John Oliver takes a look at why people of color are routinely excluded from becoming jurors, who their absence impacts, and what we can do to create a fairer system.
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“You dont want smart people” is the most American thing I've ever heard
Reminds me of Trump: "I love the poorly educated"
Not having smart people on the jury, pretty much eliminates most all Trump supporting right wingers!
@@nightlightabcd you may want to read your comment again.
no "race card" is the most american things ever
Judging by the last two elections that seems to be simply the American way.
John referred to the last letter of the alphabet as "zee" and not "zed". He has truly become an American.
My heart sank when he said that....his transformation is complete.
He pronounced zebra the American way too :(
@@allyjay2214 I didn't even notice...oh my
The inventors of English declared it to be "zed". So the correct pronunciation is "zed".
I'm sorry can someone explain?
John Oliver: They don't even give me free HBO and I'm actively ruining it. Me: Which is why I support you on KZhead
Same, but I'm not sure KZhead is the high ground you or I want
Yepppp
And it’s wicked expensive
As a software developer, I feel like a broken record but I'll say it again: please please please stop putting all of your trust in software. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of smart people in the field that are doing amazing things. But it's a relatively new field compared to say medicine or architecture. We pretty much have no universally enforced standards we have to adhere to (so it's really just the honor system), lots of people get into the field thinking that it's "easy" and they can just a throw script together and call it a day, and a lot of the people hiring us don't know shit about computers nor realize you can't just hire somebody halfway through their computer science degree and expect them to know what they're doing. Software can help and do a lot of great things. But for godsake keep some goddamn humans in the loop. /endrant
As someone in the early stages of learning Python, don't let me near anything critical. _Anything_. I can barely use command prompts, let alone knowing how a bigger system works. Shit's hard yo.
Computer programming is only barely younger than the invention of aspirin.
@@BonDieu617 good luck on your studies! Please don't take my ornery rant as discouragement; we need lots of good programmers, and you'll get there. Just takes practice:)
I don't know shit about computer science, but it's similar to conversations I've had with people about math, specifically those who say two calculators who have different answers to the same problem are both correct. Calculators and other machines are not infallible sources of information - it depends on who programs it. A calculator that gives you the wrong answer doesn't mean that answer is 'technically' right depending on the methodology to solve it - it's just wrong because the programmer made a mistake. Humans making the software make mistakes, some minor and others disastrous.
In Australia we have a paper ballot and full chain of custody over all paper ballots. It works very efficiently. Unfortunately we have just started experimenting with on-line vote casting, which I think is retrograde for the reasons you outline.
John Oliver is the only host who has managed to cope with no audience without sounding completely awkward
Same guy and I can do my own moment of laughter lol
Except for the fact they edit videos and are left biased. Wish we had an unbiased comedy political show
Yeah, first couple of shows after the switch were a bit awkward, but since then he has really hit his stride. Not needing to pander to a live audience has made his show sharper than ever.
Because it's the truth.
Chef Joel Carpenter ok... 1) whaT does a shows political leaning have to do with the competence of its host? 2) a 100% politically unbiased comedy show would still be shitting on corruption, big corporations, and trump bc those things are objectively terrible
John Oliver's show is so much better without his studio audience. Late night tv hosts left and right have been struggling to pad out their shows during the pandemic, but John Oliver has used the silence to plow through the content like an angry diabetic demolishing the crab leg tray at an all you can eat buffet. It's equal parts mesmerizing and intense.
put attention in his shows with audience, he never takes a break, he talks through the laughs
What a beautiful word-picture you paint...
@@Javier.M. Definitely. Though I remember how his pacing was during the beginning, when he started doing the shows by himself. Those unnatural pauses were a byproduct of the comic's natural habit of waiting for the laughs after jokes, but he got so much better over the past few months. It's so solid and tight.
I am diabetic but sorry, I crack the crab legs for my wife.😂😂
It took a while for me to get pass a audience. I still love to hear the crowd reaction to his jokes and one-liners.
I really wish people would remember that Indigenous peoples exist and very much deserve to not be totally ignored. Every stat about black Americans is even more true for Indigenous Americans, and I really wish the two would join together in the fight, because they share common experiences.
Very much so, but that's an even bigger mess that they're probably holding on to for a future episode. Something like "Remember all the ways the justice system is stacked against people of colour? We focused mainly on african americans, but tonight, let's discuss just how much *worse* it all somehow is for native americans."
@@Archgeek0 it would take way way longer... I'm Canadian and am so shocked at how little even leftists mention indigenous people in America.
Indigenous Americans don’t vote Democrat like black people do so nobody cares
So true!! The show would be a great place to discuss the issue of missing indigenous women.
@Scruff Looking Nerve Hurter so you think that the 15th century Indians whipped out the 13th century Indians with guns and small pox and by killing off their food, denying them access to jobs and currency, and restricting their movements? You know we have a general idea about the populations of North and South America going back about 20,000 years right? There is no evidence of war to the scale of the Viking invasion of England . Thinks skirmishes between Scottish clans and not Braveheart.
When the accidents so consistantly emit the same group of people, you start to doubt how much of an accident it actually is.
Eeeeeeeexactly
I emit wind, jury duty omits black people.
As a Danbury native, I am shocked and appalled that you'd mention our railway museum, but not the 50 ft tall monstrous Uncle Sam statue in front of it. We deserve to get thrashed for that alone.
Careful what you wish for ! With John Oliver's penchant for running jokes, now I feel a sequel coming :p
I'm from Danbury too. He hates it because of the Railway museum and the falling down castle?
I actually paused to go through the comments - what the hell has it done to John that he is so angry at Danbury? 😂
@@frizzlethecat2084 are you truly unable to understand this????? Wow. Just wow.
i dont even know where your state is!
80% of the time I watch Oliver is just me going "I didn't even know this was an issue, but wtf?"
Crazy, right?! I do love that the best we got is an England Native Comedian for us to point out how fucked up we are.
Same and im black
That's actually the very reason I watch his show: to laugh, of course, but also to become educated.
This new immigrant got it.
