The way courts and juries work (in the US, but probably other Western democracies too) is very much a reflection of the system in general.
In a pure tyranny you'd have a king or some sort of ruler who 'decides'. In a "democracy", supposedly we all have equal control or whatever, but in practice those with the most money and/or connections will lobby the political bodies and essentially be the ruling class.
Similarly, when juries get together to deliberate, anyone who is persuasive and good at influencing what other people think will have a disproportionate influence over the outcome.
For this reason I really, really hate the idea of jury deliberation and believe it to be a lowkey horrible thing.
But how else? As long as you have random people who would rather be at their jobs or with their families but are only here because of the threat of punishment if they don't show up, you probably kind of have to keep a close eye on them and apply some sort of pressure.
But if instead there was a natural incentive to do the job well, then you could get rid of deliberation.
Imagine if people were individually focused on judging the outcome and had some sort of built in incentive to do it correctly.
It may sound like an introvert's pipe dream, but judging a nuanced situation is an inherently introverted thing, and shouldn't be warped into anything else.
The best method that I can think of for giving people incentive to judge correctly is a reward for ruling in the majority.
If you witness a trial from an isolated booth, and you aren't allowed to talk to the other jurors or even have any idea who they are, then your only strategy for ruling in the majority would be to try to rule correctly. Because you know they're watching the same trial and trying to do the same thing.
To simplify it, imagine they put a color on display. And you had to rule in the majority whether it was blue or green or red or what. You know nothing about the other jurors. Your strategy will always be to answer correctly; there's never a reason to be like "well, it's blue, but I just feel like the other people are gonna say green".
You can take it a step further and even keep records of who the best jurors are. And then on the more important cases, you bring in the best people.
Or actually, it would probably be more like: On the more important cases, you raise the reward, and more people apply, and you're able to select from the best people.
So that's one way that you could have courts (judgments) without forcing people to be there and encouraging them to do a vaguely decent job by lecturing them about how important this is or whatever.
I'd like someone to create a blockchain that rules on court cases.
A free market in courts is mindblowing to almost everyone. But we could even stick with the existing infrastructure of government courts (for now) and eventually just swap out juries for the blockchain jury system.
Another brilliant application of the blockchain technology. Only instead of one person getting the 'right' result at the fastest time, everybody can bring in the result at the same time. I'm trying to think of reasons why this won't work and I can't seem to find any. Some come to mind: funds for the reward, size of the 'booths' fitting the courts, or maybe it won't be onsite. All these are filmsy, though.
I wonder what happens in the case of a split/hung jury.
That's good to hear; I go through the same exercise with myself and have the same result, hehe. Nice to hear confirmation from others.
I think "offsite" is definitely an option. At first it would be mindblowing and most people would want to see real people in the flesh, but courts could evolve to have jurors dialed in electronically. Once it was recognized that they have a real incentive to do the job well (no matter where they're located) then you stop needing them to be physically onsite.
(Maybe with some rare exceptions of things that you need to be physically there for to judge correctly.)
Kind of like a job that lets you work remotely from home. Most of the reason they want you in the office is to hold your feet to the fire, but if theoretically they knew you'd be working hard from home, a lot of jobs could just avoid the hassle of driving and it'd be the same thing.
Thanks for your feedback.
I agree. I think in the end it all comes down to the mechanism/proof that the job would be done without bias i.e the incentive. I think that's the most important part. That's what will make you say, 'hey I have to do the right thing, make the right decision.' And as long as there's a mechanism to make sure there's no collusion, i see no reason why we can't have a future like this!
Yup!! I agree exactly!
I have been wondering about this as well.
There is such a need for fairness and impartiality in the court systems. Let alone, as you say, absence of influence from people who buy their freedom - at least for a time.
I was pleased to hear in the comments section that Dan Larimer is thinking about this issue. Hopefully, we see a blockchain solution in the near future. Great write up, @full-measure.
thanks! Thanks for your feedback and support.
Really excited to hear more and more of different innovated ideas revolving around the block chain showing how amazing and versatile it can be in the future.
This is one thing that has been bothering my mind. Creating a blockchain that rule on court cases. This will really be special if it were to be available.
Thank you for this awesome write up.
@stevenmosoes
I like that idea, but here is what I was thinking after reading your suggestion.
The system of justice is pretty much a perversion of the ethical norms, so many things are kind of a bit obsolete nowadays. But, what is a shocking thing, the law still operates under those assumptions.
If it is some non-violent crime or some literary ridiculous nuisance, any normal person would vote not guilty, pay a fee, move on, but no.
Democratic form or jury or a judge makes every person included in a process that supreme organ of ethical justice, and it is always a question not what is a fair conduct, but justice. We seek justice, they say, so... Even the bluntest tool can see that this is a quick way of social scrutiny over particular carrots who stick too high, so they need a bit of a trimming...
Either money or the versatile narrator will get the jury, of course, that's why people hire lawyers.
If the jury is outdated, and in many ways, the jury is a representation of a middle cut of the society, anybody outside of a toll will be automatically proclaimed guilty, so... It is a social stigma at the worst.
Pressured pack of the different individuals crammed in one little confinement? Bad idea.
Ruling out of a safe environment? Well, that could add up to the fairness.
But, are they actually in the safe environment? Are they influenced by somebody else?
Are they anonymous? That should be even better. But, how much anonymity can they have?
Right, there are ridiculous non-crime "crimes" like drug use. If the jury was instructed to interpret the laws as they're written, then even a blockchain juror system wouldn't fix this. Because they'd efficiently interpret things, and be like "ya he did smoke pot, so therefore, X". The only solution here is to have a society and court who don't believe these things are criminal acts.
