First, tech people often have a much larger store of baseline knowledge than common people. Neither lawyer wants this as you are bringing your own knowledge of what is "true" into the jury and the lawyers can't override this.
Second, tech people often understand statistics and error. Many of us will apply a very large Bayesian to fingerprints, eyewitness accounts, etc. Even things like "He blew a 0.8 blood alcohol content" is going to get met with things like "When?". He blew it when you stopped him coming out of the bar? (likely just barely qualifies and probably within margin of error--why are you harassing this guy for 2 beers?) He blew it 6 hours later in the station? (Holy cow, how was he standing?)
Third, tech people often have very negative experiences with peer pressure and this often translates to resistance against it. My friend put it best from when he served on a jury: "I don't care if he is guilty of many other things. The government charged him with conspiracy and has not proved their case. You can't persuade me to convict--the evidence isn't there. If you want me to vote guilty, show me the evidence." Result--hung jury.
I have never served on a jury in all the time I have been called. I once watched the defense and prosecution play chicken over who was going to burn their strike to get rid of me.
Since the prosecution is all about convictions rather than justice, they want us as far away from juries as possible.
[citation needed]
Having done some study of voir dire and what people get excluded for back when I was in college, having gotten far enough in law school before deciding it wasn't what I wanted to do to have taken a trial advocacy class, and having actually not been excused, as a tech professional, the only time I've been in a jury group that wasn't excused as a group prior to voir dire, I've seen no evidence that this is the case.
> First, tech people often have a much larger store of baseline knowledge than common people.
Honestly, I don't think anyone except a certain self-important subset of "tech people" thinks that "tech people" have a larger store of knowledge than is common among professionals with similar educational requirements (and technology actually isn't all that high in educational requirements for a white-collar profession.)
> Neither lawyer wants this as you are bringing your own knowledge of what is "true" into the jury and the lawyers can't override this.
Lawyers don't want you substituting outside prejudice for the evidence presented and influencing others in the jury to do so. Neither do judges. Because, you know, this is juror misconduct.
> Second, tech people often understand statistics and error.
Leaving aside that I think there is little evidence that this is a basis for exclusion -- some "tech people" do, though IME (outside of practitioners in the sub-disciplines of technology most concerned with statistics and error, such as machine learning) not much more than lots of other professions that no one would suggest are systematically excluded from jury pools.
> Third, tech people often have very negative experiences with peer pressure and this often translates to resistance against it.
I don't think there is any evidence that "tech people" are, as a group, less susceptible to peer pressure than anyone else. And, again, resistance to peer pressure is probably not in general a negative trait in jury selection. Logically, it would just reinforce whatever positive or negative factors existed elsewhere, since it just means they are less likely to get negated under pressure from other jurors.
> I have never served on a jury in all the time I have been called. I once watched the defense and prosecution play chicken over who was going to burn their strike to get rid of me.
I can see several indications of possible reasons for that in the attitudes you present in your post (starting with the fact that you clearly and proudly stereotype people by profession) that don't relate to either greater knowledge of anything or any of the other factors you point to.
If this is not something you accept as true then you should explain why. It would not be clearly evident to me (or most of our ancestors).
Some people make a virtue out of proclaiming their humble means/ability but veer over into being unscientific. This is like the monkeys who beseech the alpha-male that they are not threats. It is a good survival mode but it isn't an objective fact. Being self deprecating is not more sophisticated than arrogance.
So if you don't accept the proposition as true I ask you to check if you really believe that, or whether it is convenient to your peers or authority figures that you hold that belief. It is hard not to notice many geeks are self immolating for no good reason, that is why I'm saying these things.
Ruling requires a list of attributes such as detachment, emotional stability, being analytical, world comprehension, deep knowledge of the past and other rigorous training. Notice that we could test for these attributes, this would not be some handwavy 'some people are better than others' tripe, this could be demonstrated with practical trials.
Tech people may or may not fit this type. I suspect they fit some of any hypothetical list but probably not all of it. As I've said before, some people do fit the type better than others. It is a sort of Platonic ideal, even the best suited human on earth doesn't perfectly fit the type.
tldr; I think if you combine a programmer, an intelligence analyst and an historian with somebody of good executive function you arrive at a very crude but still very much superior ruler than the dolts (also demonstrable every day) who run our current system.
HN answers:"Maybe, LEOs are subject to the same imperfections as every other human on the planet, it's really goanna depend on the specific situation"
Prosecution requests dismissal, defense counters, judge agrees with prosecution, HN reader is dismissed.
Prosecution asks the same question to some random middle aged woman "sure, I guess it's more important, police officers are always supposed to be trustworthy.
Judge face palms, steam is coming out of the defense attorney's ears, prosecution is smiling from ear to ear. Prosecution requests the juror, defense requests dismissal, judge rolls eyes and accepts.