Dont get too involved. Scrollin through 5k comments and findin that one crazy person who knows something about some senator in my district. The rabbit holes will take you to some crazy places. Lol
What kind of "programmer" hears "randomised selection" and thinks "I'll just sort the list alphabetically and start selecting from A until we have enough names". And to think this person is out there in the world, ruining code wherever they touch it. That's really the most interesting take-away from this story, because the revelation that America's jury selection systems are often privately operated and are full of racial bias is really utterly unsurprising. I could hope that it might get fixed but let's face it, it probably won't. Can't let the Poors have too much of a say in who's running things, they might elect the wrong corrupt pollie.
A lazy and inexperienced programmer. I think John said it was revealed the code had been written by a part time college student.
You guys are falling for the blame the programmer trap oh my God. These were deliberate actions the programmer did as he was instructed duh.
@@cchoi108 So many "accidental" omissions. It really is a bit hard to swallow.
Yeah, there are TONS of algorithms for doing things randomly. Wind Waker ran on 2001 recreational game hardware, and its randomness was cracked, but even its randomizer would be better than that if they didn't start with the same seed value each time.
Ive only taken one programming class in matlab nonetheless and i could do better than that. It's hard to believe it wasn't intentional to some extent
My very black grandmother is 78 years old and has been registered to vote longer then I’ve been alive and in the year 2021 for the very first time she was called to serve for jury duty.
I can guarantee 2 things whenever I watch Last Week Tonight. 1. I'm going to learn something I didn't know. 2. I'm going to be bummed about said thing.
Have you forgotten Chitan?
I like his show for reason number 1 too.
@Nice Try oh no I've been wounded by your harsh words. I'm a fad get? Heavens to betsy I don't think I could ever recover. Next time you want to insult someone make sure you don't make it evident the extent to which your life had not been burdened by education. You can't spell a six letter word. Pathetic.
You ought not treat a comedy show as if it's educational programming. It's not. Even educational programming provides only part of the story. You can be sure that a 10 minute comedy monologue is not entirely accurate.
@@brendant19 this isn't a strictly comedy show. If it was it wouldn't do pieces on special taxing districts. Not really going to hear a lot of 10 minute monologues about that are you? The whole point of this show is to be both educational and comedic. And of course it is meant to be funny, it's fucking hilarious, but it isn't exclusively comedy.
This show should be called "America is more racist than you think with John Oliver." It's very informative for me as a non-american.
yeah, that said this whole year being only centered on racism issues may become a bit triing. i know it's important but don't let that become the only thing you talk about.
"America is EVEN more racist than you think" there you go.
@@Lapantouflemagic0 Normal people dont get tired of discussing racism.
As an American I’m always surprised by people who don’t know how racist we are.
Saying that it is just racist is like an over-simplification: America seems like a place where poor or disadvantaged people, but even the whole population in general, are constantly and systematically exploited to various extents, with the approval of the government and the laws, who seem to defend the right of anyone to be exploited by whoever has more power and money. And they call that "freedom".
I was called for jury duty when I was 7 months pregnant with twins(I had been called previously too); I sent in the form with my number. A few weeks later a nervous sounding man called and said I wasn’t excluded and needed to arrive, etc. After hearing him nagging me for 10 minutes I finally told him fine, but that I needed a bathroom break every 10 minutes and a bucket because I was still fucking vomiting. Click... I haven’t been called since. The twins are 17 now..
I've also heard that if you've ever experienced sexual violence or harassment you end up struck from juries in instances of sexual violence and/or harassment, resulting in overwhelmingly male juries, which explains the resulting rulings...
I hope that's not true, but... it does ring true. Frustratingly, infuriatingly so.
Oh yeah, you do get struck, people will claim it’s to avoid retraumatization but will typically ignore certificates from medical professionals or the person in question when deciding. So yea it sucks
Last time I was called up, I believe I was struck for knowing rape victims.
I can see why they'd strike victims of violence for such cases, as one does not want trauma and emotion to cloud one's better judgment. You want fairness for the accused, and to put them against people who may be blinded _by_ that trauma would be a veritable death sentence.
@Resi1nce it's really insulting that you think people who have experienced traumatic abuse are unable to think rationally and treat people with impartiality.
I was summoned for jury duty once where the defendant was a Black man accused of possession of drug paraphernalia. I was in the front row, and several of us in the front were asked several questions about our feelings about drugs or about whether or not we thought we could be impartial. I mentioned that I had had friends that had used illegal drugs and I had had friends in law enforcement, so I thought that I could be impartial. I didn't really say anything else. Several other people to my sides expressed very strong biases against drug users. I was not selected. From what I saw, the jurors who were selected were the ones who had expressed the strongest bias against the defendant. You might wonder why the defense attorney didn't object to this. Unfortunately, there was no defense attorney. It was explained to us that the defendant was _not_ entitled to an attorney because he was not being deprived of his life or his liberty, only of his property. He was unable to afford an attorney, so he was trying to defend himself, and he was doing a very poor job of it. He declined to participate in the voir dire (jury selection) process because he was "leaving it up to God." I felt pretty bad for the defendant. Even though I have never attended law school, I felt like what little legal education I had gotten in business school and from watching legal dramas would make me a better defense attorney for him than he could be for himself, and I wished that I could have just volunteered to represent him anyway. I could have at least kept a logical eye on things and objected to anything that seemed overtly biased.
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of conviction
Pretty much every aspect of the US criminal justice system is systematically racist. From beginning to end.
You'd think that would be unconstitutional, but evidently the courts have interpreted "due process of law" to not include guaranteed legal counsel in the 4th amendment.
so it wasn't a criminal case but a civil court case? what was the value of the property affected?
@@granville7 I believe that it was criminal and not civil because there wasn't a plaintiff suing for damages. It was the state charging the defendant with a crime (posession of drug paraphernalia), however, the penalty they were seeking was not prison or death, only some sort of property. I guess a fine and possibly confiscation of property in question, but they didn't tell us what property was at stake or its value.
My mom has a PhD, been summoned for Jury Duty several times, but guess what, never been selected to sit a trial... They don't want smart people.
America as a whole.
this is why i look and seem stupid, but am actually not THAT stupid
One side doesn't want smart people. The other side very much does want smart people.
Just curious a PhD in what? Your mom is very educated. Glad to see a woman succeed.