These are good questions and I don't necessarily know the answer. I think you easily could have anonymity, if that seemed like the best way to do it. Your juror account could be just some account, and at first you have no history and build history over time.
I'd imagine it would also be possible to make it so jurors are publicly known and linked to a real identity (a thumbprint or whatever) but your specific decisions are hashed and not known.
Of course, there can be different blockchains with different specs and we see which one proves to be the most trusted.
Dan Larimeer (creator of Steem and EOS) said in an interview with Jeff Berwick that he was going to create some sort of blockchain arbitration system but I haven't heard anything else about it. I would think he would do something to keep track of who the best arbitrators (basically jurors) are. I agree with you about juries for civil cases. For criminal cases I'd always prefer a 12 man jury because the burden of proof is so high I would just want to take my chances creating doubt in a few. But for civil matters I agree. There's probably less sense of civic duty and the most dominant personality will take over the jury room. It would be great to implement something like a steemit reputation score.
I'm surprised reading this article. What I was expecting was for you to bring up the unbelievably barbaric practice of VOTING for judges.
When I heard that Americans vote their judges in I spit my coffee out! I couldn't think of a less fair way to decide what punishments are doled out than to let the crowd decide the judge!
You might as well have mob rule. I don't say that ironically, this is de facto mob rule, and I lay the blame primarily on this for America's problem with over-punishment.
I don't think that's how it works. Not totally sure, but I've never heard of an election for a judge. I think how it works is they're appointed by politicians or a committee or something.
I can't imagine it would really work any differently in other countries. Where are you from and how do your judges get picked?
In the US the judge has a relatively unimportant role. They're more the referee, making sure both sides follow the rules and stuff so that the case is laid out correctly for the jury. They don't decide guilt or innocence. So if nothing else it's probably less barbaric than most other countries, but still much worse than what we're capable of when we coordinate better in a decentralized way.
Oh, sorry, I didn't notice this response somehow!
I'm Canadian, but what matters is: I'm not american. No one else in the world decides their judges this way. We appoint our judges, same as every other government position. We choose our leaders, but we let them lead.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/world/americas/25iht-judge.4.13194819.html
"In the US the judge has a relatively unimportant role. They're more the referee"
Uhhhh... that's kind of the same thing... I might be wrong, but don't both of those mean someone who adjudicates the rules between two parties?
I think this is pretty similar to how it works in the US. Personally I've never heard of an election for judges. A quick google search does say:
Some states hold "retention elections" to determine if the judge should continue to serve.
So it's only certain states, and seems it's only judges who were appointed in the first place. That's a lot different than voting a judge in by election. It's essentially giving the public an opportunity to evaluate and overrule the government's selection. (I don't see what's barbaric or problematic about that.)
And, from my googling around anyways, it seems most judges don't even face these retention elections. So "Americans vote their judges in" seems maybe like loosely based on something accurate but not really accurate.
I mean, whether or not I used the word correctly, the important part was my next sentence:
They don't decide guilt or innocence
They're the "referee" in terms of making sure each side follows the correct procedures and whatnot during the trial (like, "objection your honor, he can't ask that of the witness"), but then it's the jury who determines if someone is guilty or innocent.
That seems like a smaller role compared to systems where the judge decides guilt or innocence.
But: I do agree on most of this.
"In a pure tyranny you'd have a king or some sort of ruler who 'decides'... ...the political bodies and essentially [will] be the ruling class."
FDR said it well: government by organised money is little different than government by organised mob.
Recently I found out Ghandi said something similar: 'economic violence is the worst form of violence'
I'd been saying those two things for about a year now, but apparently better men had already noticed those facts! There's no such thing as an original idea.
Government is always going to involve money.
When it's legal for certain people to use violence to get an advantage, then naturally people will pay for that advantage.
So strike the root and stop looking to government/hierarchy to solve problems if you don't want "economic violence", imo
If only it's possible for me to to create a blockchain that rules on court cases, I would be the one to create. Hehe
hehe ya, that's why we need the big guns like Dan Larimer :)
love to read it..
Excellent post thanks for sharing!!!
cryptocurriencies are the future...
Thank you for this. What a nice treat. Hope you enjoy your weekend.
"The way courts and juries work (in the US, but probably other Western democracies too) is very much a reflection of the system in general."
I missed this before, but no. No one else does it like that. I linked that article elsewhere, but you'll find that almost no other country this side of the industrial revolution decides court officials that way.
You're quite aware of why that is, so I won't go into detail...
You're talking about two different things. My quote there is about juries and how they operate. You keep trying to bring everything back to how judges are chosen -- when that wasn't the topic or what my sentence was referring to.
I actually have no idea what you're even trying to say. You're trying to change the topic (to one that I'm not really interested in, and that you're not describing very accurately -- judges facing retention elections in certain situations or some towns here and there having an election for a judge is a bit different than "Americans vote in their judges")
It's kind of like, there could be an article of a German Sheperd biting a child, but "German Shepherds bite children" would be a kind of sensational and meaningless statement, unless you want to be more precise. (And I'd probably just assume you want to paint German Shepherds in a negative light rather than talk meaningfully, if you framed it like that.)
If you do a google search for "how are US judges chosen" I think you'll see that in general they're appointed by a government official or committee. And you can always appeal to higher courts if the small town court in Wisconsin is truly worrisome.
Usually when people say things like "I think you obviously know what my point is here" it's because they don't actually have a point.
Personally I'm on the fence whether electing a judge would be worse than elected officials choosing them. It brings political motivation to the bench either way.
Which is why I propose changing the whole incentive structure.