Seems like an efficient way of culling the weak. (View Post)

My point is that defendents in more serious magistrates cases can choose a jury trial.. but doing so opens up a much wider range of punishments. (View Post)

Indeed: this is basically just adding a small additional tier, where instead of there being three magistrates, there is a judge and two (stipendary) magistrates. And it would presumably get to take t… (View Post)

I think increasing the number of stipendary magistrates is a good idea. Actually, I think expanding the pool of magistrates generally is a good idea. (View Post)

We could call them... Magistrates Courts! And you know what, let's offer defendents a choice: they can *choose* the Jury trial over the Magistrates Court, but the potential punishments would be … (View Post)