[QUOTE=Steve MB]
Huh? Millions of people have articulated the “let the perfect be the enemy of the good” fallacy before, and millions will no doubt continue to articulate it in the future.
[/QUOTE]
You may wish to support your assertion if you want it to have any weight.
[QUOTE=The King of Soup]
My typing must somehow be less coherent than my internal monologue, because, in my head, I’m being much more persuasive.
An act of civil disobedience against an unjust law involves (a) intentionally breaking the unjust law, preferably in such a way as to make it clear that one derives no personal benefit from it; and (b) accepting punishment, so everyone knows that the lawbreakers are not opposed to the idea of civil society bound by rules and governed by Constitutional institutions, but are merely addressing by the strongest nonviolent means the aberration of a single unjust law.
Jury nullification necessarily revolves around individual cases, making personalities rather than law the issue, and it is always an act aimed not against any unjust law but against the judiciary itself, attacking and undermining the whole idea of jury trials, proving that individual citizens can’t be trusted to dispassionately evaluate facts and law in judgment of their peers. Jury nullification can’t prove that a law is bad, it can only prove that trial by jury is bad – because if you can’t trust people to understand facts and abide by the law, the rest is just politics and prejudice.
Jury nullification can save individual defendants (usually, I think, to society’s detriment), but it can’t kill any law or institution except for trial by jury itself. Trial by jury has been the cornerstone of freedom for almost a thousand years. It should not be jeopardized because a really nice guy decided getting high was more important than the stupid drug laws.
Malthus has posited a hypothetical in which an unpopular, archaic and rarely-enforced law is used by a corrupt government to target an otherwise blameless individual. S/he (probably he, I guess, huh?) agrees that such a hypothetical has nothing to do with the case we’re discussing (which is refreshing), but suggests that it is an appropriate situation for jury nullification.
I don’t know (I’ll pause while archivists bookmark those three words). But I still lean toward the idea that a society which permits trial by jury is better for it, and that the only way to maintain the system is for juries to be honest and uphold their end of the bargain to hear the evidence and apply the law to the case before them. Any other course would only hasten such a corrupt society’s slide down the slope toward authoritarianism.
[/QUOTE]
“He” is correct. 
I do not agree with the slippery slope in this case - the possibility of jury nullification has been part of jury trials for a long time; indeed, the possible cussedness of juries is part of the point of having juries (rather than trial by judge alone).
Judges would be far, far more likely to simply apply the letter of the law. Having a jury adds crutial public input into the process; why else have persons untrained in the legal method be forced to sit through - and make findings of fact in - a trial?
The notion, I believe, is that without regular public input, the law can as it were go off the rails - get out of sync with the public mood; and the political process is ill equipped to deal with such changes. In a common law system, trials can act as “test cases” for legal principles, and courts and juries (and the political process) play a role in bringing about legal change (in Canada the lead example is the trial of Dr. Morgenthaler (sp?), tried for the archaic crime of “procuring a miscarriage”, which led via jury nullification to a Supreme Court decision decriminalizing abortion in this country; the political powers that be then singularly failed to introduce abortion laws, effectively legalizing abortion). Dr. Morgenthaler was recently awarded the Order of Canada …
Anyway, back to the example - many people here in this thread and elsewhere want to use jury nullification in the case of a “nice” drug grower to highlight or trigger change in the drug laws. The problem with this theory is that, while there is a growing public sentiment in favour of decriminalization, it is still a minority view (one I happen to share, but that is irrelevant for this analysis). The use of jury nullification would, in short, be used as a weapon not to further popular change and the popular will, but by a minority to frustrate the will of the majority. This is not a good use of the system, as what is likely to happen is spotty enforcement rather than an overturning of the laws in a “test case”.
Spotty enforcement is of course the downside of jury nullification; it is the price the system pays for involving juries. So far, I would argue it is a price worth paying; as with so many things in our justice system, there exists instances of injustice, but overall no better system of delivery justice has so far been created.
[QUOTE=astro]
I apologize for the confusion, I thought it was fairly obvious that I was positing the community distress at his prosecution, and the expectation that he should *not * be treated the same as drug dealer as the “double standard”.
“Them” are the nasty violent inner city drug users, “us” are the nice, well meaning, ecologically conscious suburbanties who might smoke a little weed now and then.
[/QUOTE]
Right where it starts and ends.
He knew that growing the gange was against the law of the land. He gambled and lost. While I think the entire drug war is an exercise in futility, he cannot and should not be treated any differently than a street level mutt slingin his wares.
[QUOTE=buttonjockey308]
Right where it starts and ends.
He knew that growing the gange was against the law of the land. He gambled and lost. While I think the entire drug war is an exercise in futility, he cannot and should not be treated any differently than a street level mutt slingin his wares.
