From an early age i understood that emotions were what made us humans.

They reflect
our relation with the world, the environment and most importantly emotions make us
relate with each other; they help us empathize.
Psycologists teach that peep usually make decisions by emotions and then validate
them by logic., but is there room for this "system" in the courtroom?
I tend to say that in some cases there it is.
Aristotel once said that "the law is reason, free from passion" and his declaration
continues to guide our (and by "our" i am referring to both the common-law and the
continental legal system) legal system.
Turning to the common-law system, nowadays a jury is expected to weight all evidence
equally and without bais before rendering a verdict.
Even if the jurors are supposed to be objective and not let emotions cloud their
judgement, from time to time they lean on to what the heart says.
I consider it an absolutely normal reactions because we are not some sort of computer
which plugs facts into a legal framework.
After all we can get influenced by the way facts were presented, we can empathize
more with one of the parties because of our personal experiences; experts say that
even our mood can influence the way we see things. This behavior of us leads back
from the ancient time when Cicero himself observed that " mankind makes more
determinations throughout hatred, or love, or desire, anger, or grief, or joy [] or some
other affection of mind, than from regard to truth, or any setted maxim, or principle of
right, or judicial form, or adherence of the law.
So when it comes about the jury we can admit that there is room, a small one indeed,
for emotions and i say a small one because there are 12 members in a jury and those
people usually are so different form each other they cannot get "fooled" by emotions in
the same way. Instead facts remain the same for everybody and maybe those facts will
lead to an unanimous decision.
Now when it comes about the judge and mainly about the continental legal system, in
my opinion emotions should not be part of the decision making process. Why?
first of all he is the only one to make this decision of condemning or not a person and
his opinion will be the only one that counts. That opinion cannot be influenced by the
way he emotionally interpret what was presented to him by both parties in support of the
case.
On the other hand i think that a good judge should know how to set apart what is the
truth and what is pure emotional manipulation.
I consider that a judge must study the body language, the inflection in the voice of the
witnesses and layers and he should notice if the words and emotions of a witness do
not match. By doing this he will end up with the right picture of what really happened,
and he will be able to judge the facts clearly making the right decision about the guilt of
one person.
I do not think that judges should transform in insensitive and coolheaded robots but
when it comes about their job they must be governed by the spirit of the law, by logic
and by objectivity because otherwise justice will become unjust, corrupt and unlawful.
That is unacceptable!
To sum everything up i want to say that emotions are present in everything we do and in
some cases they can be tolerated in the courtroom but also is important to know when
to set emotions aside and guide our decisions by logic so that we do not end up with an
unjust legal system.