I’m sure your mother would be thrilled to get stuck at a courthouse Monday-Friday for 3 weeks, 10 hours a day. God forbid if she gets sequestered, too. Funny thing, I’ve never once heard a story start with “This one time, I was summoned for Jury Duty and it was amazing!” Jury duty is equivalent to sitting in a DMV for 10 hours a day. After an hour you’re going to question why the hell you thought this was a good idea..
I love that accepts and jokes about that he looks like an owl. I'm not saying he does but it's genuinely heart warming
I didn't really get the whole bird comparison that he kept going on about until I realized that instead of just nodding his head, he bobs his whole upper body. That definitely reminds me of birds.😁🐦🦉🐧
He also has a large nose, which reminds people of a beak. It's hard to tell from head-on, but his profile explains why people say he's a variety of fowl. I never noticed the body-bobbing thing, but now I can't unsee it, so thanks for that! 🤣
For those of us not in the US this should be called Last Month Tonight
Where I live, it should be called, "Last 2 weeks tonight".
Or Last 200 Years Tonight
@@nicholase2868 right 💀
It's astonishing how many episodes show private companies taking part in something the private sector should have no business in
You mean to say that basing the judicial and medical systems off of capitalistic principles was a bad idea and that personal gain might be a motive to corrupt said systems to create personal wealth rather than solving the problems they were supposed to solve?
@@kristianjensen5877 pretty much yeah, although in this case it's not as flagrant as in other episodes, the one that sticked with me the most was standarized testing tbh
@@makiiavely Huh, I wasn't aware of that particular problem. Thanks for pointing it out, I need to look into that.
makiiavely capitalism kinda sucks
@@ahyan14 Yep, but it seems to be a better way of governing a society than anything that has come before it up until now. American capitalism seems especially anti-human though.
"Private companies can be surprisingly unreliable." Its not a surprise anymore at this point, John.
Was it ever a surprise to the truly 'woke' person?
Yep. And the point of contracting out to private companies is to make public processes and services opaque and unaccountable. They rarely ever save money either. And any lowest bid contractor that manages to do it is practically guarantied to be less reliable than the public system they replaced.
Yet capitalism in intrinsically reliable with emphasis on private companies.
@AXioS TraLLö no man, no it's not. It always excluded a good portion of people and we are now seeing the ruins of capitalism in real time again (plenty of people have seen it for hundred of years and know it for many generations they actually know.) Capitalism works as a theory in a bubble the same way communism does, with almost the exact same pitfalls - just within different systems.
I think the surprisingly in there is meant to be ironic at this point.
"our algorithm to select random jury members is a trade secret" lol wtf? It's a democratic process so the way it's done just cannot be a secret, and the best way to do it is pretty much just entirely randomly.
@Zachary Morris depends how far you wanna drive "peers". Are they supposed to be "average, regular citizens like you" or are they supposed to be your buddies from around the corner and people from your chat groups with the same whatever trait makes you a minority (making it a jury not representing the whole of society at all)? Also, still, it should not be a secret. Making it a secret means it can be rigged.
@@marnes5575 I think he just means representative, so if 30% of the people in your state are one race then 30% of the jury should be that, something along those lines. Although I also hate to see how they seem to hate educated people and seem intent on it being made up of 100% less well educated/more impressionable people
@@asneakychicken322 well I hope "representative" considers more factors than only ethnicity then. I suppose you'd want to have specific selection algorithms then if you want to avoid statistical outliers resulting in unrepresentative juries, since a random selection would only be representative on average. But then the algorithm still shouldn't be a secret, that's just crazy.
Im late to this video but you're right, itd literally be better if they did a fucking raffle lol
@@asneakychicken322 which randomness would cause most of the time to happen (with ofcourse a spread)
The saddest thing is that a desire to serve on the jury you're selected for is exactly what the prosecutor doesn't want. Typically, they want people who are shallow, impatient, uninterested and desperate to bring the trial to a quick close, relatively-speaking. Such people will be less interested in deep discussion, less willing to field controversial, uncomfortable topics and less interested quite simply, in whether justice is served.
"they don't even give me free HBO, even though I'm actively ruining it." No, John, you're carrying it.
i mean, hbo actually makes some great content in general. ive lately come to trust it more than netflix for quality shows
That's why he's so swole. After Game of Thrones ended badly, John is doing all the heavy lifting.
@@DarkLorddReviews game of what, now?
Him an the shows excellent writers
@@badvideosto Well said, man. John Oliver himself keeps saying the writers deserve all/most of the credit.
“You dont want smart people”. I see a historical trend here.
Probably one of the most American sentences of all time
@RoD It’s worst than that. They don’t want educated black people, which implicitly means they don’t want smart black people.
Kenudice they don’t want smart people period. Not even smart white people.
A certain Austrian warlord was okay with smart people, as long as they were smart enough to play ball. Lawyers don't like Engineers in engineering cases because they have too much sway and are more likely to go outside the facts of the case.
Big shocker that they are avoiding people who have a better understanding of an evidence based approach to answering questions. I am in my late 30s with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering. Forget being dismissed from a jury pool, I have never even been called to one, and I have had a car registered in my name and been registered to vote my entire adult life. Until I saw this segment today, I had kind of forgotten that jury duty was even a thing I could potentially be called for.
I once spent three days debating guilt or innocence in an intent-to-sell case. I couldn't figure out why it was taking so long until I found that a fellow juror didn't know what the charges were.
12:44 This "Race Card" bit is one of the best John Oliver moments ever! LOL!!
I wish he wouldve realized the then reporter now runs head at CourtTV as lead anchor. 🤣
Society: There is something society needs to function USA: caN wE oUtSoUrCe ThAt
Should be, USA: How can we make the biggest profit from it?
You misspelled “what’s the lowest amount we can pay someone overseas to do this job for us and then complain that they’re stealing our jobs”
Last Week Tonight in a nutshell
@@EverythingWilsonMalone I believe there once was an experiment in Texas where they privatized the fire department and people had to have "fire insurance" or the FD wouldn't come. The problem with it was, houses were built so close together that the fire would spread to neighboring buildings and cause a much bigger disaster.
@Scott Wilhelms crony ??
