no. having remote farmers try remote farmers is not a decent summary of the idea of a jury of peers.

i don't know the facts in the case. it seems like somebody was trespassing, and they got shot after causing a commotion on the property they were trespassing on; extra-judicial, and perhaps not proportional, but without being clear on the facts, i'm not going to weigh in on it.

i'll restrict my comments solely to the idea of a jury of peers.

the idea of the jury of peers was meant to reduce bias in the court system, in an era where activists and dissidents specifically (rather than just general poor people) had to face two systemic, institutional class problems in what was essentially a racially homogeneous (if religiously heterogeneous) island, on the fringe of europe. the first systemic, institutional class problem allowed for wealthy aristocrats to essentially target people they saw as problems on trumped up charges, through relying on judges more than willing to play along, through common interests or bribes or even coerced threats. the second problem was of apathy in the judicial process, from the bottom up. what putting decisions in the hand of juries did was take the decision away from an authority that was institutionally unreliable, due to these class biases and interference, and put it in the hands of what ought to have been a neutral body.

so, juries were about talking decisions away from biased, corrupt judges and putting them in the hands of people that had no ulterior motives, and were better able to independently analyze the evidence. i know that your average tory will push back against this, but it is actually the truth of it. and, at the time, it was a good idea - not a perfect idea, but a good idea.

since then, a lot of things have happened. to begin with, the british judicial system has evolved to take itself more seriously. we can have a discussion about critical legal theory, but i think everybody can agree that it's at least gotten a lot better. another major shift is that the system has been transported from a racially heterogeneous island to a racially diverse colony on a large continent, opening up new issues of biases in the jury, itself.

i'm not a conservative. i don't see value in holding to tradition for the sake of it. i want to look at why a system existed, ask whether the tactics employed by it serve their ends and tweak it to better serve those ends. and, if the purpose of a jury selection was to eliminate systemic bias, the fact that the jury selection process today actually introduces bias makes it an open question as to whether it's something that should be continued, or if there are contexts where it should be suspended.

the most obvious context where it should be suspended is in a situation where the following three things are true:

1) the victim is of a historically oppressed minority group
2) the accused is in the dominant majority
3) it is impossible to construct a jury that doesn't also reflect the dominant majority.

that is a situation where bias is inevitable, and the system should step in to prevent it, by moving to a trial by judge.

so, i wasn't there. i don't have the facts. i'm not reacting to the decision. but, this article gets the point about juries completely backwards: it was meant to remove bias, not to introduce it. and, if a trial by jury cannot operate without that bias, as i think is true in this case, the judge should step in.

this man could not have possibly received a fair trial by jury, under the circumstances.

further, in order to prevent the judge from falling under the same bias, the judge's decision to not step in should be subject to outside judicial review before the trial, if requested; if lawyers on either side are so convinced of the impossibility of a fair trial by jury, they should have a body to appeal to before it starts.

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/colby-cosh-gerald-stanley-being-tried-by-his-peers-isnt-a-bug-its-a-feature

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.