The Church and Heretics

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Well, one cannot dance in two parties at the same time. 🙂

There is no such thing as a "truth serum" which is one reason why it isn't used in court.

Alright, the polygraph then. Let's not be pedantic.

[quote]You are now making a different claim then the one you did before. Before you asserted that a primary reason why the I ...[text shortened]... case give a good reason why a jury system is demonstrably [b]not superior to other systems.[/b]

Your idea that Inquistors were simple seekers of the truth who happened to hand out torture and death is so warped I don't know how to respond. The primary purpose of a system of justice is to protect the accused's rights; you have managed to completely and falsely change the standards. I notice you failed to respond in detail to the points that Peters made which show beyond any serious doubt that the Inquistion was worse for the poor fools trapped by it than even the terrible RL systems. Further, the Inquistor's procedures spilled into the secular system to the detriment of the accused throughout Europe. Your continuing insistence that the Inquistion was a good thing for the justice system in Europe is insane.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Describe a system that is superior to a jury system. Are you suggesting that the Inquisition is one such system?

Apparently, yes. Since the English jury system existed prior to and at the same time as the Inquistion and LH is claiming that the Inquistion was an "improvement" over existing procedures, that must be his claim. Thus, a system based on exhorting confessions by threat of torture and having even less protection to the accused then the prior RL system (as pointed out by Peters) is supposedly superior in "fairness" to one offerring all the due process protections that are typical of the English and American jury system, which is deemed to be inferior because sometimes its verdicts aren't liked by the government or thought by many to be wrong (apparently the Inquistion was ALWAYS correct in their determinations).

Originally posted by no1marauder
Fortunately, my law school library had a copy of Langbein's book. Thus, I was able to read the section on torture in Roman law which was adapted to the Continent and make some sense of the passage you cited:

To this day’ an English jury can convict a defendant on less evidence than was required [b]as a mere precondition for interrogation under ...[text shortened]... stion were worse than, not an improvement on as you and Ivanhoe have claimed, the RL system.[/b]

Stop fretting. I'll get to all your posts in due time.

Thus, the statement that a jury can still convict under less evidence than was required for torture is true IF that evidence consists of what RL considered "circumstantial". Such evidence must, of course, be sufficient to a "morally certainty" if the case is based solely on "circumstantial" evidence which is now defined basically as non-physical evidence which is not eyewitness.

So, if Prof. Langbein is correct, then the body of evidence required as a precondition for torture in medieval Continental courts had to be more than to a "moral certainty" in modern British courts, right?

Further, your point about Prof. Langbein's statement being true only when the evidence involved is circumstantial is incorrect. In the very preceeding paragraph, he cites the case of Walter Raleigh in 1603 where he was convicted on the basis of a single witness (and, IIRC, the witness testimony was hearsay).

However, the crux of Langbein's whole book is that a legal system based on torture as a necessary expedient to get confessions, even though other evidence is more probative of guilt, is unjust and absurd.

However, he also argues that the jury system at the time in England was no less unjust or absurd.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Stop fretting. I'll get to all your posts in due time.

[quote]Thus, the statement that a jury can still convict under less evidence than was required for torture is true IF that evidence consists of what RL considered "circumstantial". Such evidence must, of course, be sufficient to a "morally certainty" if the case is based solely on "circum ...[text shortened]... he also argues that the jury system at the time in England was no less unjust or absurd.

No, LH; you are just showing your ignorance of law. The evidence needed for torture to be ordered in the medieval Continental courts was certainly NOT "more than a moral certainty". Please read my post again as you don't seem to understand it at all. And you might try reading Langbein's book again; I can find nowhere in it where he suggests that the jury system in England was "no less unjust or absurd" than the Continental system; the quote following the cite you gave earlier says exactly the opposite.

EDIT: i.e. Langbein: "Luckily for England neither the stringent rules of legal proof nor the cruel and stupid subterfuge became endemic here."

Originally posted by no1marauder
No, LH; you are just showing your ignorance of law. The evidence needed for torture to be ordered in the medieval Continental courts was certainly NOT "more than a moral certainty". Please read my post again as you don't seem to understand it at all. And you might try reading Langbein's book again; I can find nowhere in it where he suggests that the ...[text shortened]... er the stringent rules of legal proof nor the cruel and stupid subterfuge became endemic here."

(no1) And you might try reading Langbein's book again; I can find nowhere in it where he suggests that the jury system in England was "no less unjust or absurd" than the Continental system;

Alright, by popular demand, here's Prof. Langbein:

How then did medieval England escape the Roman-canon law of torture’? Maitland’s well known account has never been doubted. The English were not possessed of any’ unusual degree of humanity’ or enlightenment.” Rather. they were the beneficiaries of legal institutions so crude that torture was unnecessary.

