This is a good explanation, but I'm not sure it's entirely a good thing that jurors only know what they've been told in court? Both sides may have reasons why they don't want to present certain evidence to the jury.
That's the entire point of the legal system. Which is why some lawyers are better than others. The legal system is a "game" in the sense that you want to eek out every advantage you can in the scope of what is allowed in the rules.
Well, it's possible that the adversarial system, while it has its benefits, could stand some improvement? Suppose there were some way to agree on an independent investigator to look for more evidence? Or to appoint some jurors?
Norway has always had a combination of juries and panels of judges that are made up of a mix of legally trained professional judges and 'lay judges'.
Now it is that system only. The lay judges are people who are appointed the same way as jurors used to be, but the difference is that deliberations happens with professional judges present.
The lay judges have a majority, but the professional judges can under certain circumstances overrule if they find the lay judges are ignoring the instructions or otherwise rendering a sentence clearly not supported by the law.
On one side it means jury nullification is generally out, but on the other hand we regularly both see cases where the professional judges call out clearly faulty logic, as well as cases where the lay judges overrule the professional judges and the judgement stands (meaning the professional judges disagreed but accepts that the decision followed the legal requirements).
To me, seeing the decisions of the professional judges when they override makes jury trials terrifying. And this is with professional judges present in the room and participating in the deliberations. Even that is insufficient to deter flawed decisions.
That process happens to a degree in the US too, though the jury is treated more deferentially. After the verdict but before judgment is entered, there is a process of post-trial motions where the judge (who was present at the trial) looks at the record and decides if a reasonable jury could have reached that result.
The big difference, though, is that they are not able to refer to the jury deliberations, or influence them (they participate in the deliberations as equal partners). There are a lot of cases where a reasonable jury could have reached a given result, but where there may be reason to doubt if they're doing so for the right reasons.
What we've seen in Norway when the professional judges set aside decisions is exactly that their dissenting opinions often reveal that even when professional judges are participating in the discussions the lay judges still occasionally insist on decisions that are obviously logically invalid.
Also given how blatantly ridiculous some jury decisions can be - the last ever jury decision in a Norwegian court was a combination of two yes/no answers where the jury entered the only combination that was a logical impossibility based on their instructions as a guilty finding on the first charge was a pre-requisite to make the second charge applicable; people were quite relieved that the last jury decision basically helped validate the decision to get rid of them by failing to follow even those basic instructions.
It makes me wonder how many jury decisions have been based on invalid reasoning but where the outcome is just plausible enough to allow the judgement to stand.
Personally I think juries will be looked back on as a dark chapter.
It's possible for public experts to voice their opinion in an brief amici curiae. They don't need to be unbiased, but they're supposed to be independent from the parties.
There are some stats that 80% of such statements are accepted, although it's up to the courts discretion how and if they make it into discovery. It certainly helps for a "both sides try to hide some aspect from judge and jury" situation though.
It's incumbent on each side to properly present evidence as needed to support their case - if both sides fail to present a piece of evidence then:
1. It isn't actually relevant to the case or for the purpose of rendering judgement on the case.
2. Someone didn't do their job.
I think (2) is sort of the leap of faith required for our legal system, lawyers are required to advocate solely for their charge and empowered to do what is required to earn them an optimal outcome. There are many times this doesn't happen (see overburdened court appointed lawyers) but I think that's a flaw in our current implementation of the system rather than the system itself - it actually all falls together pretty well as a logical solution.
