This is an incredibly ignorant statement to make. Under US Constitutional jurisprudence, everyone accused of a felony crime is afforded presumption of innocence; the opportunity to confront their accuser(s), and access to potentially exculpatory or mitigating information, to testify (or refuse to testify) in their own defense, and establish and present a defense based upon reasonable doubt of some element of the prosecution’s case; and the right of trial by a jury of peers. What may be “obvious” to you, as filtered through the media because (I assume) that you do not have first hand access to evidence and testimony, is examined by a criminal court through the establish procedure to ensure that no corners are cut, the provenance of evidence and authenticity of expert testimony is established, and that eyewitness or character testimony for or against the case can be challenged by the opposing counsel, and then presented to said jury (or just a judge if the defendant elects a bench trial), all on record so as to minimize the chance that bias, error, or malfeasance will result in conviction of someone whose guilt is questionable. You may be impatient in the case of Mangioni because his guilt is “obvious” to you, but if you were in the situation of being unjustly accused of a felony crime you would appreciate the legal protections and concessions afforded to your defense.
In the case of Mangioni, it seems unlikely to the point of certainty that he will be able to mount a defense that establishes any significant uncertainty in the crimes he is accused of, and he will in fact spend a good portion of his life in prison (albeit probably not a “life sentence with no possibility of parole”), and the system of criminal justice of the State of New York will assure that this is done in public view with no question that he has been railroaded or evidence has been manipulated to make him appear to be guilty. If you would prefer to live in a country where such protections are not afforded to criminal defendants, you have plenty of choices around the world although as a general rule you’ll find that their respect for human rights, respect for democratic institutions, and general ‘rule of law’ could be charitably described as pretty deficient.
Not sure if this is on point? At least in Canada, and I presume the USA, a “Not Guilty” verdict cannot be appealed. Case closed.
(Canada had a situation where it could be overturned on appeal. This happened to Doctor Morgentaler, found not guilty by a jury of performing illegal abortions. The appeal court substituted “guilty”. In the ensuing outrage, the Minister of Justice said it was not significant because - he bet a reporter it would never happen again in his lifetime. It happened the next year, again, to Doctor Morgentaler. Then the Canadian Supreme court decided this was no longer permissible.)
However, guilty verdicts get overturned all the time. Not sure the process in the USA, but in Canada (which I rpesume follows the same general justice system as the UK and Australia) the usual process is to point out where the trial went wrong and send it back for retrial. IIRC the US appeal courts do this frequently too. (One classic case in Canada, Guy Paul Morin was in the middle of his second re-trial when DNA evidence proved that the police were wrong).
One of the many misconceptions that come from trials in movies and TV, is that insanity defenses are an easy get out of jail free card. It’s incredibly difficult to get that verdict in America, some jurisdictions it’s impossible.
There is almost zero chance of any kind of easy plea bargain (assuming there is nothing unexpected in the evidence that would make a conviction less likely). The absolute best he could expect in a plea bargain is a sentence that maybe gives him a theoretical chance of not dying in prison (assuming death penalty is off the table, if not the then best he can hope for is a deal for no death penalty)
They do, but not because the jury made the wrong decision, that is not grounds for appeal. The appeal must be based on something that was procedurally incorrect.in the trial. So if the jury were given incorrect instructions by the judge, that is grounds for appeal, the jury finding the defendant guilty despite the evidence is not
If we wants a cushy deal from the feds he better start looking for some compelling evidence the CEO was a woke DEI enthusiast and Luigi was a put upon Maga gun rights defender.
This is incorrect. The Crown can appeal a Not Guilty verdict, on the basis of an error of law that resulted in an improper verdict.
This is not correct either. The Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal. This was in Morgentaler v The Queen. As a result of the popular outrage that arose, Parliament amended the Criminal Code to provide that if the appellate court set aside a jury acquittal on the basis of an error of law, it had to remand the case for a new trial.
I can’t speak for all 50 states and the federal system in the US, but this is not correct in Canada. The appellate court can set aside a Guilty verdict, even from a jury, on any of the following grounds:
Grounds (i) and (iii) go to an incorrect jury verdict.
Miscarriage of justice always needs to be a reason. The bar might be high, but no system can reasonably not have a circuit breaker for when thing go badly wrong. Because there are times when they will.
For the Pell case, the notion of an unsafe verdict comes into play. Here in Oz there are two famous cases. Pell and Lindy Chamberland.
