That’s an interesting theory. You’re suggesting that there was no evidence in the record that he intended to influence jurors, only members of the venire, and the mere fact that they later became jurors doesn’t transform his conduct into prohibited territory.
Huh.
That might be something. What does Michigan law say about the meaning of “juror,” as it’s used in 750.120a?
Happy to help.
And notice how this rule intersects with your theory: an appeals court could say, “No rational jury could have found that the accused influenced a juror because there was no evidence in the record that says he did; the only evidence in the record relates to influencing the venire.”
Depends on how case law interprets “juror.”
Interesting. Thanks. Good stuff.
(I don’t want to derail this thread but I would say the question of a “rational jury” seems it might be affected by, “Why did they believe Jane but not John?”)
Obviously this turns into a proximity case: how close is close enough? Setting aside the logistical challenges of implementing each of the options below, when does the conduct get specific enough to be prohibited?
Case zero is IMO protected speech. IMO case 8 is jury tampering per the MI statute quoted. Where’s the dividing line? Where should it be? How does that change if we substitute “most” or “some” or “a small percentage of” for all those "every"s above?
It seems to me case #8 is only jury tampering because doing so seems to suggest it should really be considered for this particular case.
If it were a standard part of jury instructions then it would not be an issue.
IIRC New Hampshire has tried to make jury nullification a thing that is part of jury instructions. It has failed so far but seems to be hanging in there for future attempts.
(I hope the distinction I am trying to draw is apparent…if not let me know.)
I don’t have access to LexisNexis or anything like that, just Google, so that kind of research is difficult for me, at best. I know that 600.1307a(4) says [
](http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(c5a0qcvyt0upg0yp2evwzutn))/mileg.aspx?page=GetObject&objectname=mcl-600-1307a)but that’s all I’ve found so far and it doesn’t specifically say it applies to 750.120. I’ve not managed to find any court cases at all tho that define a juror as anything other than someone who is impaneled.
If I were on the jury I would acquit. What he did was not by improper means.
I hope this has a larger Streisand effect too.
Freedom of speech. He should be able to advocate the way he wants. “Jury tampering” should be something like bribing or threatening jurors, not merely speaking to them (even in pamphlet form). If it’s for a specific case, so what?
If I were on a jury, my mom told me that she thought the guy shouldn’t be found guilty, would she be guilty of jury tampering?
The guy informed them of their rights, and clearly indicated that he wished they would use it here. So what?
He didn’t hand out these fliers at 7-11 on a random day. He went to the courthouse on the day of a specific trial he was interested in to hand them out. It’s pretty clear that his intent was that one of the people who received his flier would be a juror on that case and would be influenced by the flier.
Could you clarify what you mean by the bolded sentence? You understand that there were no jurors in the Yoder case at the time Mr. Wood was arrested, right?
Why does that matter?
I think this is a key passage from the article:
So, no 1st amendment arguments allowed, and defined a juror as anyone summoned for jury duty. I would oppose both of those actions as errors.
There were however people who were destined to become jurors in the Yoder case in the very near future. The influence was fresh and specific at the time those people switched from being prospective jurors to jurors.
If one starts from the perspective that nullification is a good thing, then the jury tampering statute is itself a bad thing. The rest of that argument flows from that assumption.
if one starts from the assumption that nullification is essentially like Sovereign Citizenness, legaloid fantasy that’s not really part of the system, then injecting it into a jury pool is as conceptually wrong as injecting it into a jury. Whether conceptually wrong rises to legally wrong is another question.
It’s important here for us all to be clear on whether we’re individually debating what the Michigan statute is, or what it ought to be.
And ref BigT in #28, if you’re on a jury and anyone, even your Mom, knows which specific case, you’ve already committed a violation by telling her. She’s certainly committed a violation by talking about the case to you, an empaneled juror.
The real debate here is entirely about specific conduct deliberately aimed at a small pool of people who aren’t jurors yet, but some unknown subset of them are about to be jurors. Once the subset is known, doing that specific conduct to those specific people is prohibited full stop. The question is what about before then? How close in time, number, or place is close enough?
“Anyone summoned as a juror” I can…maybe…see.
Imagine it is a small courthouse with a small jury pool on any given day. It might not be difficult to sway potential jurors even if you do not know which ones will be on your guy’s jury.
This would be harder at large courthouses with huge jury pools (last time I was summoned I think there were 50+ people waiting in the jury pool and this was after a monster blizzard shut most things down in the city…as it happened after a couple hours they shut down too and sent everyone home).
Jury tampering statutes are fine. Just not applied to telling people what their rights are.
There are plenty of other ways to tamper with a jury that should be illegal.
The reason it matters is because the law is about influencing jurors, not potential jurors. Everyone of voting age is a potential juror; it cannot be illegal to try and influence the thinking of anyone.
That’s what I’m looking for now, Bone, is something that would indicate if that’s supported by statute or precedent. I don’t think it is, tho.
It definitely is not a “legaloid fantasy”.
It is a direct result of two things that are a reality:
Therefore jury nullification is a real thing. More, it has really happened as noted above with Emmett Till and the Fugitive Slave Act being notable examples.
So it is not a legal figment. It is an unavoidable possibility given the system we have. One that seems to give attorneys and judges fits.
Is this accurate? There were people who were destined to become potential Yoder jurors, but for all we know every single candidate could have been excused or refused and another jury pool brought in the next day.
(bolding mine)
Again, is it 100% certain that at least 1 person from that day’s jury pool would be impaneled?
He wasn’t trying to influence potential jurors. He was trying to influence jurors on that specific case. The fact that he did so by targeting them when they were still potential jurors doesn’t change the underlying intent of his action.
+1
+1
No. An appeals court cannot substitute its judgment for that of the jury. An appeals court looks at procedural mistakes. You cannot argue innocence to an appeals court except occasionally in the case of new evidence. Even then, it has to be evidence that for some reason was not discoverable at the time of the first trial, or was kept deliberately hidden.