What a well-worded slippery slope: first we only let juries rule of the facts of a case, then everyone who is accused goes to jail. What is strange about this slippery slope is that the vast majority of states and the Federal government already run their courtrooms in this heinous fashion. The horror!
I can make up similar slippery slopes for your position: let juries have free rein over facts, laws, and argument, then you’ll have them convicting people who didn’t technically break a law at all, just because the defendant looks like one of “those” dangerous types; or they will let mass murderers off because they are sympathetic. Drawing this back to the question in the OP, I would suppose a jury given total latitude over law and facts will easily convict the accused, because he’s a whacko and people don’t like whackos on the streets, regardless of what the law says.
Yesterday I had typed a post that included those examples, but they are not as interesting to me as modern day cases. I also wrote about jury nullification during prohibition and, more importantly, the labor cases in the 1890s that culminated in Sparf v. United States and the situation we have today. Specifically, the right of juries to judge law is the de facto law of the land because of the 5th and 6th amendments, but they do not need to be informed that it is their right. Not only that, it has since became a practice to use voir dire to determine a juror’s knowledge of this right and to excuse them from service if they expressed it or even to declare a mistrial when it is communicated to the jurors.
Unfortunately, my 5 year old daughter shut down the computer in an attempt to get to a Disney website when I had stepped away from it for a minute and I lost all that. I don’t really feel like working to recreate it…
Anyway, to modern cases. There was a recent case that I approve of, but obviously magellan01 is going to think that the guy should have been sent to jail as a criminal and the key thrown away. I speak of a former marine with the somewhat unfortunate name of Melroy Cort. Melroy was a veteran who lost his legs in the Iraq war and was arrested for carrying a firearm in Washington DC in 2006 on his way to Walter Reed. Cpl. Cort had a permit for the weapon in his home state of Ohio, but as he was expecting to stay some time in Walter Reed he took the pistol with him to Walter Reed as his commanding officer advised him he should take the gun to the armory on the Walter Reed base when he arrived and have it stored there. Of course the gun laws in DC during that time (this was before the appeals court threw out their handgun ban) were pretty unforgiving and he was charged with 3 counts of carrying a pistol without a license, possesion of an unregisterd firearm and possesion of ammunition. Now of course magellan01 probably believes that he deserved what he had coming to him as he was factually guilty (he freely admitted it) and he deserved to lose his military benefits and spend several years in jail, but fortunately for him the jury thought otherwise. They found him not guilty of the felonies after he told his story while representing himself (the judge in the case ordered him to not tell his story but to stick to the facts of the case). I personally think that justice was served with the not guilty verdict, though others might not agree.
I am going to hit submit now, just in case my daughter comes by, but I am not finished yet…
Welcome us to your simple cartoon universe. The fact is the "preponderance of evidence’ should determine your vote. That would indicate doubt, contradicting evidence and sometimes a close decision. Is the color gray in your world?
Lots of people who are innocent have been executed. Now many have been taken off death row and released. That is reality. Lots of doubts and mistakes in the justice system.
Hi Czarcasm. Yes, you said “Most (not all).” But still I’d like to say that I served on a jury last month and the room was full of bright people. Two retired engineers, a CPA, four small business owners.
And interestingly, it was the people who tried to get out of duty that seemed (to me) smug and self-centered.
So, based on that smallest of possible samples, I’m inclined to doubt your judgement about the quality of juries.
The long and controversial history of the Founders’ support for jury nullification has to be considered in light of several factors. Mostly to do with the fact that the Founders were into all sorts of other nonsense that we rightly eschew today. Violent overthrow of governments and slavery, for example.
The one huge problem with jury nullification is that it doesn’t (and cannot) set precedent. It inherently denies people the equal protection of the laws, because every other poor sap who gets hauled up before a judge on the same charge gets fucked, though he may be no more guilty than the one who was exonerated via jury nullification.
Now, if that first guy had been convicted, and appealed, he might have been able to set a precedent that the law was unconstitutional, or violated another higher law, or was incorrectly applied - but he didn’t. The jury took the law into their own hands, instead of the facts. It is, in a sense, vigilantism.
You could look at A Time To Kill, and think that maybe jury nullification is a good thing, but as Oakminster points out, you’d better think about Emmett Till also.
I’ve served on juries because I feel it’s my duty, but overall the people in that waiting room with me were not society’s best and/or brightest by a long shot.
Way to miss the point. Which was–YOU accused another poster of living in a cartoon universe, and then stated the wrong standard of proof for a criminal case.
Maybe next time you go off about fantasy worlds, you should do a bit of research first?
Oh, I was thinking that no doubt would be present and no contradicting evidence wold be given. And your last paragraph has even less to do with what I wrote or the OP. And that’s quite an accomplishment. You’re prize? :rolleyes:
You should start a collection. You could corner the market.
