A deficit of understanding - how prevalent is this?

[Beef Oven]

Something else I wondered about, especially in the light of the seemingly-irrelevant question about religious belief, was whether a juror from a different culture might have a different concept of marriage.

I've just found this in the Daily Mail.

The DM wants to hint at an inadequate understanding of English on the part of the ten 'Afro-Caribbean or Asian' jurors.

I think it's more likely that different cultural norms were the problem.

But whether the jurors' difficulties were linguistic or cultural, the woman who framed the questions so carefully should have been given credit for that rather than being ridiculed by the judge for her pains.

(And I doubt if the jurors' failure to dress formally was a deficit of any significance at all.)


.

If they can't dress properly for a serious formal thing like this, how can we trust their deliberations?

[MrGongGong]

If they can't dress properly for a serious formal thing like this, how can we trust their deliberations?

"Properly" ?
Wearing a suit doesn't make your brain work you know
I once went here

http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/

the lack of suits didn't indicate a lack of intelligence or ability to understand complex phenomena

[ahinton]

I've just read this bit from the link

"It was noted during the Pryce case that many of the jurors were dressed casually and none of the men wore a shirt and tie."


which means WHAT ?

Possibly that all the male jurors were bare chested in court although, as I was not present personally, I cannot be certain.

who on earth reads this crap let alone takes any notice of it ?

Oh, God knows, but one may suppose that enough people do otherwise its publishers would go into liquidation (or liquefaction, or something - if only...)

[ahinton]

If they can't dress properly for a serious formal thing like this, how can we trust their deliberations?

I don't know, but I had heard from a reliable source that, at the retrial, points will be awarded to jurors for sartorial elegance, though with whom any juror awarded them might exchange them was not mentioned...

Anyway, to return to the topic and answer the question directly, I would say "about as prevalent as an understanding of deficit" (Gideon, Chapter 11)...

[Vile Consort]

"Properly" ?
Wearing a suit doesn't make your brain work you know
I once went here

http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/

the lack of suits didn't indicate a lack of intelligence or ability to understand complex phenomena

Indeed. I attended the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics six days a week for three years and the only people in suits were the porters.

[Barbirollians]

I am surprised the Daily Mail hasn't decided that they were a jury of 12 Lib Dems who deliberately mucked things up to ensure Huhne's sentence did not clash with election day

[Beef Oven]

"Properly" ?
Wearing a suit doesn't make your brain work you know
I once went here

http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/

the lack of suits didn't indicate a lack of intelligence or ability to understand complex phenomena

It's about standards. We will end up with chaos if there is no consensus about proper dress codes.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's never that simple. But I wouldn't want a world of Nigel Kennedys.

[Vile Consort]

It's about standards. We will end up with chaos if there is no consensus about proper dress codes.

Err... no, it's about being able to understand what they were there for. How they were dressed is a total irrelevance.

[jean]

Of course it's an irrelevance.

But the DM's strictures on their clothes wasn't why I posted the link.

I was interested in how jurors from a cultural background that assumes marriage necessarily involves subservience of a wife to her husband might well struggle with the idea that VP had any choice in the matter at all.

[MrGongGong]

It's about standards. We will end up with chaos if there is no consensus about proper dress codes.

Says the man in the Beefheart mask
Utter tosh (and i'm not talking about Peter)

It's never that simple. But I wouldn't want a world of Nigel Kennedys.

I'm quite keen on people being passionate and committed to music myself

Err... no, it's about being able to understand what they were there for. How they were dressed is a total irrelevance.

indeed

as Jean points out

the DM makes the (not unexpected) great play that "only two" were "white" implying that somehow this is linked to a "lack of understanding".
Reading the questions as written in the DM article it's clear that (assuming that these really ARE the questions ?) that they aren't exactly written by someone with no understanding or capacity for intelligent thought one only has to look at the language used ......how many people who don't have understanding of English use the word "Infer" ?

[Julien Sorel]

one only has to look at the language used ......how many people who don't have understanding of English use the word "Infer" ?

I'd ... speculate that Sweeney made a distinction between inference and speculation for the jury's benefit. But in my tediously reiterated opinion, given the nature of the defence as reported asking for further clarification of that distinction in the context of the defence as reported seems a reasonable and useful thing to do. As reported that didn't appear to be Sweeney's view of the matter.

Of course, if they had flipped a coin and solemnly delivered their verdict presumably no one would have called the jury deficient?

[MrGongGong]

Of course, if they had flipped a coin and solemnly delivered their verdict presumably no one would have called the jury deficient?

Or even did the whole Yarrow Stalk thing in a true Cage style ?



take your pick

[french frank]

Of course, if they had flipped a coin and solemnly delivered their verdict presumably no one would have called the jury deficient?

Which is an argument in favour of the jury system and this jury in particular. They could have felt pressurised ('I'll accept a majority verdict,' the judge had said.) But they didn't do that: they didn't feel able to arrive at a verdict and said so. The reason why they were unable to (they didn't understand the job, they didn't feel there was enough evidence, no one had brought any cash so they couldn't toss a coin, whatever it was), the interests if justice were served by their delivering no verdict on this occasion. Which they duly did ...

[MrGongGong]

Which is an argument in favour of the jury system and this jury in particular. They could have felt pressurised ('I'll accept a majority verdict,' the judge had said.) But they didn't do that: they didn't feel able to arrive at a verdict and said so. The reason why they were unable to (they didn't understand the job, they didn't feel there was enough evidence, no one had brought any cash so they couldn't toss a coin, whatever it was), the interests if justice were served by their delivering no verdict on this occasion. Which they duly did ...

I think there is an echo of the "Dave responds to Hilary" thing.
Lots of people bemoaning the "deficit of understanding" without actually READING what the questions (or the lecture) were.

(not sure of the grammar of that last one , questions are plural hence WERE but the lecture was singular obviously a "deficit" on my part)