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LINK Appeals Court: Is It Legal to Nix a Juror Who Relies on God Over Evidence? | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Today, the entire 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will consider a case that hinges on whether it’s okay to dismiss a juror who insisted God told him a suspect was not guilty before jury deliberations ever began.

Some background here is helpful because this case is just ridiculous.

If there’s a trial by jury, the hope — what the entire trial hinges upon — is that the jurors will fairly evaluate the arguments presented by both sides and come to their decision based solely on reason and logic and evidence.

snytiger6 9 Feb 23
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6 comments

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1

Interesting that religion is traditionally regarded as creating conformity of behavior, and now it can be an excuse for "I can do (or justify) whatever I want to - because of my religious belief."

That can be used cleverly -- by the The Satanic Temple. 😮

[thesatanictemple.com]

1

Does reason and logic still exist?

1

Yes it's legal to kick that juror out. Unfortunately it's not legal to lobotomize that juror which is actually what should happen lol

4

Interesting point this.
Here in Australia I was called up for Jury Service in 1989 in a Murder Case.
There were 23 others called up besides me, went it came to me being either selected or rejected, first the Prosecution asked if I was religious or not, to which I replied that I am an Atheist and got the Yes from the Prosecution.
Then Defense asked IF I thought that being an Atheist would either hamper or enhance, etc, my deliberations of the evidence/s brought forward to which I replied, " Religion/s have NO place in Courts of Human Justice," I also got the Yes nod from the Defense as well..
And so they went through everyone else UNTIL of the 23 they came down to empaneling a Jury of 9 declared Atheists/Agnostics, 2 Nons ( No Beliefs at all btw) and 1 single Believer.
It took 4 days and 17 hours for us to finally reach a verdict of Guilty BEYOND a Shadow of a Doubt and about 90% of that time was spent with the Believer trying to tell everyone that " God is the ONLY one who can dispense Justice because God is Justice personified."
The Defendant was sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment with a Non-Parole period of 19 years to be served and we later learned that the Judge had a wee conversation with the Believer, in camera ( Chambers) where she received a somewhat stern talking to as to the differences between Human Justice and the irrelevancies of Biblical Justice.
So, YES, a BIG Nix, No, Zilch, Nada, etc, etc, to a Juror who has predetermined/ "God supplied ideas (???) or opinions regarding a court Case imo.
God/s/Religions have NO place in Courts Human of Justice.

You got asked about it. When I was on jury selection there were about 80 of us in the court, they asked those that felt they needed to be excused to step forward and tell the judge why (one was related to the plaintiff another had been at school with the defendants lawyer and lived next door to the prosecution lawyer a third babysat the judges children when they were younger, others were job related) Then our numbers and names were called up I have no idea what info apart from name the lawyers had but I doubt it was our religious backgrounds as they use the electoral roll. I got as far as standing in front of the person who swears you in before I heard challenge no idea why.

@Budgie No real idea why we were all asked/questioned but my guess was because the Defendant, as it later turned out to be, WAS the Nephew of a Local Catholic Priest.

@Triphid How long ago was it? Maybe they have changed since then or maybe the seriousness of the case (my case was an assault case but the woman was alive) your's sounds more serious.

@Budgie August1989.

2

Yes, it is legal to nix this juror. The reason is that he plainly had his mind made up in advance.

12

If any prospective jurors indicate that they will reject all legal evidence, and rely on what they believe their god has told them, they have disqualified themselves.
They cannot be impartial, and they cannot fulfill their oaths as jurors.

It's not that fucking hard.

Given the current makeup of SCOTUS, they might disagree. 😮

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