Bench Trial Dbq

For the last 250 years, U.S. citizens have been given a controversial option of a jury or bench trial. Not everyone agrees with the bench trials. Although jury trials sound like a good idea, it is actually true that bench trials are better because it guarantees the right verdict almost all the time.
Jury trials choose ordinary citizens off the street. For example, with the society today, people cannot stay off their phone, which makes them vulnerable to hearing or gathering false details about the trial. In addition, a typical person generally has a lot of sympathy for other individuals. If they feel sorrowful for the defendant they are likely to give them the benefit of the doubt. In a bench trial, a professional judge with years of experience has no sympathy for an ordinary citizen no matter the circumstances. The jurors are human and haven’t trained as near as much as a trained judge. If a person chooses the jury trial …show more content…
For example, let’s say that the defendant is Islamic and a bunch of anti-Semitics were the jurors. Wouldn’t that be unfair? As shown in Document E, Cartoon 3: Hemispheres, October 1992, the defendant is a dog and the jurors are a bunch of cats. The cats wouldn’t let the dog get away free, they would put in the pound. Furthermore, anybody that is not deaf and dumb and idiotic, talk about news. This can be a very bad thing if you choose a jury because everyone knows that the media stretches the truth. As Mark Twain wrote, “Of course the papers were full of it, and all men capable of reading, read about it” (Twain, Roughing It, 1872). The media is a money maker, and they will use all they can to get their money. If the jurors just occasionally read the newspaper and stubble upon the case, it might influence there decision. If the defendant chooses the bench trial, they will get a judge who is no influenced by the media, xenophobic, or religious about that