" When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty" Norm Crosby
LOL , JUST what I was thinking
@Jon O That and skewed to the liberties of the rich
@Jon O Well, the jury system makes it not a judicial thing anymore, but a "who can make the biggest song and dance act to wow the audience" thing. That's my biggest gripe with a judicial system based on jury verdicts and sentencing. Plus, they made a joke about it on TBBT about "jury of your peers", but if you're one of the smartest (or dumbest) people in the world, how can others be your peer in this matter?
@@1972LittleC "peers" refer to literally everyone, because we're all equal in the eyes of the law. That's the point mate ;)
@@christofferrasmussen6533 In that case, why can't people be judged by 2 or 3 people who actually studied law (and presumably ethics) and to this for a job, instead of 10-20 random people who may or may not have studied at all
If anyone remembers the CBS show Becker, there was an episode where Becker gets called for jury duty and keeps getting rejected from trials because he came off as too smart.
Me, about to watch a new Last Week Tonight video: Oh boy! What new thing am I going to hate today?
"They don't even give me free HBO and I'm actively ruining it."
And here we watch this show's continued slide into a new form. A couple weeks ago, they used the quip "like calling this a comedy show" as a type of inaccurate statement. I definitely won't complain, it's an interesting and informative show, and moreso all the time.
yes, he did in fact say that sentence.
Good job. He said that.
Funny part is until now with the Snyder Cut he was the only reason to stay subscribed.
Seriously, even jury duty is privatized in the US? Carlin was right, these people don't own their country...
This land was bought and paid for a long time ago. And in this country, it's an exclusive club house. And guess what? 99% of us, are not in this club house nor will get that special invite. Words from George himself. Smart people are no good to these corporations / governments. It's not in their best interests.
Peasants can overthrow kings, IF peasants want to.
you doubted Carlin? Blasphemy! xD
@@yeevita the problem is to find the next git to be king, or how to do it better, without falling into total chaos. 'member them dark ages? Or the Bronze age? Or closer, the arab spring? Basically the atmosphere you might've had when you were a kid (fight, fight, fight!).
D. Jay, The "Privitaziation" of the US government by corporate entities/titans of industry; have unfettered influence over the political arena. Citizens United v Fed Election Com (2010); SCOTUS conservative decision: A private corp. is an entity with a right to free political speech/unrestricted funding to influence public opinion. Corporations bought Trump the WH/tax cuts for the rich/>170k dead.
I'm liking this new "end with concrete solutions" thing. it's like a sexy little to-do list. thanks king
Curtis Flowers has since been exonerated and freed. The prosecutor had to recuse himself from the impending seventh trial due to his relentless pursuit becoming a conflict of interest. No other prosecutor believed Flowers was guilty, and the "evidence" was highly questionable.
Who's here after the announcement of the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant in Danbury?
I am :) But it seems like it's just a tongue-in-cheek plug-in on Oliver's part.
If you are here because of this, min 06:05 😂😂😂😂
Yepper
@@Jan_Strzelecki Yeah, a bunch of people not realizing the joke is that hes going nuclear on a quaint, peaceful small town
Yup.
My mother was once on a jury for a trial where they were trying to convict a woman of "assault with a deadly weapon" for throwing a lit cigarette at a cop, and there was an advocate for police officers on the jury, they ended up with a hung jury because the police advocate insisted the defendant was guilty of assault with a deadly weapon
I'm glad they weren't convicted!
Poor job by the defending attorney not to exclude that person from the jury I'd say.
@@TimoRutanen we're pretty sure that person just carefully didn't mention their profession to the defense attorney, because technically no one asked if they were a police advocate, though they may have been asked if they were a police officer or related to a police officer
@@eleahflockhart Certainly. But I'd think it's within the attorney's skillset to detect weaselry. Things do fall through the cracks too of course.
Can do you one better with one of my jury times. Defendant had the deadly weapon assault charge because cop stood in the middle of street yelling "stop" and the defendant kept marching forward with his wheelbarrow. Cop: big, beefy guy. Defendant: scrawny, old 95lb weakling. Verdict: not guilty. Jury not at all happy having to go through 3 days of hearings on a bogus charge.
18:13 It's sad how most people hate jury duty and avoid it at all costs and yet this woman was perfectly willing and excited for it
When that kid said "i got jury duty" i cracked up
There is an overarching theme to all these stories: in the USA private companies are somehow called up to manage and oversee all these programs/systems. Spoiler alert: they do it for profit, not for the greater good
You really meant to say they do it for as much profit as possible and who cares if its an absolute crap program resolts
Yeah... Alberta, Canada is similar with a lot of things. Not as wild and unregulated but the private sector handles most things.
Let me be clear...do you think a country founded by slave owners are "good" people? Jesus H Christ. Stop being dumb and get with the program that American HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS way. We simply hid it with our "exceptionalism" and media environment.
It’s called capitalism.
Keenan Thomas a lot of countries don’t let private companies run prisons for profit, or pay doctors to prescribe a certain drug, or handle jury summoning. The USA for some reason allows all of these things. Sure there’s corruption everywhere, but I’ve never seen it as bad anywhere else.
Oops! We 'misplaced' the lists of all the black and latino people living in the area.
Ranked 2nd most used excuse just after:"The Dog ate my Homework."
In every town, in every district, in every county, in every state... Just a _minor_ glitch in the system 😉
What makes me scoff is the use of "proprietary" to protect the code. This is stuff at the level of a first year undergraduate. The data sources are where the value is, not the shuffling of a list.
Oops! All Whites
OOPSY POOPSY! Guess I went and forgot all the minorities but that’s okay right? We still have all these fine people wearing MAGA hats who are staring with hate and vitriol at the black defendant. This should still be okay to do!
I not only live in one of those cities in Connecticut where they weren't registered for jury duty, but the amount of shade he threw at Danbury cemented him as my favorite talk show personality.
😂I'd LoVe An explanation as to why the Danbury Shade was So satisfying... if ya care to share?🫖🍵😂
Another issue- in the 30+ years I've been eligible, I've never been selected for a jury, nor have my friends. We're teachers, professors, and doctors, and were told we could go home because we were "too educated." What does that even mean?
Well, again, no smart people.
That was actually stated? I suppose that could be an argument from the defense requesting a jury of their peers, although, possibly not encouraging for the fate of democracy. If that argument came from the prosecution, that's evil.
