[ceejayoz]

> Is this because the US is so insanely litigious?

Part of it is the weird setup of jury trials for civil cases, especially impactful in cases revolving around fairly technical, detail-oriented stuff like malpractice.

Twelve randomly selected lay people may not be the best determiners of scientific evidence and in-depth statistical analysis.

[linuxftw]

It's enough to put people to death, so it should be enough for everything else.

[ceejayoz]

Twelve randomly selected lay people shouldn't get to decide to allow the State to kill people, either.

[linuxftw]

No argument here. I was just point out how trivial our systems are, and we still kill other humans based on the feelings other humans.

[seiferteric]

At least that requires unanimous decisions vs civil cases where it just has to be the majority.

[ceejayoz]

The legal standard for a conviction/judgement also changes, from "beyond a reasonable doubt" in criminal to "preponderance of the evidence" in civil- i.e. 99.9% certainty becomes 51% certainty.

[nitwit005]

Every criminal case involves more than a jury. The prosecutor has to decide to bring charges, judge has to accept the case, etc. Death penalty cases are more involved. I've sat through the automatic appeals that were part of California's process.