Both cases were trials by media, and I remember being quite disturbed by the Pell trial, simply because it was almost impossible for a fair trial to occur. Pell had been at the pointy end of the long running investigation into abuse and cover ups by the Catholic Church. He was not well liked. His handling of the abuse allegations in the church was high handed and lacked any compassion. There was almost an aura of satisfaction from some quarters that there was something to pin on him. Which is where justice begins to become impossible.
Even after his death it remains controversial and many simply refuse to acknowledge any chance that he wasn’t guilty. So, even if he was guilty, justice is not served by a conviction, and the underpinnings of the justice system is eroded in a fundamental way by letting it stand.
The Lindy Chamberland conviction was different and in some ways worse. A huge media sensation at the time, with everyone in the country having an opinion on her guilt. And yet the conviction eventually rested on extremely poor forensic science and a very clear bias from police hungry for a result. The world is replete with convictions overturned on the basis of new more definitive forensics. This should give people pause.
A core aspect of our common justice system is that an incorrect acquittal is always preferred over an incorrect conviction. People must trust the system. If they can’t, the fundamental structure begins to break.
Which brings us back to the OP. It doesn’t matter how apparently obvious guilt might be on the surface. The structure of our society and legal system demands due process and presumption of innocence.
So IANAL but it think this explicitly not reason for an appeal in the US justice system. If the evidence was correctly presented by both prosecution and defense without any shenanigans, by a correctly called jury of the defendants peers, but the jury decided to find them guilty in an unreasonable manner that was not supported by the evidence, that’s a valid verdict. There’s no appealing that, the people charged by the system to decide whether it’s supported by the evidence are the jury of their peers.
Not a lawyer either, but in this case I believe you are incorrect. It’s called a judgement notwithstanding verdict. I was on a criminal jury (white collar crime) that convicted someone and an immediate request for a JNOV was made to the presiding judge, asking that the verdict be set aside because clearly we were drooling morons that had misunderstood the case and the applicable law (my paraphrase ) and any other more reasonable jury would never have made such a decision. The judge disagreed and the jury verdict was let stand. Apparently these sort of appeals are very standard after a conviction and only very rarely upheld, as judges are loath to overrule juries and potentially open themselves up to a shit-ton of scrutiny.
Though that’s not an appeal, it’s a ruling by the same jury that oversaw the trial. If the judge denies it, as happened in your case, then the jury being “drooling morons that had misunderstood the case” is not grounds for appeal. Those are your peers and that’s that.
It’s a ruling about the jury by the judge, not by the jury. While it is not an appeal to a higher court, it functionally an appeal of sorts - it is a document putting forth an argument and asking the judge to overrule the jury some time after the jury has been dismissed, which the judge has the authority to do. As I understand it in the process flow it is generally the first (almost, but not quite always futile) step taken to void a conviction and it relies on counsel being able to convince the presiding judge that the jury were, in so many words, drooling morons. The formal appeal happens after that.
Not sure if we’re splitting hairs here over what or what isn’t technically an appeal. If you’re just arguing this doesn’t happen as part of the formal appeals process in the US, that’s one thing. But I had thought you were saying a jury ruling can’t be voided at all for making a bad call - it can, if the presiding judges deems it so.
Side note: The notion of a “jury of one’s peers” is not, despite common belief, a part of American jurisprudence. It’s from English law, where it means that nobles will be tried by nobles and commoners by commoners. Here in America, we have no nobility (at least, none officially recognized as such by the government), and so the phrase is meaningless.
I agree with Tamerlane: judgment NOV is not a decision by the jury. The trial judge is overruling the jury’s guilty verdict, as part of the trial process.
Based on the Wikipedia article, it looks like the grounds for judgment NOV is similar to one of the grounds of appeal in Canada, namely that the judgment cannot be supported by the evidence, as a matter of law.
Since the decision whether or not to grant judgment NOV is a ruling on the law by the judge, I would assume it is subject to appeal, but that’s just a guess on my part, and open to correction.
I think, in the US, a jury verdict of guilty followed by a judgement notwithstanding of not guilty cannot be appealed. The US system is (nominally, at least) biased a lot more in favor of Not Guilty than most nations, and there are almost no cases where a finding of Not Guilty can be overturned (I think the only exception is overwhelming jury tampering, where it can be found that the defendant was never actually in jeopardy, but even that is extremely rare).
But IANAL, nor anything even resembling one, in any jurisdiction.
) and any other more reasonable jury would never have made such a decision. The judge disagreed and the jury verdict was let stand. Apparently these sort of appeals are very standard after a conviction and only very rarely upheld, as judges are loath to overrule juries and potentially open themselves up to a shit-ton of scrutiny.