@@chrispettus2532 Yes, I was surprised and confused. The two PoliSci profs I asked said it's a common bias, because the strategies used in court often hinge on jurors following the lawyer's logic, rather than analyzing everything from their own. In addition, prosecutors don't want anyone on a jury that knows you don't have to find someone guilty if you don't agree that the act should be illegal. Makes sense. Even though you aren't allowed to tell other jurors, that's one guilty vote.
The monologue on the Race Card is a flex on storytelling John. You gifted, gifted man
'Show asks producer for strange thing' strikes me as a case of 'write what you know.'
This monologue reeks of writer Dan OBrien. So good
Expounding at great length can be done well! Gotta love his delivery.
Just wanted to point out that attorneys get 10 peremptory challenges. It's more like 3.
It annoyed me so bad
I did “mock trial” in high school, and while we did not actually perform jury selection, I was taught by a judge (white woman) that the prosecutors goal in jury selection is to weed out those who are most demographically and idealistically similar to the defendant (oh, and it is true that seeming smart or knowing how court works is considered disqualifying. I was told that if I’m ever summoned for jury duty, just mentioning that I did mock trial would immediately get me dismissed). The whole experience taught me that our court system really is “pay-to-win” currently and needs to be completely re-worked (I think there is even a reasonable argument that it is violating the “equal protection under the law” clause).
My experience is anecdotal of course but, I was on a capital murder death penalty jury in Georgia. That didn't keep me off an armed robbery jury in California.
@@hankhillsnrrwurethra Yeah, I served in a jury for a white collar crime and the only people who were dismissed were those who could have had a bias in some way, either by knowing someone involved in the case (one guy was dismissed because it turned out his brother-in-law was one of the witnesses) or having been a victim of a similar crime and were self-admittedly unable to be impartial because of that. They did ask if we had served on a jury before but nothing about mock trials, and one of the jurors who served with me had served in a jury previously so idk if that really factored in. So while I wouldn't be surprised if this happens sometimes it was not my experience at all either.
Don't ever talk about Jury Nullification inside or directly outside of a courthouse. They're magic words.
Yup.
It is well known among those with a degree that having a degree is disqualifying.
With a college degree, I've not been selected in 30 years. Way to go Floriduh!
Maybe because you think that you having a college degree means you should have been chosen over or instead of the people who have been picked for the last thirty years is a good reason that you haven't been picked.
@@jcn91 That was merely an observation adding to the credibility of the argument that ppl with a degree are avoided in the search for potential jurors. it's not better or worse thing, it's a 3-decades of personal experience thing.
John Oliver should do a bonus episode for people he said he could do a whole episode on.
John: "How do you ask anyone so many questions about anything" Me: Remembering the questions about the "race card" card...
23
@@bostonharmon6540 I only counted 18, but it was hard to tell where one question ended and the next started
Yes but it is a race card how many race cards do you ever see in your lifetime?
Me: “Those in power want to dumb us down” Friends: “that’s a crazy conspiracy” People in power: “You don’t want smart ones”
they just want to win the case, everything they said was proven to be true by experiments and john oliver just want to push his Political agendas exactly like everyone else on TV, u shouldn't get ur facts from him. I am sure they try to exclude white women when the suspect is white
@@rexblack8170 At least Jhon can spell is damn name. Idiot.
What about Trump's "I love the uneducated"
I am going to be open and honest: I want people less smart than me so I can outsmart but I do intend to actually frequently talk to them so I can calm them down, And in order for ME to be calm, they need to be at least smart enough for that conversation to not cause me to lose my temper. Further more I always want to get smarter and that makes me need other people to get smarter than they used to be. I want to be the smartest one in the room, but I genuinely want people to get smart enough to have complicated jobs that are fun for the first year and terrible after that when problems start. I want the people working for me to be astrophysics smart. But yes, I do want to be smarter than that too. But you can still probably be Happy if you are allowed to have a whole lot of schooling. Oh they also need to be smart enough to know when I do not want to talk to them. I will personally ask them to their faces which is their favorite panem et circensis they like to enjoy when they're bored that I can make them go away with. As long as I sometimes plan to blow them off, I really, really, really want them happy enough to not want to riot. If they can say "sure we want more, but we do have a lot of what we want and our children will get the rest of the way", then I feel like my conscience is clear for wanting to be #1 over them all. It's impossible to rule unhappy people. I have ZERO desire to be ruler of unhappy people. Approval ratings are really really really important, and I Respect that. I do worry that it's impossible to make some people happy, but I promise to make everyone except the really really really unpopular people, basically pretty much happy enough.
@@darthparallax5207 you sound like a fantastic person to be around, definitely no concerning personality disorders lurking there. There is a lovely subreddit dedicated to people like you, r/iamverysmart maybe check it out and chill the ego.
*Greg: "My goals are beyond your understanding."*
Not only is this one of the greatest topics for him to talk about, such a fantastic issue, and the icing on the cake is his mention that it was technically a Race Card Card. So good. So happy.
