34 pointsby cbeacha day ago12 comments
  • mikelwarda day ago
    In the US about 94% of cases don't go to a trial. Defendants are strongly incentivised to accept a plea deal even if they are not guilty, because the cost of a trial and the risk of a guilty verdict are too high.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargaining_in_the_United_...

  • bluescrna day ago
    For those who don't like the source, also reported here by the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy7vdvrnnvzo
    • a day ago
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    • cbeacha day ago
      The BBC is currently embroiled in an election interference scandal after it doctored a video of the President to fit the BBC's chosen political narrative.

      And it turns out this was just one of a series of political interventions made by the BBC.

      This comes after a string of child sexual abuse scandals and cover-ups perpetrated by senior members of the BBC.

      The BBC is an alternative news source we'd do well to avoid

      • vablingsa day ago
        Hardly an election interference of a fairly crap panorama special that wasn't even available to watch in the USA. We can all fairly easily agree GBNEWS is the bottom of the barrel
      • nielsbota day ago
        what’s your preferred mainstream (or alt) news source?
        • cbeach18 hours ago
          The Telegraph is okay, but I find GB News publishes the stories that mainstream media chooses to avoid and/or minimise.

          Without GB News' coverage of the migrant crisis, the UK public would be barely aware that 110,000 undocumented young men had entered the country in the last three years, many of whom have been housed in hotels at the taxpayer's expense.

          And I don't think the Tavistock Center would have been forced to close in disgrace, had it not been for GB News reporting of the dubious and untested medical interventions being made on children there.

          • Daviey17 hours ago
            BBC Newsnight aired the story first in June 2020.

            Also, the BBC first reported on the boat immigration crisis on "BBC South East" regarding small boat arrivals in 2014.

            GB News wasn't launched until June 2021, so they can't take much credit here.

            Daily Mail is likely to buy The Telegraph, which honestly worries me.

      • lovicha day ago
        I’m sorry that you are upset that the BBC edit showed the president calling for violence in a summarized form that is apparently extremely different from his long form call for violence.

        This whole scandal is straight up 1984 “don’t believe your lying eyes” level bullshit

        • aydyn21 hours ago
          They literally changed the meaning of his words. Dont be partisan.
        • cbeach17 hours ago
          I think if you watch the two videos (original vs edited) you'll understand just how egregious this editing was. And it's not the first time the BBC has deliberately misquoted Trump to make him look like he is inciting.

          There is another news show where they did similar.

          And 2018, the BBC to to Twitter to misquote Trump as saying "war [with Iran] will follow" as opposed to what he actually said ("more will follow").

          Their "apology" was blatent trolling - when called out on their fake quote, they replied "#ourbad" (yes, hashtag "ourbad")

          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/26/bad-bbc-accused-...

    • sunshine-oa day ago
      Meaning for the sheeps who only want to read official state propaganda.
  • poplarsola day ago
    The UK is best understood as a "managed democracy" where there are nominally elections, but the government decides who will constitute its voting population, what they are allowed to say, and now whether they will be allowed to acquit people the government decides it would prefer to punish.
    • Molitor5901a day ago
      Agreed, and I am reminded that Putin once called Russia a "managed democracy." I may not always agree, but I am very glad America has the first, fifth, sixth, and seventh amendments, among others. This tactic by the British government is absurd and offensive to freedom. What I find more baffling, but perhaps I am narrowly thinking about it, is how much the British people are letting it happen. I am not political, but if anyone tried to take our rights under the Bill of Rights, or declared an emergency to cancel elections, I will be in the streets with, I hope, literally every one else.

      Some things are just too critical to a free and fair nation, and jury trials are right up there.

      • beAbUa day ago
        There are functioning democracies out there without jury trials. I would not say it's "critical to a free and fair nation'.
        • handoflixuea day ago
          > There are functioning democracies out there without jury trials.

          Could you name a few? I'm genuinely ignorant on how most of the world handles criminal affairs - do they just have the judge rule on the matter?