This is GD. If you’d like to present a logical argument for your side then do so. I presented my rationale for protecting jury nullification, and it seems that it is supported in both law and historical precedent. Roll eyes at someone else. Just because a court tries to limit the power of the jury at every step doesn’t make it correct, ethical, or possibly even legal to do so. A case could be made that it is only with the implied agreement of the jury to play by special rules that such a system can be considered fair. It is also a system which preys upon peoples general lack of knowledge about their rights, and the law regardless of position as lawyer, juror or defendant. Nor is a judge a king in his or her own little fifedom to enforce whatever interpretation of the procedural rules they choose. Even they are bound by certain limitations. I’m surprised that you don’t see such a proceeding as severely limiting the defense’s case at every turn. Frankly I’m uncomfortable with a system that allows a judge to instruct a jury to disregard evidence, testimony, and history and merely focus on nothing but a binary situation. Life is not black and white, and neither should be justice. Even though I’ve been making them in this thread, I really dislike slippery slope arguments. Thinking about it though, this is a case where I think such a train of thought holds rather true. If you have something better to present, or refute my logic, then show me where I am wrong instead of being condescending and snide.
Already done. But you’ll digest nothing, just repeating the same stuff over and over. Now, you make the correct observation that this is GD. And most people think it good form in GD to back up your assertions. You made a claim. I said I thought it was nonsense and for you to substantiate it with evidence. Here is the exchange to refresh your memory:
[QUOTE=magellan01]
Nonsense. Please point to those statements made by posters in this thread that, in your estimation, “presuppose guilt”.
[QUOTE=Acid Lamp]
You are presupposing guilt, and basically making the statement that a trial is a mere formality.
[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]
This didn’t require that you Google anything or scout the web for some obscure reference. It simply required you to share those posts in this very thread that backed up your claim. I called bullshit on it. All you have to do is cut and paste those posts that, you know, show your statement to not be bullshit. For some strange reason you didn’t do that. I wonder why. Well, not really. It’s kinda hard to back up bullshit with facts.
This isn’t protected by the First Amendment? Freedom of speech, right to assemble in public (he’s outside the courthouse, right?)
Wouldn’t the solution be to have an officer of the court meet potential jurors once they’re inside the courthouse and present information arguing against this guy’s pamphlets? The solution to objectionable speech is supposed to be speaking against it yourself, isn’t it?
Not really, Magellan01. L.G.Butts, Phd provided a bunch of cites in this thread that support legal and historical precedent for both jury nullification, AND the rationale behindit that I am supporting. Is there a particular reason I should clutter up the thread with the same citations, or requote him for your benefit? Read the thread. It’s already here.
If you are arguing that my opinion that doing away with JN is tantamount to presupposing guilt needs some sort of legal citation, I’m not certain I could provide one. It makes logical sense to me and we are out in philosophical, not legal territory now. There isn’t any bullshit at all, or otherwise it’s *all *bullshit, your opposition included.
So let’s restate it: I feel that JN is important because a jury DOES more than simply tote up facts against a measure and decide probability. It determines guilt; which is why prosecution has to show things like motive, or gain from the crime. The defense likewise should have, (and does) the right to demonstrate justifications for actions that technically break the law. The jury then weighs everything and decides. To instruct them to do otherwise is weighting the case heavily towards the prosecution since it severely limits the defense’s strategy. There are plenty of cases where the defendant might be technically guilty, but acted out of good intentions, desperation, or in fear of their own safety, etc… There are cases where they jury might well decide the law is being improperly applied, or is draconian. THAT is why I’m saying is equates with presupposing guilt. If you don’t have a solid alibi, or indeed DID commit the act but are not allowed to present justification then you are making all law a binary matter when you well know that life is not so simple. They are exercising their rights to decide guilt; something that is complex. This is not the case with technical commission which it seems that you’d like to reduce all law to.
True enough, but the huge difference is that it is the Jury, not the judge that is doing it. It we entrust a group of citizens to determine guilt, then we have to entrust them to make the true decision of their ethics. Certainly in the cast majority of cases that is going to be the “correct” one anyway.
This example indicates that the power to nullify was part of what the Founders understood to be the definition of a “jury”. A panel of twelve persons unable to exercise this power would not be a “jury”, any more than twelve dogs or twelve animatronic robots would be.
I would think that the judge’s instructions to the jury would pretty much cover this issue, even if jury nullification isn’t specifically addressed. Every time I’ve been on a jury, the judge has clearly laid out the responsibility to be the finder of fact and that we had sworn an oath to perform that duty, and that we cannot be sidetracked by issues like trying to re-write laws.
I remain undecided on this issue, however. If the guy is just advocating for his view, that seems to be political speech in my mind, and not a crime. If, however, there is any evidence that his activities directly caused jurors to rule differently in some trial, then I would have to reconsider. I would have to think that’s a pretty high bar to clear, however – how can we really know that this guy was really the cause for a juror changing his mind?
