The writers of The Wire have suggested a way to fight the War On Drugs:
I agree with this idea, and will join their civil disobedience should I find myself on such a jury.
But I recognize that I’m a bit of a pro-drug loon, so I’m interested in a debate on the merits of their idea.
So… jury nullification is a new concept? Huh. Well, yeah, decided to do that a while back, myself, within a degree of tolerances.
Well, one would not get picked for the jury ultimately. This has been my stance on the issue. I would vote to acquit for all non-violent drug offenses regardless.
I think that the Hamsterdam approach that was tried in Season 3 would really work, if any politician had the balls to try it.
I guess my question is whether or not it is ethically kosher to say you might convict in order to get on the jury.
Disagree with drugs laws all you wish. But when you take an oath to determine the case based only on the facts and you, in violation of that oath have predecided the case, you have absolutely no business sitting on the jury.
Okee doke. I’ll go ahead and vote guilty no matter the evidence. Then it’ll even out.
Hung jury, we win! 
This seems to be a sort of mini-judicial activism, and I’m against it for the same reason as I’m against the big kid’s version. When you serve on a jury, your duty is to apply and interpret the law, not to make law. Lying to get on a jury just compounds the immorality of the action. Lobby against drug laws on your own time.
So, if a guy was proven beyond a doubt to be selling crack to 10 year old kids you’d vote to acquit?
Slee
Not to put words into the OP’s mouth, but from the quoted section:
To me, violence implies a non-victimless crime, and selling crack to 10 year olds would fall under the same category.
Questioning designed to subvert the jury nullification prerogative is itself not ethically kosher, and thus forfeits any claim to honest answers.
I personally am against the WOD, especially the way it’s being pursued, but I don’t think this will work. How are you going to get a significant number of people to cooperate?
To me, it seems like the whole WOD is a gigantic financial boondoggle mitigated only by the fact that the LEOs get to keep the booty they confiscate, which is so Third-World I can’t believe we actually allow it.
Seems like if we looked at what it’s costing us, we’d drop it, but then again, the Iraq War has been going on for 5 stupid years, so I don’t see us wising up on the WOD anytime soon, either.
Baloney, lying under oath is lying under oath, no matter how you want to dress it up as civil disobedience. There is no “jury nullification perogative”, it’s a power not a right. And to exercise that power, you have to lie under oath and go back on your oath to determine the case on the evidence. For some people, lying and going back on your word, aren’t a problem. For me, it is.
And for some people, seeing someone locked away for the rest of their lives because they have a disease is a problem. The question is, is your word more important than preventing a gross and ruinous injustice on another person?
Way I see it, some cases shouldn’t be brought to trial, guilty or not. If I’m convinced that Ms. Truesdale was in mortal fear of her life when Billy Ray came at her with an axe, I’m not going to find her guilty for pushing him down the stairs. No matter if there is a specific ‘pushing down the stairs is illegal’ law.
The law is an ass, as Mr. Bumble says, and jury nullification is that last step in preserving human dignity and justice over law.
I fail to see how evaluating evidence and deciding that someone should not be convicted of a crime due to the appropriate circumstances, is lying under oath.
You actually have a sympathetic ear with me. I think mandatory minimums are, by and large, wrong. I think the discrepancies between cocaine and crack are unfair. I think that treatment for possession crimes is far preferable than incarceration in most cases. And I think drug courts are a great idea.
But when you use hyper inflated unrealistic rhetoric like “locked away for the rest of their lives because they have a disease” you completely lose me. Not only is it, with extremely rare exceptions, completely unfounded in reality, but it also ignores self determination. Why, you could use the “disease” excuse for DUI’s, child molestation, and a multitude of other crimes too. If you have a problem with juries not being involved generally in sentencing, make a coherent argument about it. But overplaying your hand with rhetoric isn’t helping.
I would get myself eliminated from the jury selection process. If they changed the laws to regulation rather than prohibition, I’d be ok with sending the bastard down, but until then as they say I shouldn’t selectively apply the law.
It’s a bad idea. If you want to change the laws then be an activist and change them the right way…using the process as it’s laid out. Trying to circumvent the process because you don’t believe in it is the same kind of crap the anti-gun folks have used to try and get around the 2nd.
And I DON’T believe in the WOD, think it’s stupid and that many if not most of the current drug laws need to come off the books. But they need to come off the books in a way that works through the process…not tries some underhanded and dishonest way to go around it.
-XT
I agree with this absolutely. Taking these laws off the books in a controlled way would allow for some transition strategies to be put into place for that period of time between the way things are now, and the way things would be if drug laws had never been in place - such as, perhaps they would be available without penalty or shame through controlled outlets like state liquor stores, or maybe the free market would be allowed to set the price.
Yes, if you consider that you are proposing completely suborning the jury process for a personal agenda. It’s not (only) one’s personal integrity that is at stake (and that is very important to me), the jury process – flawed as it certainly is – is critical to the continuation of freedom in this country.
I am reminded of this quote from “A Man For All Seasons”:
Roddy