Unfortunately in my mind you are screwed either way. You brought up my concerns about judges. My concerns for juries are people are unfortunately easily influenced and I’ve seen cases where juries put innocent people in prison (or jail) simply because they have more faith in dirty cops and DA’s than they do an average person.
So how does the advice change where judges are not elected? My guess is you might want to go with a bench trial if the charges are "shocking" in some way (e.g. rape of a child). A jury might just want to convict the (alleged) monster, a judge (who is not going to face an electorate) might consider the evidence more carefully. I also recall that in the UK, they were considering removing the option of a jury from some ultra-complex cases (generally international tax fraud) as jurors were just unable to understand the technical evidence
Unfortunately in my mind you are screwed either way. You brought up my concerns about judges. My concerns for juries are people are unfortunately easily influenced and I’ve seen cases where juries put innocent people in prison (or jail) simply because they have more faith in dirty cops and DA’s than they do an average person.
So how does the advice change where judges are not elected? My guess is you might want to go with a bench trial if the charges are "shocking" in some way (e.g. rape of a child). A jury might just want to convict the (alleged) monster, a judge (who is not going to face an electorate) might consider the evidence more carefully. I also recall that in the UK, they were considering removing the option of a jury from some ultra-complex cases (generally international tax fraud) as jurors were just unable to understand the technical evidence
It's not guilty or innocent. It's guilty or not guilty. Pretty basic, isn't it?