If jurys are not taken from a preselected pool of specially trained people, they are highly susceptible to common forms of rationality failure. This can in no way be conciliated with “innocent untill proven guilty”. Therfore, the jury system as implemented today in the US can not be called “just” in any common meaning of the word.
A single judge who can sentence someone to any punishment without accountability is too powerful. That too could not be called “just”.
One possible solution would be to separate the trial from the sentence. One judge would then preside over the trial and regulate the interaction of prosecution and defense with the witnesses. From this trial an anonymized record is then passed to a different judge or group of judges who evaluate the evidence and formulate the sentence.
If jurys are not taken from a preselected pool of specially trained people, they are highly susceptible to common forms of rationality failure. This can in no way be conciliated with “innocent untill proven guilty”. Therfore, the jury system as implemented today in the US can not be called “just” in any common meaning of the word.
A single judge who can sentence someone to any punishment without accountability is too powerful. That too could not be called “just”.
One possible solution would be to separate the trial from the sentence. One judge would then preside over the trial and regulate the interaction of prosecution and defense with the witnesses. From this trial an anonymized record is then passed to a different judge or group of judges who evaluate the evidence and formulate the sentence.