The Roman-canon law of evidence was devised on the Continent em of adjudication by for a system professional judges. The English substitute for the judgment of God was the petty jury, an institution that retained something of the “inscrutability” of the ordeals. The collective judgment of an ad hoc panel of the folk, uttered as the voice of the countryside, unanimously’ and without rationale, seemed less an innovation than the principled law of the medieval jurists.

‘Our criminal procedure . . had hardly’ any place for a law of evidence.” In lieu of the ordeals the common law accepted “the rough verdict of the countryside. without caring to investigate the logical processes. if logical they were, of which that verdict was the outcome."

Originally posted by lucifershammer

(no1) And you might try reading Langbein's book again; I can find nowhere in it where he suggests that the jury system in England was "no less unjust or absurd" than the Continental system;

Alright, by popular demand, here's Prof. Langbein:

How then did medieval England escape the Roman-canon law of torture’? Maitland’ ...[text shortened]... logical processes. [b]if logical they were, of which that verdict was the outcome."

[/b]

Not only are you quoting out of context, but you're attributing to Langbein quotes he is quoting! READ THE BOOK; if you are seriously asserting that Langbein believed that the English jury system without torture was as "unjust or absurd" as the Continental system you need a remedial reading course!

Right after the passages you quote, he gives a perfect example of the superiority of a system based on logic rather than one based on rigid evidentiary rules and torture to extract confessions:

Justice Peter Warburton replied from the bench:

I marvel, sir Walter. that you being of such experience and wit. should stand on this point: for so many horse-stealers may escape, if they’ may’ not be condemned without witnesses. If one should rush into the king’s Privy-Chamber, whilst he is alone, and kill the king (which God forbid) and this man be met coining with his sword drawn all bloody; shall not he be condemned to death?3’

In the RL system , such a person COULDN'T be convicted on the evidence, you would have to torture him to get a confession! That is what Langbein is calling a cruel subterfuge.

If you can't understand what the point of the chapter "The Torture Free Law of Proof" is. then I pity you.

Originally posted by no1marauder
no1: BTW, the Inquistion got rid of the high legal standards of the Continental system for proof and simply threatened everybody with torture to extract confessions.

LH: Are you just making this up or do you have any evidence for this?

Yes I do. From Peters, Torture (1996) at pages 66-67:

First he notes that it was not until the late ...[text shortened]... , even in RL countries (surely you must have given up that claim vis-a-vis the English system)?

Fair enough. I'll retract my claim.

Peace.
LH

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Describe a system that is superior to a jury system. Are you suggesting that the Inquisition is one such system?

A panel of trained jurists. No.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
A panel of trained jurists. No.

I would like to debate the merits of the jury system v. "a panel of trained jurists" in deciding criminal cases seperate and distinct from our discussion of the Inquistion. I will post a thread in Debates after I have had a chance to think more about the merits vis-a-vis the two systems and the arguments and counter-arguments for each.

Originally posted by no1marauder
I would like to debate the merits of the jury system v. "a panel of trained jurists" in deciding criminal cases seperate and distinct from our discussion of the Inquistion. I will post a thread in Debates after I have had a chance to think more about the merits vis-a-vis the two systems and the arguments and counter-arguments for each.

The marauder: "Bei uns ist alles viel besser"

Originally posted by no1marauder
I would like to debate the merits of the jury system v. "a panel of trained jurists" in deciding criminal cases seperate and distinct from our discussion of the Inquistion. I will post a thread in Debates after I have had a chance to think more about the merits vis-a-vis the two systems and the arguments and counter-arguments for each.

I just want to ask for a clarification as I follow this debate:

My understanding is that, in most US states anyway, the accused has the option of trial before a judge, rather than by a jury--but that it is the accused's choice.

(1) Is this correct?

(2) Can the state ever insist on a non-jury trial?

Originally posted by vistesd
I just want to ask for a clarification as I follow this debate:

My understanding is that, in most US states anyway, the accused has the option of trial before a judge, rather than by a jury--but that it is the accused's choice.

(1) Is this correct?

(2) Can the state ever insist on a non-jury trial?

1) yes
2) no

excepting military courts.

Originally posted by frogstomp
1) yes
2) no

excepting military courts.

Slight correction:

2) Yes, but only in the case of petty violations punishable only with fines or short periods of imprisonment (15 days in New York; I think up to 60 days in some other jurisdictions).

Originally posted by no1marauder
Slight correction:

2) Yes, but only in the case of petty violations punishable only with fines or short periods of imprisonment (15 days in New York; I think up to 60 days in some other jurisdictions).

ah yes da hookers

I forgot about them.

but thats only because the supreme court don't give a hoot about their sisters