Do you think penalties would be more fair between the sexes if the defendant always watched the proceedings from another room via monitor, gender neutral vernacular were used, and when they testified their voice was disguised?

TheSacredParsnip · 2012-08-13T21:17:53+00:00

In most U.S. courts accused are allowed to change out of their prison garb so they get fair treatment from the jury. Seeing the accused in bright orange can negatively sway their opinion before words are even spoken. It's sad that we have to hide the fact that the accused is a man, just to get fair treatment.

What I think would actually happen is that jurors would just assume that the accused is a man, resulting in harsher punishments for women but no changes for men.

Hach8 · 2012-08-13T23:12:06+00:00

Yes and no. Sentences would be more equal, but it wouldn't be because treatment was more fair.

The problem is that people have a bias already - men get arrested, men commit crimes, men are generally guilty. Taking away the gender, people would just assign the most likely gender to the defendant - that of a man. The result would ultimately be that women might get more guilty verdicts in some cases, but it would not improve things for men in terms of bias.

Aside from that, one of the biggest problems is sentencing differentials. Because sentencing is handled by judges, it would be almost impossible to hide the sex of the accused. The only way would be to have two judges, one to try the case, and the other to sentence without having information about the sex of the accused. It would be virtually impossible, even then.

And aside from that, it would be impossible on a practical level in court, because witnesses / friends would have a high chance of slipping up in testimony, and no matter how strongly the judge admonishes the jury to strike the statement identifying gender, it would be planted in everyone's memory.

mikesteane · 2012-08-14T02:16:02+00:00

Penalties would be fairer if judges were taken to task, or sacked, for biased decisions.

TracyMorganFreeman · 2012-08-14T02:01:38+00:00

We'd have to keep the gender of the victim unknown as well.

Not just for the "the defendant killer their husband" issue, but also instances where people are more likely to punish someone more harshly for mistreating a girl than a boy.

Willravel · 2012-08-14T03:59:47+00:00

They probably would be in many instances. This kind of neutral system could help to deal with racism, too.

rightsbot · 2012-08-13T21:08:24+00:00

Post text automatically copied here. (Why?) (Report a problem.)

AnnArchist · 2012-08-14T16:48:34+00:00

Everyone would be dealt w more harshly in that case

HalfysReddit · 2012-08-14T17:37:54+00:00

Have you ever seen "A Scanner Darkly"? I recommend it if you haven't.

Anyways, in case you haven't seen it part of the movie deals with these things called "scramble suits". They look like body bags that you wear that mask your voice and constantly shift on the outside to have different appearances (cycling race, gender, age, etc.)

The entire point of the suits in the movie was to disguise the identity of undercover police officers, but something similar would be useful to this situation OP.

Comments