Guilty or innocent
The merits or otherwise of a trial by jury have often been discussed. The jury system is used mainly in common law countries (such as in the US and the UK) and to a lesser extent in civil law countries (like Italy and France), where the jury system is...
The merits or otherwise of a trial by jury have often been discussed. The jury system is used mainly in common law countries (such as in the US and the UK) and to a lesser extent in civil law countries (like Italy and France), where the jury system is used in some cases but the jury often include judges.
In Malta, although there is a trial by jury, only few major criminal cases are heard by the jury. Many criminal cases are heard and decided by a magistrate or judge.
I am not sure what the best system is. However, I found the following interesting. When an eminent scholar of comparative law was asked which is the best system, he replied: "If he were innocent, he would prefer to be tried by a civil law court but if he were guilty he would prefer to be tried by a common law court" (The Civil Law Tradition, by John Henry Merryman, Stanford University Press, 1985).