[vkou]

> The gist of the decision is that the SEC’s imposition of civil penalties and disgorgement violated defendants’ seventh amendment right to a jury trial

If being tried by a jury is so necessary for justice, how is it that ~95% of people currently imprisoned in this country have never faced a jury trial?

The answer is obvious - actually having jury trials for everyone would grind the country to a halt, so for the majority of us, this sort of right only exists in theory.

But you'll never hear the 5th circuit saying a word on that subject.

In a just world, this new development should mirror how jury trials work for the rest of us - anyone demanding a jury trial to avoid regulatory censure should be subjected to such horrific penalties if they lose, that nobody in their right mind would ever choose that option. Sadly, we do not live in a just world.

[remarkEon]

I don't know where you got that statistic, but regardless of how true it is, I suspect the reason so many are imprisoned without having a jury trial is that they waived that right[1] and took a plea deal.

>In a just world, this new development should mirror how jury trials work for the rest of us - anyone demanding a jury trial to avoid regulatory censure should be subjected to such horrific penalties if they lose, that nobody in their right mind would ever choose that option. Sadly, we do not live in a just world.

I'm assuming this is sarcasm because you're describing a Lovecraftian bureaucratic horror-show.

[1] I'm sidestepping the reason for why this might be so common, which likely has to do with the lack of public defenders and high caseloads though I don't have actual data that supports this.

[vkou]

> I don't know where you got that statistic

It's a well-known number. [1]

> but regardless of how true it is, I suspect the reason so many are imprisoned without having a jury trial is that they waived that right[1] and took a plea deal.

And why do they waive that right?

Because if they don't waive that right, they are subjected to the Lovecraftian bureaucratic horror-show[2] you pooh-poohed just a few lines down.

Take the plea deal, and serve two, or go to trial, flip a coin, and serve ten.

> I'm sidestepping the reason for why this might be so common.

You can't side-step it - you have to look at the system as a whole. It's true that most people can't ever afford to hire a competent lawyer, and it's true that going to trial with a public defender is lunacy, and it's also true that being found guilty at a trial is far, far worse than taking the guilty plea. This is by design - it's a check and balance that ensures most people don't exercise that right.

A right that for most of us only exists in theory is no right at all. It is a privilege, available for the privileged - in the sense that a feudal lord was privileged. It's justice, but only for those who can afford it. It's a complete perversion of equality under the law.

So, of course I'm mad as hell that this court ruled that the group of people most-favored by having the option for a jury trial receiving it, while we go on, and shrug our shoulders at the inaccessibility of it for the rest of us.

[1] https://innocenceproject.org/guilty-pleas-on-the-rise-crimin....

[2] Going to trial with a public defender certainly qualifies as one.

[xyzzyz]

I don’t like it either that the right to jury trial is overwhelmingly bargained away, but having the right and bargaining it away is still preferable to not have any right in the first place.

[xmcqdpt2]

Isn't the issue that in the US you only have a binary choice between jury or plea deal? I'm Canadian and here most trials are bench trials, that is in front of a judge only

https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/just/12.html

The reason why this is often advantageous is that the judge knows well the legal provisions and is more likely to rule in line with previous cases. The judge is also not a prosecutor (and in Canada, not elected by the public) so the judge doesn't have an incentive to be "tough on crime". AFAIK in general, you would only request a jury if you believe your case is in some way fundamentally different from similar cases and you don't want the "default" penalty if found guilty.

[mellavora]

Yes, because this gives grounds for the argument that the system is broken (does not provide the right).

If > 90% of people are pressured into waiving the right, does the system actually provide this right?