American law outlines a series of protections for those accused of crimes but not yet convicted. (Like the 4th-6th amendments)
Does your country have any unique/novel protections of the rights of potentially innocent people accused but yet to be convicted?
If not are there any protections you think should be in place?
Eeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…judges decide fact all the time in civil cases, or in criminal bench trials.
7th amendment applies to civil suits. Judges may when common law doesn’t govern. But that’s limited. And criminal defendants must consent to bench trial by not contesting any of the facts.
In the Federal system it does. At the state level, a jury for a particular civil matter is not guaranteed. Judges regularly end up as the finders of fact in state civil cases.
Not always. If the case is not serious enough, a jury trial is not guaranteed. This SCOTUS case found 6 months to be the cutoff for a serious enough crime.
A bench trial where no one is contesting the facts can happen, in that case the defendant is probably contesting the constitutionality of the law, so therefore doesn’t need any dispute any of the facts. But, as in the above link, a case may happen where either the defendant is not guaranteed a jury because the punishment falls below the threshold establsihed, or they waive the jury and the judge sits in as the finder of both law and fact.