Trial by Our Peers?

Due to the testimony of a number of people, a man was sent to gaol for 7 years with no concrete evidence other than what could have been described as conjecture based on personal dislike or differences.

If our judicial system is supposedly based on a trial by peers then it would be unfair to try any alleged defendant on nothing less than those who have previously perpetrated the same or similar crime.

It would be unfair to try a person on such a moral social issue as paedophilia by a jury of parents, male or female. Even if the testimony of the witnesses/victims were sketchy, the defendant would be convicted based on the disgust of the jurors.

So, in the case of the celebrity whose position was exagerated by the papperazzi, would it not have been a more fair trial if he had 12 convicted paedophiles in the jury?

They could then determine if what he did was truly heinous in comparison to what they have done or heard of.
They would be the best judges for it, not a 70 year old judge.

We should take into account the fact that sentencing this man to a prison term was probably hypocritical of the judge, depending on whether or not he had a fag master as a prefect at Eton. I also take into account the fact that the ruling to allow the age of homosexual consent to fall to 14 was overturned by the House of Lords. My guess would be that they thought the fun would be taken out of it if it were to be made legal.

Each one of us on the jury would convict the defendant before the trial began, irrespective of the judge’s wishes to be completely objective and to only convict on the premise of “beyond a reasonable doubt”. 

The moral stance is too great. 

Could this then expand into the trial of thieves by a jury of thieves with escalating degrees of theft amongst them?

If each had served time for their crime, and each understood that time had to be served depending upon the severity of each case, then would they be the best people to convict an offender? If the crime committed was more sever than the lowest offender in the jury, but less severe than the most persistent/criminal offender then the defendant would get a sentence befitting his crime and accept that a jury of his peers gave it based on their experience. I watched a program on television where a policeman was intent on bringing charges against a man based on the “feelings” of the jury and a supposition that the defendant “might have” perpetrated the heinous crimes against their own children. He wanted to contest the state of the man’s mind whilst he video-taped some kids. He didn’t seem to feel the need for hard evidence of any type of sexual incident. When this kind of trial is allowed based on emotion, the system must be wrong.