I love this comment!! ♡♥︎♡
The whole “90% of African American neighborhoods were accidentally left out” can’t possibly be an accident. I would understand a few percentage points but over 90% is definitely deliberate
#ADOS are a group with a specific justice claim. The #ADOS movement demands a specific agenda with policy prescriptions that address the losses stemming from the institution of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, convict leasing, mass incarceration and immigration. Without specific measures being instituted, #ADOS are locked out of the country our ancestors built during chattel slavery. Without reforms through transformative government, we will be left to continue living a third world life in a first world country. #ADOS #Reparations2020 #LineageMatters #DataMatters ADOS101.com
90% of African American neighborhoods? So neighborhoods where blacks are predominate? Like say a Bronx Jury. Let's not mention that segregation of races is the issue, because I'm sure there would be none that would be against predominantly white, or Asian, or Middle Eastern neighborhoods that have a problem with diverse juries
I know.... It's almost like there is systematic means in place to keep afri. Amer. Struggling in several different ways
The issue at play here is simple and it has far less to do with race than you might think and than he makes out. Lets take a look at a sample county: I'm more familiar with Broward county in Florida than anywhere else so I'll use that to prevent a massive man hunt of research. Broward county is 30% African american. There is a population distribution map that places the vast majority of African Americans in a city called sunrise (google [sad as this sounds] "Where do blacks live" and zoom in on the map I don't even want to know why that is called that but thats another fight, broward is just north of miami). Sunrise is described by 6 zip codes that while not consecutive are, save for one, all within ten ish of each other going from 33313 through 33326 with an outlier of 33351. So basically a bad bit of code that skipped 33320 through 33326, would drastically reduce the number of African american selectmen. Thats 6 zip codes out of 53, and its incredibly easy to do accidentally. For instance Sunrise is comprised of 6 non sequential zip codes: 33313, 33322, 33323, 33325, 33326, 33351. Anyone selected in those zips gets sent to sunrise courts. So you build in a filter that builds that out so that they get assigned the right court house and so on. Well you can't select the zips sequentially 33313-33351 you'll send people who are in other cities to the wrong place. So you tell it for zips with 333 and either 1 (and 3) or 2 (and 2 or 3 or 5 or 6) or 5 (and 1) send to sunrise. Then you forget to close a parenthesis or add a digit, or you get the logic backwards and subtract that set from it, and suddenly everyone in that area isn't being summoned for jury duty. Its a common mistake to make and remember this is an under paid coder in the basement of the building somewhere tasked with debugging hundreds of thousands of lines of code just for this simple selection. I'm not saying it wasn't deliberate, but I am saying that its a farther stretch to think it was rather than to think it was a ghost in the machine that resulted in a grievous wrong.
@@presidentialcampaignmusic1018 Then he has never been on a jury in San Antonio. It was 70% Hispanic with about 10% who didn't speak English. I know because I had to translate for them to fill out their paperwork. Again, my point is racial makes up changes in different areas. You're more likely to have more black jurors in Baltimore than you would say Fargo. That's not racism, that's geographical.
"Private companies can be surprisingly unreliable." Private companies being unreliable is almost the hallmark of this show.
And the hallmark of this country
eyyy no lie here
Sooooo, you haven't objectified Adam Driver in a while.
👀 (🎥: Holidate)
18:12 Honestly, hearing her say she was looking forward to serving and knowing she wont get the chance BC We know that the system will not ever let her honestly kind of hurts my heart man.
The entire jury system sounds so weird to me. Juries have not even studied the law and are allowed to make life changing decisions - sounds rly risky.
Yeah exactly. I'm from the Netherlands, and when I heard shows talk about "jury dury" I always expected it to be people who had at least studied law. But apparently not. It feels very weird to me, I mean, why would you need to have a law degree then? Just get the smoothest talkers as lawyers and the most gullible people as jurors, and then boooom racist prejudiced system.
The whole jury duty actually seems weird to me too. I get that the intention is to have a representation of the community that the defendant lives in but they probably don't have the legal expertise to judge things like this, especially white collar crimes where they pull off elaborate cons. Here in India, we have one judge (or multiple judges) who passes the judgement but from the looks of it, it seems like in American courts, the judge is simply there to tell people what the jury agreed on.
That's... actually a solid ass point
Another silly requirement of jurors is that they are not familiar with the case, or the person, or anything about it. So that means you want people who so don't read the news, or are so poorly acclimated to culture as to not even know who Bill Cosby is, for example, or Michael Jackson, or OJ Simpson, or to have NEVER heard about the Casey Anthony case, which dominated every news channel in America for months before any trial dates were set. It ensures you get the real cream of the persuadable crop. These uncontacted people would probably join the Jehovah's Witnesses if they came to their door.
Add an elected judge who didn't have study law either a prosecutor push to jail as many people for as long as he could regardless of the crime and a public defender who have to work 100 case a week and you have the US "justice" system
John Oliver makes me laugh harder than anyone else while providing education. He's my fav tv personality
And hence they took down Hasan Minaz - Duh, The Race Card proven .
I just discovered John and I have been binging all the videos and learning so much!! Thank you
Wow. Thank you John Oliver for covering this!
John: "Private companies can be surprisingly unreliable." Me: "How is THAT surprising?"
In relative terms, if something is more unreliable than most people would expect, then I think it's fair to call it surprising.
So in all white towns where the government is all white, you want the white government to be in charge of jury selection?
@@Rudyelf1 if you're concerned about under-representation of people of color in the governing bodies making decisions that impact people of color, i've some got alarming news for you about the racial makeup of the leadership of the for-profit companies governments contract to do that same work
He was being sarcastic
First Last aren’t companies faster to respond to boycotts and cancel culture and change as compared to entrenched politicians in secure districts?
I've been called, but never selected. I've been told that they don't like scientists, we tend to follow facts rather than laws.
LMAO
Called twice, Jody. Dismissed both times. Had a friend tell me that when presenting DNA evidence they don’t like having jurors that understand the tech. Friend was assistant DA... I am a published molecular biologist. System is run by a-holes.
Who benefits from this crazy system? Or is just a playground for prosecutors and defenders to measure their dicks? There is better justice systems around the world, cant understand why modern america keeps this old and corrupt system. And I don't mean to diss americans, just sometimes wonder why they are so stubborn with their old ways
@@penttihirsus because we often have the attitude "if it was good enough for grandpa, it's good enough for me!" or they were told "this is the one true system" from someone they respect to the point of taking everything they say unquestioned.
@@penttihirsus What happens to a person convicted by an all white jury? They go to prison. Who is restricted from voting? Convicted felons.
Thank you all behind this work. You're hardworkin' good people.
Wow this episode was such an eye opener. Thankyou John
As someone who lives in Danbury: I was not prepared for that flaming 😭
And doesn't it have the highest Spanish immigrant population per capita in the state too? He really should have picked Wilton or New Canaan 🙄😂
Hi neighbor.
My aunt has done jury duty 5 times. Her last name starts with an E. I'm 40 and I've never been called up. My last name starts with a W.
Whoa your aunt is the famous rapper E40?
That's a problem. I have a friend whose name begins with "S" and he got a jury summons, but they filled the number of jurors they wanted during his week of service before they got to "S".
I'm almost 40 and I've been called up for like 3 or 4 times and my last name starts with W. =/
@@raywhite7179 Well, sure, but you're White! (ba-dum-tss)
My last name starts with A and I got called for the first time last year. And I am 38. My other family members have all served, but somehow I was completely left out of the system for years until they announced they retooled the system to make it more fair.