[/QUOTE]
Not in terms of his guilt or innocence. The law has always taken the personal circumstances of the accused into account in sentencing. Mind you, I do not know how it works under the US sentencing guidelines, but I’d be very surprised if an otherwise blameless elderly professor type would get the same sentence for the same offence as a street level dealer “known to the police” as the saying goes.
Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.
Heh. If they seized every farm in Oregon’s Willamette Valley that had 'shrooms growing on it, they DEA would be the largest landowner in the state. In late fall, there are few pastures that don’t sprout Psilocybe semilenceata . It would be like busting everyone found with currency bearing traces of cocaine.
It seems to me that jury nullification would be *more *useful in the case of the inner city drug kingpin, now that I think on it. That would bring attention to an unjust law in a way that can’t be explained away as “well, he didn’t deserve to be punished 'cause he’s a good guy.”
In other words, if the rich white guy gets nullification, it’s because of who he is and there’s no incentive to change the law - we can always count on someone to nullify for the worthy. If a low-life scum gets it, it’s because the law is wrong and we should change the law.
(That’s probably what y’all have already said, but I’m getting a little lost, so forgive me.)
Who says it is too much to be personal use. ? Most weed lovers have smoked more than a few thousand joins by the age of 62. It could well be personal and family provisions.
Malthus, I’ve been discourteous: hello, and good to meet you, and, I’ve gotta say, what a pleasure it is to discourse with someone who is willing to express all his (very worthwhile) thoughts, even those which are ambiguous or even express doubt about his point of view. It inspires me to try for the same kind of honesty myself. I’m confident that you’ll help me. If I ever used smilies I would have put one in place of this sentence. A friendly one.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
“He” is correct.
[/QUOTE]
Aha! One for me! Accept my best regards and wishes, sir.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
I do not agree with the slippery slope in this case…
[/QUOTE]
What a strange thing for someone with your username to ever say! Nonetheless, nine times out of ten, slippery slope is a really stupid argument, and you’re right to be leery of it. But the actuality, not the possibility, of jury nullification is what makes headlines, and it’s rare and even then the meaning (compared to what I’ll call genuine civil disobedience) is often a mystery: did the jury violate its oath because the law is unjust, or because the defendent was very like them, or because too much information was withheld, or because they were stupid, or because they were tricked, or because they wish to protest some other law, or all laws, or, just maybe, did the facts and law actually support the verdict? Let’s think about this last possibility: the whole point of jury nullification is thwarted if most people assume the panel is not stupid or corrupt. That alone should make you pause, shouldn’t it? If they assume that it is, what’s the breakdown on how many will assume that a dozen stupid and corrupt people are screwing up a trial for a noble and worthwhile purpose? You may as well try to convince them that you would have given the purse you were caught stealing to the United Way if you hadn’t been caught. That in a nutshell is why civil disobedience belongs to the public at large, willing to break the law and go to prison, because only personal sacrifice stirs the conscience. Renegade jurors with uncertain motives aren’t rebels, they’re just (word not appropriate for Great Debates)s. And their example leads people to distrust jurors, not legislators.
So I still say that jury nullification not only blunts the impact of genuine civil disobedience, it undermines institutions that make any dissent possible.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
-Anyway, back to the example - many people here in this thread and elsewhere want to use jury nullification in the case of a “nice” drug grower to highlight or trigger change in the drug laws. The problem with this theory is that, while there is a growing public sentiment in favour of decriminalization, it is still a minority view (one I happen to share, but that is irrelevant for this analysis). The use of jury nullification would, in short, be used as a weapon not to further popular change and the popular will, but by a minority to frustrate the will of the majority.
[/QUOTE]
I would add that successful nullification would delay the middle class’ (who make up juries) entrance into the popular movement for changing the law – which is the goal, right? Not just to have it enforced selectively on someone else? – 'cause if that’s the goal, then jury nullification is the way to get there.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
…This is not a good use of the system, as what is likely to happen is spotty enforcement rather than an overturning of the laws in a “test case”.
Spotty enforcement is of course the downside of jury nullification; it is the price the system pays for involving juries. So far, I would argue it is a price worth paying; as with so many things in our justice system, there exists instances of injustice, but overall no better system of delivery justice has so far been created.
[/QUOTE]
And here, I think, we have to leave it. You think the jury system will be destroyed if nullification is not an option. I think it will be destroyed long before nullification has been employed enough to achieve the effect of genuine civil disobedience, and that an honest jury system, even one enforcing unpopular laws, has to be a constant feature of democracy or else we risk losing it forever, after which the law-givers have nothing, nothing at all, to fear.
With that, I’m bowing out: the thread got moved and I’m not smart enough for Great Debates. But though neither of us has, apparently, convinced nor confounded the other, I think I understand the arguments better than when I began, and for that I thank you.