          • beAbU18 hours ago
            In South Africa there are no juries, and the democracy is deemed fairly good, albeit rotten with corruption (but that's another story). The judiciary is fairly independent so far, and criminal cases are solely tried by a professional judge.
          • gizajoba day ago
            A lot of public law jurisdictions don’t have jury trials, just a judge who decides the facts based on the constitution and the case presented by the prosecutor. Finland, for example.
        • workfromspacea day ago
          Right. In fact, AFAIK only a handful of countries have a jury, which are mainly ex british colonies. Almost everywhere else there is constitution and so.
        • stogota day ago
          The Us has small claims courts right?
      • nebula8804a day ago
        >I am not political, but if anyone tried to take our rights under the Bill of Rights, or declared an emergency to cancel elections, I will be in the streets with, I hope, literally every one else.

        I'm sorry but the last decade has shown how much the US really likes to mirror the UK. I have been burned so many times thinking the US is some unique snowflake. Its just a Anglo-Saxon colony that moved out on its own but is still part of that same soul and mindset. I know a large chunk of the majority white population is now of German descent, but it still seems like the Anglo-Saxon mindset rules the land. If you want to know what happens to the future of the US just look at the UK as they are always the OG hipsters.

        The UK voted for Brexit on the premise of making Britain british again (or some hogwash of that nature). The US would never make a silly mistake of that nature right? Oh wait they did just months later. The UK has this obsession of having cameras everywhere so much so there have been famous books written about that culture. The US is doing the same just that they got away with it by hiding it under other excuses such as anti-terrorism, security, protecting the children, etc.

        Now the U.S. is slow walking into erosion of free speech, erosion of rights. And have the population put up a fight? No. They're acting exactly like the U.K. population. Maybe even more cowardly. And would you even blame them? What is their recourse? People here like to cosplay about the second amendment, but you know what when push came to shove, they acted exactly as their British compatriots did.

        • gizajoba day ago
          It was also rejecting being part of the anti-democratic runaway train that is the EU with its unelected president. Britain has enough trouble with its own government - for many it seemed like a reasonable move to remove the government running our government.
    • spzba day ago
      Tell me you know nothing about the UK without telling me you know nothing about the UK.
    • sgt101a day ago
      Nonsense.

      - voting population? What are you on about? It's everyone older than 18.

      - you are not allowed to say "let's go and kill xxxyyy" or "burn hotel xxxyyy" but more or less you can say anything else. You might get sued if you say "Kier Starmer is an XXXYYY" but possibly not.

      - this is using a system such as the one that operates in many countries - like France. But note: Germany ditched jury trials in 1924...

      • hackeraccounta day ago
        I've seen a couple of stories - like this one - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15302729/Assault-vi... - that make me think there's a very liberal interpenetration of "hate crime", as in there doesn't need to be an underlying crime but speech alone if offensive enough is criminal.
      • gizajoba day ago
        16 year olds have just been given the vote by the Labour government in an attempt to shore up their support because they’re going to lose the next election. Lowering the power of my vote as an adult taxpayer by enfranchising teenagers who get their political nous from TikTok is pretty disgusting.
      • modo_mario21 hours ago
        - voting population? What are you on about? It's everyone older than 18.

        It'll likely be 16. And I believe bringing in more population that is a lot more likely to vote for your is also part of that.

  • ccppurcella day ago
    GB news!? More sober sources describe it as "considering scrapping" rather than "intends to scrap".
  • piperswea day ago
    This site obnoxiously tries to instantly give me an "anonymised.io" pop-up, which Fennec thankfully decides to ask me whether I want to visit. Apparently they're some sort of AI-powered marketing thing, whatever that means? Surprisingly wasn't instantly blocked by uBlock Origin.
  • a24ja day ago
    What's the demographics of the people who will replace juries? How does the fate of Underrepresented minorities fare in light of this?
  • dmitrygra day ago
    On one hand, Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs are clear on why jury trials work poorly in multicultural societies. On the other hand, UK judges do not exactly have the best reputation recently, especially on matters of ... criticizing the UK. So ... yeah ... no good options here
    • Molitor5901a day ago
      I found the recent Banksy work to be very .. illuminating.

      https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/new-banksy-mural-londons-hi...

