Note to all US citizens...

[lawtonfogle]

please read up and understand jury nullification. This is the power of the people to keep laws from being abused when someone is guilty of breaking the letter but not the spirit of the law. Learn it, live it, spread it.

Jury nullification in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[jayem]

please read up and understand jury nullification. This is the power of the people to keep laws from being abused when someone is guilty of breaking the letter but not the spirit of the law.

Or it can be a last-ditch tactic by a defense attorney to put the law on trial when there is overwhelming and indisputable evidence of his client's guilt.

But jury nullification has a place.

 

[lawtonfogle]

Or it can be a last-ditch tactic by a defense attorney to put the law on trial when there is overwhelming and indisputable evidence of his client's guilt.

But jury nullification has a place.

From the sound of the wikipedia article, the defense isn't allowed to push for it. It must fully be the decision of the jury.

 

[DontTreadOnMike]

I plan to nullify next time I sit on a jury (unless it's a real crime on trial like murder or theft)

 

[lawtonfogle]

I plan to nullify next time I sit on a jury (unless it's a real crime on trial like murder or theft)

And you just ended any chance you will be on jury again (assuming they can link this).

 

[DontTreadOnMike]

And you just ended any chance you will be on jury again (assuming they can link this).

If only I were so lucky. I'm not really into involuntary servitude. But as long as I'm going to be forced to go, I might as well throw a wrench in the gears.

 

[OllieFranz]

From the sound of the wikipedia article, the defense isn't allowed to push for it. It must fully be the decision of the jury.

Too many professional advocates and adjudicators -- lawyers (barristers) and judges (who have been courtroom advocates, and many of whom will be again) -- no longer believe in "justice" in the justice system, but rather treat the courtroom as a gaming arena. The purpose is no longer to attempt to arrive at the truth, but to win the game by any means allowed by the rules. They see the ability of a jury to nullify as a cheat, rather than as a necessary safety valve because any law that is written in "stone" (or in black-and-white) necessarily is, at least on certain occasions, unjust.

This drive to win cases often overcomes the original purpose of the justice system in the first place, and can result in travesties such as those outlined in this thread. That is why a jury is, and must be the final determiner of fact and interpreter of the law in jury cases, and must have at its disposal tools like general verdict and jury nullification.

Is there the possibility of abuse? Of course, there is. There is no system administered by humans that cannot be abused. But the requirement that a jury must have a clear majority -- or even be unanimous -- means that if there is abuse, there must be a conspiracy to carry it out, unlike a single decision maker, who is also the referee, as in a bench trial.

 

[grasping the after wind]

From the sound of the wikipedia article, the defense isn't allowed to push for it. It must fully be the decision of the jury.

The jury can be manipulated by the skilled attorney doing nothing that could be considered "pushing for" jury nullification. The process of seating a jury is always a bid by the defense to push for and the prosecution to pull against jury nullification. I would submit that juries are more prone to jury nullification because of personal likes and dislikes and racial identification or prejudices than they are for reasons having to do with seeing that an injustice is not done in terms of the spirit of the law.

 

[grasping the after wind]

If only I were so lucky. I'm not really into involuntary servitude. But as long as I'm going to be forced to go, I might as well throw a wrench in the gears.

Stop paying your taxes, that throws a wrench into the system of involuntary servitude to the state without allowing real criminals to go free.

 

[lawtonfogle]

Stop paying your taxes, that throws a wrench into the system of involuntary servitude to the state without allowing real criminals to go free.

Better to free the guilty than jail the innocent.

 

[grasping the after wind]

Better to free the guilty than jail the innocent.

Better yet to free the innocent and jail the guilty.

 

[OllieFranz]

Better yet to free the innocent and jail the guilty.

True that, but it is not possible to do that in every case with every law. A written law's bright-line boundaries rarely match the boundaries of fairness and justice. Does a teenager suddenly become more responsible, or better able to handle sex or alcohol on a particular birthday? Is a shoplifter who steals a jar of peanut butter to feed his starving daughter really deserving of exactly the same condemnation as one who steals a popular sneaker?

Laws are black and white, but sometimes justice comes in shades of gray. General verdict and nullification are necessary tools for juries to dispense justice.

Actually you should be in favor of the existence, and even the encouragement of these tools. If they are more widely acknowledged, then we can pass and enforce stricter laws, secure in the knowledge that by their use, we can convict the guilty, and still have the means to protect the innocent. Don't leave it only to the lawyers and bureaucrats to determine what the government will call "fair" or "just."

 

[KarateCowboy]

Better to free the guilty than jail the innocent.

Ugh. What a hard moral question. What if freeing the guilty means more spilling of innocent blood?

 

[lawtonfogle]

Ugh. What a hard moral question. What if freeing the guilty means more spilling of innocent blood?

That blood is on the hands of the ones who spill it. If you jail the innocent, then it is society as a whole who is at fault.

 

[citizenthom]

You really want to change the criminal justice system? Forget jury nullification. Start allowing defense attorneys to tell the jury how much it costs to prosecute someone for a given crime and how much it costs to incarcerate a person per year, and ask them whether or not it's worth the price to put this particular person behind bars. Call it a necessary check on prosecutorial (in)discretion.

On a more serious note, jury nullifcation only works if you can convince the entire jury to agree with you. Otherwise all you do is hang the jury and force the defendant through another trial, where chances are the new jury will agree with the other 11 people. In the meantime, if the defendant can't make bond, he just spends more time rotting in the local jail instead of a better-equipped state prison; and if it's a federal trial, he's not earning "good-time credit" toward early release.

If you want to vote to nullify, fine, but please, be nice about it and persuasive enough to get your fellow jurors to go along with you.