This class was helpful in laying out the topics and roadmap of the course. I still would like to further discuss the problems and strategies to solve the problems we covered in the previous weeks. Something more concrete would still be really helpful for me.
Very helpful to have a review session! I still have lingering questions about I&I and its relation to institutional understanding so would love further elaboration on it
All in all do you think that jury trial is fair? Are we going to speak to how to make it better? Can we add to the jury seeing people's good side to let the jury see more about the person. Is that a possibility.
wish we could change up the format of the class slightly. i think it'd be nice if we had more activities/media to watch/participate in as a big group (like watching relevant clips maybe?) that we could then use in breakout rooms. i also think we should go back to the choice between breakout rooms and threads, because some people clearly aren't comfortable discussing in breakout rooms, which sometimes means the entire session is in silence
if we want to understand the relationship between the "fair trial system" and the framework that produces it - I think we need to do a very basic walk through of what it means to serve on a jury, a procedural timeline, how interactions are framed, spaces they inhabit, actors with whom they interact, differing contexts (civil v. criminal), outsized power of prosecutors, and numerous other variables that we haven't discussed in this class. Also, that we may all be parting from different assumptions of where the origins of our trial system lie. For example, I do not believe a law as an abstract concept can be neutral either in theory or in practice. The labels and language we place upon actions and forces of values are not necessarily definitive nor signifying of what they are said to represent. That is to say ~ a fair trial system has never actually existed in this country ~ nor has that been the intentions of those who propelled such language.
I think the Wonderwoman analogy might be that women follow their feelings more, as opposed to men who more follow logic. The process of the law is very logical, and the jury is the place where feelings most come into play. I think Nesson means this to be flattering to women, that it is good for feelings to put a check on logic. However, I think women are just as capable of being logical as men.