I’m pretty sure you can’t get in any kind of trouble for mentioning it.
ETA: even that vocal proponent would probably wait until after the fact, else the judge might declare a mistrial and empanel a replacement jury.
Some members of the legal profession dislike the idea that jurors might ignore the letter of the law. Judges have a notorious amount of latitude in dealing with cases of juror misbehaviour. If the judge found that a juror was discussing not following intructions, for example, he might disqualify him. Worst case, that results in s mistrial and a second trial… from the judge’s perspective, beat having been showed up by a mere juror.
Those of us who support jury nullification would say that yes, that is a concern, but its one we should live with. We’re not looking for a perfect system, just a better system
Some of us want to change bad aspects of the law, and jury nullification gives the common man the most power to do so. When you vote, you’re competing against the vote of thousands or millions of other people. On a jury, you’re 1 of 12 voices that can decide the fate of a man and the law of the land in a couple hours of deliberation. I don’t see why a person would voluntarily remove themselves from that power
I was answering “If the state makes something a crime, the community, by definition, does think people should go to jail for it.”
To say it is false logic…because the government passes a law doesn’t mean that the community believes people should go to jail for it. If that were true, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. There would be no nullification. We would just be convicting regardless of what the law was.
Gratz for the Grok.
Jury nullification also gives a bad person the right to disregard good law-there is absolutely nothing in the concept that automatically applies white hats to one side of the equation and black hats to the other. I’ve seen some of the people that manage to get picked for jury duty, and the possibility of a well-thought out law that has stood the test of trial and time being nullified by an ignorant yahoo with no more effort than “Nuh-Uh” scares me just a bit.
Perhaps for clarity, nullification doesn’t involve any declarations or statements of intent. You just vote not guilty. Done. You have nullified the effort to prosecute the defendant.
It involves the deliberant attempt to ignore the law(and the judges legally binding instructions) in favor of a juror’s very limited knowledge base and personal prejudices. It is nothing more than a call for ignorance.
Very few people are going to let someone go free for a serious crime, simply on a whim. However, it is not unusual to find a decent number of people who disagree with some more contentious laws.
Dr. Henry Morgentaler, for example - 3 times in Quebec he was acquitted by juries of illegal abortions. There was no question what he did, the juries simply did not believe it was a crime. When the appeal court “substituted” a guilty verdict rather than re-try him, the appeals eventually resulted in de facto changes to how the system treated both jury decisions and abortion law.
Just because the law said that an abortion was illegal in the circumstances - does not mean the majority of society or a random group of 12 people believe that was the correct verdict.
Is this happening? I mean to the extent that you should be concerned?
I am much more afraid of a government that is completely out of control, than some ignorant yahoo.
Yes, it is the right of citizens on juries to ignore laws that they disagree with and vote “not guilty”. Deliberately.
With power comes responsibility, however. Think before you act.
Note that the nullification acquitals in the US for whites who killed blacks were contentious too as “jury nullification”, since the jury selection process was flawed too. When you exclude some races from the jury pool, you are already allowing the system to tilt. If you allow a court to pick only those who will support not guilty, should you be surprised at the verdict?
That’s exactly the problem with nullification: it doesn’t change the law. In fact, it frustrates efforts to do so because a nullified conviction cannot go up on appeal.
Because these judges are much more in touch with our how our justice system should work than these men?
John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court stated in 1789:"The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts. "
U. S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said in 1902: “The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact.”
Harlan F. Stone, the 12th Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, stated in 1941: “The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided.”
I might ask the same of you-is there evidence that our system, which I think has stood the test of time and trial over the last couple of hundred years, is rapidly breaking down and is in need of untrained jurors to weigh the worth of established law? Jury Nullification is equivalent to giving broad-point Magic Markers to complete strangers and telling them it’s their job go through the public library and “fix” whatever they think is wrong with the contents.
Jury nullification is the citizenry’s bulwark against bad law. Would you convict a Jew for not wearing a yellow Star of David?
Paging AK84, but I believe that a nullification in the High Court does set a precedent and in effect creates new law.
No it isn’t. As described, it is an individual’s bulwark against any law she/he disagrees with, good or bad. It is an abomination without legal checks or balances because, as described, any checks or balances could also be nullified. Show me where “bad law” alone can be effected by jury nullification.
First, to vote one’s conscience is a long standing right. The fact that judges have tried to usurp that right by not informing jurors of it OR outright lying to them to take it away OR actually threaten them if they should exercise it, I think is evidence enough. See my above post about who in the justice system agrees with me.
Can you not see far enough ahead to understand that it isn’t ONLY long established law that would be questioned? There is no telling what laws may be passed and I for one would like the people to understand that just because some asshole is telling them “you are to consider only the facts in the matter, the law is my domain”, that it isn’t true.
You are correct sir, up to the abomination part, which is opinion.
But what you seem to be afraid of is that random juror number 4 will nullify cases where bad people obviously did it and should go to jail. Other than OJ, I’m not recalling all these cases where this has happened. On the other hand, our prisons are full of people who haven’t hurt anyone at all and (IMHO) shouldn’t be there.
This isn’t after the fact, but during the jury selection phase and the example that came to mind first:
Originally Posted by Czarcasm
Jury nullification also gives a bad person the right to disregard good law-there is absolutely nothing in the concept that automatically applies white hats to one side of the equation and black hats to the other. I’ve seen some of the people that manage to get picked for jury duty, and the possibility of a well-thought out law that has stood the test of trial and time being nullified by an ignorant yahoo with no more effort than “Nuh-Uh” scares me just a bit.
You didn’t answer.
That’s because I already asked for recent cites concerning jury nullification earlier in this thread.