It’s amazing how Oliver figures everything out
John nails it once again. I am so proud to claim him as a fellow American citizen. Dude, keep up the good work!
I got summoned for jury duty and when I realized I got paid 20$ a day I had to postpone because I couldn't miss that much work for such terrible pay. It's ridiculous that the pay isn't more. I understand that's not what this piece is about, and that black Americans have been disproportionately effected, but I just wanted to share my experience as well
I mean, that was one of the points that was brought up.
i was on a jury for 2 weeks and our pay was just $12.50 a day, we had to buy/bring our own food and pay $7.00 to park.
For wellfare cheecks, does that lower your wellfare?
@@everwhat013 that's crazy! Pretty much paying to be a civil servant. :(
@@webbowser8834 Sure, but it wasn't the main issue he was addressing in a majority of it.
I feel like "ya don want the smart ones" has been America's policy in general recently.
Say that again for the people in the back.
It was always that way
as a smart person, they put me on a jury once, and I ended up being the foreman. Dang right they don't want me. i take over.
"recently" should be switched to "since its inception."
Oh so that's why Donald Trump's mother didn't get abortion
A superb, well-written and expertly delivered piece to camera. Well done, John. Stay Safe! PS. The World is holding it's breath...
The "don't want smart people" part probably explains why I was struck from jury duty. I was summoned a while ago, but was never chosen. I just remember the way the lawyer perked up when I mentioned that I worked at a fast food restaurant, then his face went blank when I used words that contained more than three syllables in my answers to later questions. It was an interesting experience...
I can't believe he said that Z got all the hotties, completely ignoring Adam Driver right there at the start of the alphabet.
I was surprised as well.
I think it's actually "Zadam Xriver", they changed it to Adam Driver for their earth disguise.
Yeah, but have you ever seen a zonkey?
He might be weaning off Adam Driver 😔
Blue Sky , or Adam Driver got a restraining order...
I think we need a USPS/VotingByMail Part 2.
And ranked voting instead of the Electoral College!
Yes Ahri Yes
Thank you Sir John for all you do.
I love this guy!!!!Thank You so much for educating all of us You really have a gift
The most shocking thing about this, is the fact that John doesn't get free HBO. Definitely would've put that in my own contract for sure.
They would pay him $15 less per month
"Hey daddy company, can you put free HBO in my contract?" No because we don't own your local cable provider and that would be stupid to open a cable account for one channel. How about we give you $5 million per year and you pay for your own bills?
no one wants HBO.
@@robertm4050 HBO go is a paid service. So is HBO..... Like dude... I got free HBO from HBO. My service provider wasn't even apart of the conversation...
It was offered and politely declined.
Me never having watched "How to Get Away with Murder": Is......is that's not what it's about?
Same😂
He meant like and instructional real life series and not the fiction drama series it is
No. It's very misleading.
Bwahhhaha no that’s nick name for her law class where she teaches her student how to fight and win murder cases in a court of law.
@@RandomGlow444 But I thought there was actual murder on the show? Like one of those things where they are law students and then one of them actually is a murderer?
I love this show you are truly doing good work by telling the truth to the masses.rock on John Oliver and co
love the legwork the word accidentally is doing in this episode
"Private companies can be surprisingly unreliable." I must say I am shocked to hear this. Shocked I say.
me also. me also. I was under the impression that the market never cut corners and that inefficiency was monopolized by public services.
"public services can be surprisingly unreliable." gotta love vacuous statements.
@@-morrow That's not vacuous, it's misleading. Public services that are blatantly deliberately mismanaged to sabotage them and use that as an excuse to cut said service's funding even further are unsurprisingly unreliable.
The Flagged Dragon public services are inefficient because there is no incentive to make it more efficient. Not like the city manager is trying to maximize profits. The revenues are guaranteed because tax avoidance is illegal.
@@Rudyelf1 Show me any evidence at all that usps is more inefficient than ups or FedEx while they were receiving adequate funding. Or any other public service for that matter. The idea that public services are inefficient is a neoliberal lie pushed by corporations and lobbyists who want to privatize everything so they can make themselves and their shareholders more money.
"private companies can be surprisingly unreliable" you don't say!
that "surprisingly" surprised me
They can't even be trusted to consistently turn a profit, which is their primary reason to exist
I rather send my shit via UPS rather than USPS is all I'm saying
I've never heard a good justification for peremptory challenges. If there isn't some sort of conflict of interest then all they do is mess with the randomization process.
The way for-cause strikes currently work, it can be difficult to get a for-cause strike. Just pointing to the cause is not sufficient if the judge "rehabilitates" the prospective juror by asking them if they can be fair, and the judge has extremely broad authority to deem a prospective juror rehabilitated. This would especially be an issue with minor crimes, where they may not select many more that the twelve necessary jurors to be part of the jury pool. In my criminal procedure class, for example, a judge rehabilitated a juror who was into both D.A.R.E. and M.A.D.D. and let that juror serve in a DUI trial. The peremptory strike would allow jurors with red flags to be struck regardless of the judge's opinion.
@@bigjimmcbob9358 If a person is supposed to be judged by a jury of their peers, isn't it likely that some of their peers will be against drunk driving? I just don't see how anything other than a random selection is truly a jury of ones peers.
John: Do you like rakes? Geralt: Only broken ones.
"When the Jury is all white, things can go SOUTH really fast!" Aaaaah, I see what you did there, John... even if you didn't, lol
🤣
My husband was DYING at this comment
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John Oliver: that guy who manages to make political topics clear in under 20 minutes when cable news makes it crosseyed for a full hour.
A national treasure
24 hour news coverage sounds sensible, but due to their business model, they end up in the business of keeping you watching for as long as possible, rather than as long as it takes to comprehend the news. They are disposed towards raising questions instead of answering them, so that people watch in the vain hope of at some point finding answers that never come. It's very bad journalism and kinda cruel too.
And needlessly overly obsessed with race.
@@user-fv6km9ey2w Only because the American justice system is overly obsessed with race
John Oliver is not 24/7 news, and he often takes months-long breaks. He doesn't need to do padding.
I had a similar amount of questions when I saw the race card. Tons of questions!
