If there is a preponderance of evidence against an individual for violating a law you disagree with, do you have a responsibilty to find them guilty? Or do you have a responsibility to find them innocent.
Are you a member of a self-governing society or are you a hermit?
Actually Milum, I’m a newbee like yourself and thought this might make for a thought provoking controversy. I have no idea to what extent it has been covered before here but it seems like a reasonable point of debate. Its insightful to see people’s perception of the idea, and your remark is a prime example.
My less than full understanding suggests that: The idea of Jury nullification extends back to the Magna Carta. It was part of our original laws. Jurors were always informed that the law was on trial as well as the individual accused of a crime. It got to be a pain in the ass when moonshiners were being let off by a jury of their peers. It came to a head during draft card burning cases in the 60’s, and Jurors were no longer informed of their right to judge the law. These days, jurors are infact told the opposite. That it is their sworn duty to inforce the law as explained to them by the judge. They can say that all they like. The juror is still the ultimate judge of the crime. Whether you think some guy should be able to carry a joint in his sock, or you think someone was right in shooting an abortion Dr. or have sex with a 17 yo, you have the right to judge the law. In answer to your question, I spend too much time at home of late, but I wouldn’t consider myself a hermit.
err, pardon egregious spelling errors.
The issue of “nullification” is complex and varies from state to state. But as an attorney who isn’t involved in criminal cases, I would simply say that you have a duty to do what you swear to do, which is to decide the case in accordance with the law.
Wouldn’t there be a pretty good chance of your views on the law in question being uncovered during the jury selection process (thus making it likely you’d get excused from the jury anyhow)?
If there is merely a preponderance of evidence against one accused of a crime, you as a juror have the responsibility of returning a verdict of ‘not guilty’, regardless of how you feel about the law under which he is charged.
- Rick
As a juror you would have to vote your conscience. You’re the one that’s going to live with it long after the trial is over.
Nevermind. I guess it is a whacko issue. Google onle brings up 13,800 hits.
Jurors should acquit, even against the judge’s instruction…
if exercising their judgement with discretion and honesty
they have a clear conviction the charge of the court is wrong.
– Alexander Hamilton, 1804
It is not only the juror’s right, but his duty to find the verdict
according to his own best understanding, judgement and conscience, though in direct opposition to the instruction of the court.
–John Adams, 1771
I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man
by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.
– Thomas Jefferson, 1789
It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made
by men of their choice, if the laws are so voluminous that they
cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood;
if they… undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows
what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow
– James Madison
Preponderance -superiority in quality or weight.
Damn, I thought it made my point but thank you for correcting me here. I’m always trying to use big words when a diminutive one would suffice. 
I guess it in fact suggests room for reasonable doubt.
Fine: overwhelming, beyond a shadow of a doubt. better?
I’m given to understanding that the role of the jury is to determine fact; therefore, a juror is to address that issue and nothing else. In other words, “Did the accused violate the law for which he stands accused of violating?”
Why don’t we simply review one of the several earlier threads on jury nullification, rather then retyping everything here?
In my opinion, the jury nullification concept is unrealistic. In almost all cases, jurors are going to find a way to rationalize their conviction as to what verdict is just with their idea of the judge’s instructions. Indeed, if I was a juror discussing a case in deliberations, I would consider it my duty to justify to other jurors the verdict I wanted in terms of the law as it had been presented by the judge. So long as the judge has not directed a verdict, I would think this to be always possible.
I know that this is a tired example, but in Bush v. Gore you could see that even most Supreme Court members have great difficulty in failing to see the law as justifying their personal postion. How can jurors be expected to be any better?
In my opinion, if Monty was to say this in jury deliberations, most other jurors wouldn’t argue this point. I know I wouldn’t. Instead I would just ignore it and continue to advocate whatever verdict I wanted, hopefully being open to the possiblity of changing my mind. But if I did change my mind, it would not have anything to do with ideas concerning the jury’s proper role. Same with most folks.
A classic case might be a run away slave. Your job as instructed by the judge is to rule him guilty of running away. The evidence is clear. Enforce the law as the judge told you.
Its a bit out of our comprehension. A better one might be:
A terminally ill AIDS patient is growing pot in his closet in California. The state is cool with it but the feds kick down his door and want him incarcerated.
The question is whether or not it is your privilege, right, or even obligation to defy the court in the name of protecting your fellow citizen if a law is unjust. I maintain that regardless of what they tell you, you need to look out for your fellow citizen.
What really gets my goat is bloody lawyers that weasel their way through a case smelling like daisies, even though there is a mountain of physical and scientific evidence. Especially in cases for murder.
For the love of Mike, yes, there is a very, very, very small chance the DNA sample has been contaminated, but I’ll be damned if some stupid desk jockey is going to throw rocks at me without having touched a injector in their life. I can understand it if the lab has had a previous record of poor results and DNA alone shouldn’t be enough to solely convict people, but if there’s a boatload of evidence that it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck…
What the heck are you talking about, Steve? The jury’s job is to determine if the prosecution has made its case, to determine if the accused has violated the law for which he stands accused. If the defense wants to debate the validity/constitutionality of that law, there is a means for such redress and it’s not the petite jury.
And a small point here – in civil trials in some jurisdictions, the standard is preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt. So the OP was at least partially correct in this instance.
Judges these days will sometimes declare a jury decision just plain wrong and throw it out if it violated the court’s instructions. So whether or not the jury might be in the right by moral force might end up being practically useless since the verdict might not stand in any case.
Are you a member of a self-governing society or are you a hermit? ~ me.
Sorry ** frithrah**, my cute attempt to be succinct apparently led you to miss my point. If you please I’ll rephrase…
In becoming a member of a larger group one contracts to adhere to the rules of that group.
On the other hand hermits don’t have this problem.
Sure there can be personal moral exceptions, but in general the individual’s conscience must be subservant to the group’s thinking.