What do empirical studies from civil law countries say about judge versus jury accuracy?
<p>Casual conversations reveal that legal scholars from different countries differ significantly on their view of the accuracy of judge versus jury trials.</p>
<p><strong>By accuracy, I'm referring to the <em>factual</em> aspects of each case (e.g. whether the defendant did kill the victim), rather than <em>legal judgments</em> (e.g. whether the defendant is justified in doing so).</strong></p>
<p>In the U.S., I often hear them cite studies that argue for jury trials, and I hear the polar opposite in continental Europe. They may both have their point, but I cannot help but entertain the possibility that they are both biased for their own system.</p>
<p>They are human; it is difficult to be 100% objective when it comes to such important questions where scientific evidence is not 100% clear-cut (e.g. such as in classical physics)</p>
<p>I've seen many empirical studies by U.S. scholars on this topic. I'm curious if you know about sources outside of U.S., and especially studies done by those who do not live in a country with a long tradition of jury trials.</p>

<h2>How can you tell?</h2>
<p>A judge (or jury) delivers a verdict - how can you possibly know if it was the right verdict?</p>
<p>Even if the alleged criminal confesses, how can you tell the confession was genuine? Even if it was, how can you tell the perpetrator <em>should</em> have been convicted on the law - many people who commit what the general public considers crimes should not be convicted by the law.</p>
<h2>Aggregate statistics</h2>
<p>While it may be impossible in specific cases, there are studies that look at false conviction rates in aggregate over a jurisdiction. For example, the estimates for the USA, a jury country, range from 0.01 to 4.00% (the wide range in estimates shows how hard this is). In Japan, a judge country with inquisitorial lay juries, the figures are orders of magnitude lower. But ... the USA actively looks for such miscarriages of justice, Japan doesn’t. If you look for something, you’ll find it (sometimes even if it isn’t there), if you don’t, you won’t.</p>

<p>If we could consult an omniscient observer who knows whether X performed act A, you might hope to compare the results of a jury trial vs. a bench trial do see whether one vs. the other trial type resulted in a better match between the omniscient observer's statements and the judicial finding. However, there is rarely any available indication of factual finding, separate from legal finding. <a href="https://govt.westlaw.com/wcrji/Document/Iefb0b251e10d11daade1ae871d9b2cbe?viewType=FullText&amp;originationContext=documenttoc&amp;transitionType=DocumentItem&amp;contextData=(sc.Default)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Here</a> is one example which asks the factual questions &quot;At the time of causing the injury, was the defendant operating the motor vehicle while under the influence; At the time of causing the injury, was the defendant operating the motor vehicle in a reckless manner; At the time of causing the injury, was the defendant operating the motor vehicle with disregard for the safety of others&quot;. <a href="https://issuu.com/stritmatter/docs/verdict_form" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This</a> and <a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DlTZDzzXcAErHmS?format=jpg&amp;name=360x360" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a> might be another example, which don't answer fact questions, they draw legal conclusions based on something else, presumably testimony. The first one is more clearly a legal conclusion – it asks about negligence by breaching the duty of a common carrier, which in itself is a conclusion of law and not fact. <a href="http://online.fliphtml5.com/tlge/xfjo/#p=1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Here is another</a>, a criminal case, which list the charges and ask &quot;guilt&quot; or &quot;not guilty&quot;, which merges the legal questions and the factual questions. In general, criminal cases just ask about guilt so you cannot separate the legal finding from the factual finding. Civil cases ask more questions: you therefore have to treat criminal and civil cases differently (basically, you can't ask about criminal cases because the presumed information doesn't exist). Such information exists for a &quot;special verdict&quot;, which is, as the name implies, &quot;special&quot; and not the usual case.</p>
<p>Apart from the lack of an omniscient observer to sort outcomes, there is also a severe lack of information as to the supposed &quot;factual&quot;aspects, separate from the legal aspects, indeed separating the two is conceptually incoherent.</p>

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