Going back to this episode a month later makes the Danbury segment just *that* much sweeter
John is being charitable when he uses the word “accidentally” in this segment...
On the software end, not charitable enough. Don't take this the wrong way, but America's computer science education program is a giant joke, and those jokes are often replaced by even less qualified jokes with a thick Indian accent and an H1B visa. KZhead is more than a decade old and the development team still manages to periodically screw up the platform. "Well it runs and the video plays, so clearly the testing process is done."
Not charitable, he's refraining from making factually inaccurate statements which could get HBO sued.
Well there is no actual evidence that some of these aren’t indeed accidents, he said himself we don’t know if they are entirely accidental but he wants to refrain from saying statements that aren’t true. If he didn’t, it wouldn’t be news.
@@cerebraldreams4738 sure, but do you really believe these software errors "coincidently" affected majority black areas? Maybe one of these examples could be pure coincidence. But not all of them.
@@LK-qk8fm - They found 2 or 3 counties out of more than 3,000 in the United States that had these kinds of software issues. I'd be much more concerned about that prosecutor teaching other prosecutors to do illegal shit.
"Algorithms are a trade secret" yeah because the execution of our constitutional rights should always be a secret.
Tate Beavers yes this really startled me. How can this be? this is probably the most egregious form of censorship I have yet to encounter when looking into the context of how we get our info through big tech. The trade secret argument is absurd because that argument only really applies when there is true competition. Digital media is completely a conglomerate. Five media companies own all outlets. There is no real competition, so who is it a secret from? The trade secret is an exemption allowing nondisclosure to help keep a business competitive. It all sounds very wrong.
annnnnnnd Voting too. repubs wanted to privatize everything since Reagan. This is what we got. private prisons too. private security forces. "vouchers" for private schools... time for them to get fucked and pay up * Transparency is the goal to help the real goal
@@jschuler53 I really don't even think it's because of competition. Companies just don't want to admit how much they've screwed it all up through negligece or outright intentional design.
it seems so absolutely ridiculous that the government isn't using open source software for crucial tasks such as voting machines, jury selection and more
proves that capitalism is an enemy to democracy
Best part of my week (sometimes best part of a few weeks) is when these are made available in Australia.
6:20 - the infamous moment that lead to the beef and realization that John wanted a sewage plant named after him. I love this show.
Honestly, John Oliver's segments on the criminal justice system should be required viewing. I always knew that it was corrupt and biased, but am consistently floored by just how bad it is.
He should do a segment on getting divorced in America.
Maybe if he was 100 percent truthful instead of trying to make jokes and biased journalusm.
@@JJ-nu8qi Well he is a comedian, not a journalist. But I haven't noted anything in this segment or any segment related to the criminal justice system that was poorly researched or deceptive. Biased maybe, but untruthful? No. If you know otherwise, you are welcome to offer specific statements he's made that were false.
@@Eternitycomplex How about the fact that not one mention of how a lot of minorities wont show up show for jury duty or try to get out of it. Its actually a big joke in these communities how stupid or how your a sucker for getting picked for jury duty.
@@JJ-nu8qi First, even if that were true it is not evidence that John Oliver is untruthful. At best, you presented additional information not contradictory. It would be like saying a real estate agent who was selling you a 3-bedroom 2-bath house with an external 2-car garage and an acre of ground was lying to you because he didn't tell you the house was made of brick. One has no bearing on the other. Likewise, minorities skipping jury duty has nothing to do with systemic abuses that block minorities from the jury pool. Second, are you suggesting that minorities are the only ones who skip out on jury duty and that white people always show up? Or even that minorities are more likely to skip jury duty? If so, do you have statistical evidence to back up your claim? Because I've known tons of people who've been called to jury duty and looked for was to get out of it, and the vast majority were white.
To quote a comment on the Filibuster episode: ‘Ah yes, time for my daily dose of anxiety with concerned English man’
@Nanozine: Full me with existential dread, Worry-Zaddy. Slowly, now; make me remember all my troubles and cares...
John needs to go look at his own country.
@@dexter513 Good news! He does have plenty of episodes where he's covered UK issues. If you want to watch those instead there are plenty on KZhead. However, he has lived in the United States for most of his adult life, is married to a US veteran, and is a US citizen, so technically the United States is also his country.
@@whatcolorjunebug Thanks for that. I wasn't aware he had dual citizenship.
👌
Omg the Race Card bit was his funniest I've seen in a while. I'm weak lol
That Danbury bit kills me every time, "children included" holy shit hahahaha
The mayor of Danbury CT named it’s sewage plant after you, because of this piece. Now you’re truly famous.
Why does he hate Danbury?
@@lachronic7821 I, too, was taken aback. I've always been a big fan of John Oliver but the way he lashed out at a town of 80,000 people who (at least as mentioned in the episode) haven't done anything to merit a "fuck you" made me wonder. I would assume if he's going to go off on a town like that, it would be because it had passed some discriminatory law, or its police force was doing something shady, or it had re-elected a convicted criminal as its mayor. All these things have happened in certain towns - but to my knowledge not in Danbury.
@@mdickinson It's definitely just friendly banter. The mayor of Danbury wouldn't name a building after Oliver if it was serious. I can imagine John Oliver/his staff talking to officials from Danbury and saying "Hey, is it cool if we trash talk your town in our skit?" and them responding with "Only if we get to do something funny in return" And thus, Danbury named its new sewage plant after John Oliver. Not everything about 2020 needs to be doom-and-gloom, sometimes we just need to have some fun.
@@mdickinson it's a joke? Like come on, he only listed positive qualities about it?
That’s how you know he’s doing something right!
"We don't want smart people" The new national motto.
Trump "I love the uneducated"
Um, this surprises you? How many times have you been told to "get a life" when you volunteer a fact?
@@lazyhomebody1356 my favorite is "if you don't like it here, you can leave", as if our country has reached the zenith of social evolution. As if protesting and dissidence aren't cornerstones of our culture.
"new"
@@jeremytine it's almost just like these people take legitimate criticisms of their country as personal attacks because so much of their identity is tied up in living in "the greatest country in the world," because without that delusion they have nothing left to feel good about.
Keep Em coming John Oliver !
This genuinely helped me with my history homework. Thank you. I'm clearly referring to the intro to Gregism...