting the family be the jury is that the general populace of this country is made up of morons. ... You're gonna tell me that if your son is 18 and his girlfriend is 17 and he gets caught banging her behind the bleachers that he should lose his sack?

I can only tell you that most jurors are freaking morons. The defense lawyers never pick anyone with even half a brain. You know why - anyone with half a brain won't buy their bullshit in the court. Leaving the criminals in the jurors is not much better setting them free. Did you follow the O.J. trial? Do you need another example?

In case of an 18 years old boy and 17 years old girl, it is more important to have the family making the decision. If the girl's family wants the couple get married, maybe that marriage certificate is the sentence. If the family chooses something else, that is their business too.

Is it just me or are you just reiterating my point here? Yeah, juries are generally made up of morons because they consist of the average people from our populace. What do you think the AVERAGE family consists of? Don't have a guess? Morons..but in this case, they are MORONS WITH A GRUDGE which personally I find even worse. You know who else are MORONS WITH A GRUDGE? The KKK. You wouldn't want those pillow-case wearing inbreds deciding court cases now would you?

That is ridiculous. That idea goes against everything that our justice system stands for. No one would get a fair trial. If you want to throw Due Process out the window let's follow it with the 1st Amendment. The whole point of a trial by jury is to have an unbiased jury of your peers. While it may not always turn out that way, it's a lot less biased than having the victim's family members making the decisions.