[Avodah] serving on a Jury??

[Harvey Benton]

Is a Jew allowed to serve on a Jury where the defendant in the case is Jewish 
(or even not Jewish for that matter, if the punishments for a crime were beyond 
the Jewish pale (say cutting off a limb for stealing))?
If for example, the death penalty is at stake, and Jewish law would say one 
needs hatraah and 2 witnesses in order to execute someone Jewish, but the 
non-jewish medina's requirements to execute are much less stringent; is one 
allowed to serve on the Jury, and then vote (truthfully??) on the case at hand? 
thus effectively sending another Jew to his potential death (assuming all 
appeals failed and he lived long enough to be executed......)

The same would apply to other transgressions - e.g. embezzlement crimes, where 
USA medina for instance would put someone in jail, while torah law would 
probably just impose a knas. 


      
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