To think men shouldn’t serve on juries in sex trafficking and violence against women cases?

I guess that is the problem with jury selection process in the US. I appreciate it is supposed to identify and remove bias and prejudice but it appears to be used by defence to place sympathetic jurors.

I also think it’s wrong that profiles of the jurors are published. Makes them easier to target.

That’s an absolutely shit idea. Firstly, the whole point of a jury selection is that justice is blind. Secondly, in the US legal system, both the prosecution and the defence are involved in jury selection. Thirdly, women have been persistently shown to be more lenient in legal proceedings so you’d actually be making it worse.

Said on another thread but repeated here. Let us not call this inadéquate abomination of a man by his stupid stage name. His name is Sean Coombs.

Why don't we just say his eyes are too close together, or he looks like a wrong 'un?

What about the officers who investigate? @ForBluntBronzeWren

It should be mixed, although I believe a competency test should be passed.

They very much are. In this case they did written questionnaires of hundreds of people first. Especially for sensitive issues like sex trafficking anyone with personal experience is typically dismissed. Also the lawyers then do verbal questioning as well, that what the first week before the 12th of May (when opening statements occurred) was for. Yes the people who get the letters are randomly selected but then they may not even be on the jury.

Also, they're are alternate jurors just in case they get rid of someone later on. Juror number 4, I think, was asked to leave last week for inconsistent statements about his living situation and an alternate stepped in. They are vetted throughly by both prosecution and defence. Although, in the U.S there's more leeway to strike jurors, both prosecution and defence have a limit of ones they can strike just out of preference for not liking them, (without needing a specific reason - called a peremptory challenge) which is not allowed in England and Wales without cause e.g someone who has experienced sex trafficking in this case or is employed in a profession that disqualifies them, or tampering etc. As someone earlier said this is why jury consultants exist, (often very expensive), they research jurors and find things out for the legal teams to try and figure out who they want to keep or get rid of, (they research their lives and social media etc).

Furthermore, as its obviously a popular case they check social media etc to try and make sure people don't already have strong views on the defendant or even know much about them. I do think the more diversity on juries the better to try and make sure you have a wide range of people with different life experiences.

My experience of serving on a jury was that there were people of both genders who didn’t conform to the traditional gender stereotypes. Women are just as likely to victim blame other women and some men expect other men to maintain decent standards of behaviour and were fairly judgmental when they didn’t.
So no, your statement is a generalisation and single gender juries are not more likely to return a favourable verdict.

Lord no, you can't make massive sweeping assumptions about who is more likely to convict the defendant based solely on their gender, and you certainly can't set up the jury that way. YABVU

I completely disagree. The men on the case I was on were reasonable, measured and supportive. Some of the women were vile, with old fashioned views on women asking for it (this was from a woman in her 20s!)

This.
I have heard women - work colleagues, friends, family, people I like and usually respect - say some really dismissive things about women and sexual violence. How some women 'ask for it', are there to 'shark' and 'trap' men, how they exaggerate for attention etc etc. I think it's sometimes about women worrying about and over-empathising with / making excuses for people who remind them of the men and boys in their own lives. Sometimes it seems to be about wanting to champion male celebrities who they like and fancy. I also wonder whether it's sometimes a defense mechanism - if only women who are blameworthy get hurt from their perspective, it allows them to sustain the illusion that they can keep themselves and their daughters safe by taking the right precautions (which is of course very naive).
Maybe it's also worth saying that women can fall prey to biases too, including misogynistic ones, and that women can be cruel, petty and lacking in empathy for others as much as men can be.

Also the tv series Bull which was based on Dr Phil before he became famous and he created one of the biggest jury selection companies.

There’s a great movie which shows how pliable the system can be. “Runaway Jury” with Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman.

The majority female OJ jury (10 women, 2 men) didn't convict.

It wouldn’t be fair to have an entire jury of women and no men. That’s ridiculous

Sadly in the USA juries can be selected and made biased towards anything. It is a massive business to have jury consultants who will do a huge amount of work on finding everything they can about potential jurors, and they use this to sway the jury their way. With the money Diddy has, I can guarantee theu used very expensive jury consultants to try and get the results they wanted. If you are rich you can escape justice.

I've often had more empathy from men than from women. Women are often other women's worst judges

Yes but there are alot of women out there who have no empathy for abuse victims at all. Because they haven't personally experienced it, they've got no clue how it is. Women can be far harsher than men towards other women

The way that it works here in the US is through jury selection hearings.
Potential jurors are brought in, and questioned on matters of impartiality etc.

Both the prosecution and the defence have “challenges” they can use if and when they feel a prospective juror has answered a question and raised concerns of bias. It’s very common for both sides to enter numerous challenges during this process. Prospective jurors are really deeply scrutinised by both sides and jury selection can take a really long time.
So it’s not like it’s just 12 randoms been pulled in off the street and thrown into a court room. Those people have been vetted to the nth degree. If the prosecution get a sniff that a prospective male juror is unable to do his civic duty effectively in a case involving female victims and sexual abuse matters etc, it’s their job to enter challenges during jury selection.

Well put.

YABVVVU you cannot exclude 50% of the population just like that! Which kind of justice is this?
Many men have mothers, sisters, wives and daughters, so they do take this kind of issue very seriously.
It is the burden of proof what did not do well. Not the jury......

Of course he could have been acquitted of the charges that 'didn't stick' because he wasn't guilty 🙄

This issue always interests me for a related personal reason.
I know my situation wasn’t identical but I really would doubt the notion that women are more inclined to be empathic to what it is like for other women who are victims of coercion/SA/rape/sexual humiliation/sexual harassment or fear of any of those.
I pursued civil action for SA - male judge, my barrister male, the defence barrister was female. She took every cliche known to humans about assault and used them forcibly in court.
it was evident it wasn’t just a tactic too - she believed what she was saying.
Of course I didn’t win - but I came close and that was about as good as I could get.
in a high profile case like Diddy you’d expect people to be “extra” careful in reaching a decision but I suspect a lot of “she exaggerated “/is looking for attention/money/sympathy type arguments in the jury room, if not at the very least in the unconscious bias of people who think “I wouldn’t go that in x scenario” or “that’s not what abused women act like”.
I imagine it’s very difficult to not be swayed by forceful arguments in a high pressure situation like a jury room. Sadly.

YABVU

Argue for an equal balance of sexes in jury’s who make decisions in sex based cases, but to have a jury being of all one sex would be discriminatory, horrible, and invalid.