    • graemepa day ago
      The UK is a very different society from Singapore.

      Are his objections to jury trials correct in the first place? If they are, then do they apply to the UK? I find it very hard to imagine why multiculturalism should be a problem so can you explain what he thinks they work poorly/.

      the good option is to keep trial by jury.

      • sgt101a day ago
        Unfortunately the system has basically been collapsed by industrial scale theft and fraud, and the impact of covid...
    • sgt101a day ago
      What matters of criticizing the UK? Let's have the specifics to discuss?
  • Flagged for the source, which is not reliable.
  • a24ja day ago
    Wait what?
  • antiheroa day ago
    GB News is a terrible website, here's a Guardian link: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov/25/moj-considering-... who have their issues but are a far stretch from that rightwing rag.
    • cbeacha day ago
      If political tribalism could be summed up with a single HN comment...
  • reifya day ago
    [flagged]
    • hackeraccounta day ago
      "NHS, housing, water, gas, electricy" aren't a core part of the government. Justice is.
      • 18 hours ago
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  • rich_sashaa day ago
    I always found the idea of jury trials terrifying.

    We make legal education very hard, very thorough, we teach prospective lawyers about subtle nuances of law, guilt, evidence, bias, epistemology even. We make them do mootings.

    Then we say lawyers are the very people who cannot sit in juries, and instead random people are to judge. Actually worse than random - people who have better things to do try to get out of it, or are resentful that they couldn't.

    It's a bit like having highly educated doctors explain symptoms, possible diseases, as well as a crash course in biology, immunology and statistics to a panel of randos, who then vote on the best treatment for the patient.

    Its only slightly worse than judges and prosecutors under reelection pressure though...

    • tzsa day ago
      I don't know about the UK, but in the US lawyers can be jurors.

      The main point of a jury from the "arrive at the legally correct solution to the issue before the court" point of view is to settle questions that are questions of fact rather than questions of law.

      Generally in a legal dispute you have two parties who disagree over the underlying facts. For example I say your drone broke my window and I want you to pay for a new window. You say your drone was not flying at the time my window broke. Whether or not your drone broke my windows is a question of fact, not a question of law.

      Once it is decided whether or not your drone broke me window, then applying the law is straightforward. The difficulty is determining whether or not your drone broke my window.

      Once the jury has decided on all the questions of fact they have to apply the law tp them, but for that the court will have given them instructions. Generally that is in the form of a form they can fill out that's basically a decision tree. They just have to fill in what they decided are the facts, follow the branches, and they end up with the correct legal result for those facts.

      • rich_sashaa day ago
        Sure. But "fact" in a court of law means "facts subject to a legally-sanctioned epistemology". Every now and then you read about a judge instructing the jury to disregard some evidence, because it turns out to be inadmissible. Are random people really capable of doing this? And, likewise, leaving their biases at the courtroom doorstep? I have my doubts.

        And yes, I believe trained lawyers are excluded from jury duty in the UK. But even if not, the average juror will not have had any training in discerning bias, weighing evidence, statistics etc.

    • gizajoba day ago
      That’s the whole point though - it’s a cohort of your peers who are regular normal people who really aren’t trained being guided by the available evidence presented by those who are trained. There should be enough evidence of your guilt to convince 12 of them that you committed the crime, rather than the state and the feudal lord saying you did it and locking you up forever.
      • rich_sashaa day ago
        My experience of the general public is that they aren't very good at nuanced thinking. And crime, or legal disputes in general, are often nuanced.
        • gizajob12 hours ago
          They’re as lacking in nuance now as they have been for the past 800 hundred years and it’s the system we’ve gone with.
        • austinjp20 hours ago
          You are the general public.
          • rich_sasha14 hours ago
            You are confirming my concern.