Re: Jury duty

The term ‘jury of your peers’ comes from the time when commoners and nobles would be judged by their ‘peers.’ Even until recently if you were a lord you could insist on being tried in the House of Lords.

I’d probably serve on a jury. It’s about fairly assessing the evidence. I think I’d be at least at good at that as anyone else. Probably more so because I’d be more interested in what people were saying than whether I thought they were a ‘good chap.’

I really don't trust anyone to truly only look at the facts and evidence alone, the privileged often lie about impartiality, there is a long history of disproportionate incarceration of black defendants from all white jurys as just one example of this.
Sharing a demographic with someone is not the same as being on their side, it just means you won't automatically other that person because there is no "other" between you on that basis.
I don't see why it should in any way be considered illogical or unreasonable that an autist should be concerned with a lack of due representation on a jury when we recognise that similar concern for defendants from other minorities vulnerable to institutional prejudice.

During a trial, you aren’t meant to think about the people involved. You are there only to look at the facts and evidence, and then make a decision that something did or didn’t happen. You cannot go by appearances, or accents. Having done jury service, I saw how the jurors acted. Everyone took their job seriously. 

Being objective and logical without preconceived biases is my goal since I discovered in my thinking that I'm stereotyping without paying attention to remain unbiased. But unfortunately in some cases I won't be able to do that. There are some crimes that makes me emotional about it. Cruelty against children and animals is something that always gets my scorn

I'm also going to clarify because I feel it needs to be said, I'm not saying I would necessarily be an outright advocate but I would trust my own ability to be truly neutral much more than an allist perspective not only because I'm more likely to understand the motives of a fellow autist but also because when dealing with facts I go blank to a lot of other factors which I would like to at least ) believe shields me a little bit from some preconceived biases as I have always tried to take people on an individual basis. Even where areas of oppression are not the exact same, I know what it is like to be othered in regards to gender and disability. And it's not a patch on having the exact same experience ( I know) but I do find it helpful when empathising with others and putting "myself in their shoes" as best I can.

I concur.

Ben

That's fascinating, I don't actually recall that episode so it may be one I missed, but yes that is exactly how I feel towards the issue.

🐝 Bees 🐝 (they/them) Autism resources in bio #stoptheshock #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs said:

I always worry that an autistic defendant would simply by statistical liklihood be judged be neurotypical peers who would subconsiously harbour a bias against them

I thought about it as well.

Trivia: in one of episodes of Big Bang Theory Sheldon Cooper had to attend a session in court for crossing on red when driving, he was taking Penny to hospital in her car and he doesn't own driving license. He said to the judge about jury: ''They are no peers of mine''.

So, it must be known issue. And yet it's being ignored.