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Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

nytimes.com

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Re: Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

#121

Post by JVirissimo »

MPSimmons wrote: post #93
impendia wrote: post #26

I served as a juror on a ten week murder trial, and one thing I learned (to my extreme exasperation) is that you can't ask questions. I mean, you can ask, but every time I asked anything the judge gave some roundabout non-answer, and it was obvious that she was required to do so. In particular, the verdict hinged on some technicalities, and we got about 40 pages explaining the law. I attempted to clarify the exact me…

I've wondered before why, after the prosecution and defense lawyers are done with a witness, the jury can't also question the witness. Can anyone help me understand why that's not allowed?

Because the law was written by lawyers?

Re: Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

#122

Post by bermanoid »

impendia wrote: post #26

I served as a juror on a ten week murder trial, and one thing I learned (to my extreme exasperation) is that you can't ask questions. I mean, you can ask, but every time I asked anything the judge gave some roundabout non-answer, and it was obvious that she was required to do so. In particular, the verdict hinged on some technicalities, and we got about 40 pages explaining the law. I attempted to clarify the exact me…

In particular, the verdict hinged on some technicalities, and we got about 40 pages explaining the law. I attempted to clarify the exact meaning, but in the end eleven others and I were forced to decide for ourselves.

There's good motivation for this: the jury's job (in a criminal case, at least) is to decide whether or not the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the charge in question. Not to determine if that fact could be established by a more competent prosecution.

Step one in proving that someone has broken the law is making sure that the jury understands the details of the law well enough to understand the accusation, including (and in particular!) any technicalities that might be involved.

If the prosecution hasn't done that, then there's plenty of reasonable doubt to be found, and that's a crystal clear "not guilty".

Re: Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

#123

Post by cmcewen »

tzs wrote: post #63

Suppose just 5% of the potential jurors believe, say, that it should not be illegal to kill an abortion doctor, or to beat up someone who dares to be homosexual in public, or to beat up someone who dares to flirt with a white woman while being black, and so on. If you have a jury of 12 and require a unanimous verdict for conviction, then 46% of randomly chosen juries will not convict people for the aforementioned cri…

The jury is screened to make sure those 5% don't serve. All potential jurors are tested to see if they believe something like "it should not be illegal to kill an abortion doctor," or anything else that would cause an unfair trial before they are chosen. The college kids in Boston who get jury duty joke they'll claim to be racist so they can go home.

In addition, lawyers for both sides are allowed to pick a certain number of people to strike from the jury for any reason they choose. Assuming both sides have somewhat competent lawyers (although that's not always true), the chance of having an outlier on your jury is greatly diminished.

Re: Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

#124

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

ams6110 wrote: post #102
elecengin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called voire dire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_selection#Voir_dire The plaintiff / defense teams are allowed to remove an limited number of jurors unless the removal is among a list of valid exempt causes (in which case the removal is exempt from the limit). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peremptory_challenge The process can become very very thought out in high profile cases - there are psychologists…

I would say that with the rise of facebook and other social media, it's easier than ever before for both the prosecution and the defense to be able to develop a very good profile of the potential jurors. And if one side or the other does not have the resources or expertise to do so, they could be at a serious disadvantage before the trial even starts.

I was selected on a jury once, but only just barely. It was a drug-related case, and the defense attorney challenged the prosecution, who had made a peremptory challenge to remove me from the jury.

His argument was that I was the only one even close to the age of the defendant left on the jury, and that by removing me he would be removing all of the defendant's "peers." (He was young; I was young.) The prosecutor withdrew his challenge, and I stayed. Funny thing was, I was pretty anti-drug at the time, so it could have backfired.

But I ended up being the jury foreman and we acquitted without much debate after someone decided to ask if anyone in the room actually thought he was guilty. They didn't really have anything on the kid; the trial was a total waste of taxpayer's money.

But you have an excellent point: If anyone writes online about supporting jury nullification, odds are good they'll get a challenge-for-cause any time they're in jury selection. At least if they're easily traced by name to those comments.

Re: Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

#125

Post by wisty »

ken wrote: post #114
tzs wrote: post #63

Suppose just 5% of the potential jurors believe, say, that it should not be illegal to kill an abortion doctor, or to beat up someone who dares to be homosexual in public, or to beat up someone who dares to flirt with a white woman while being black, and so on. If you have a jury of 12 and require a unanimous verdict for conviction, then 46% of randomly chosen juries will not convict people for the aforementioned cri…

First, criminal juries aren't randomly chosen. Second, nullification is itself a check, for the power of the state prosecutor. If you think juries are powerful, remember that the prosecutor is more powerful even than the judge: without a decision by this one state employee, the defendant wouldn't even be a defendant. From what I've read, something like 98% of criminal cases are pled out before a jury is selected. (Tr…

IANAL, but I think it can be permitted, if they just modify the CSA a little. Spirits, beer, malt, wine, and tobacco are already explicitly permitted; they just need to tweak the rest a bit.

You can bet that if marijuana was moved down to Schedule II (due to the low number of deaths caused by its use), they'd find a way to put it back on if they wanted.

Re: Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

#126

Post by salimane »

tzs wrote: post #63

Suppose just 5% of the potential jurors believe, say, that it should not be illegal to kill an abortion doctor, or to beat up someone who dares to be homosexual in public, or to beat up someone who dares to flirt with a white woman while being black, and so on. If you have a jury of 12 and require a unanimous verdict for conviction, then 46% of randomly chosen juries will not convict people for the aforementioned cri…

"Our system is designed around checks and balances"...who make the check and balances ? humans...which exactly means your current system can never be fair...that's why all current legal systems are doom, they can never achieve their mission of providing fair justice...for any software code, given the same input, it always only has 1 interpretation and 1 output, but for the legal system, the same case with the same law will give different outcomes depending on time/people...software engineering practices should just be used in the legal system for it to have a chance of achieving its mission :)

Re: Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

#127

Post by zachrose »

tzs wrote: post #103
JoshTriplett wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. Every juror should understand that they have a responsibility to consider the law, not just the facts. In most trials, that consideration will amount to "Yup, the law seems fine", with no further thought required. However, I believe that consideration ought to happen in every single trial, with every single juror. No reasonable doubt should exist that the law remains just and appropriate. If that…

We already have a system to make sure laws remain appropriate: it is called an elected legislature. They system you are suggesting would in effect turn every trial into a little election on what the law should be, but with only a small fraction of the electorate voting, and the results only applying to that one case.

>> We already have a system to make sure laws remain appropriate: it is called an elected legislature.

The legislature does no such thing. Theoretically, representatives do their job by pandering to constituent majorities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

Re: Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

#128

Post by nknight »

naner wrote: post #33
dreeves wrote: post #25

Ooh, I got kicked off a grand jury a couple years ago for telling my fellow jurors about jury nullification. I pointed them to this etherpad -- http://padm.us/jury -- where I was researching the question. I wasn't even sure at the time what the right answer was. I'm now very much pro-nullification.

I pointed them to this etherpad [...] where I was researching the question. I wasn't even sure at the time what the right answer was. Was this after you were selected to serve on the jury? They usually make it pretty clear that you are not permitted to do outside research on the case or the laws in question. Also if jury nullification is important to the defendant's case then it would be the job of their attorney to…

> They usually make it pretty clear that you are not permitted to do outside research on the case or the laws in question.

Grand juries operate under vastly different rules and assumptions, and for very different (and varying) purposes, than petit (trial) juries. The role of a grand jury has been anything from a limited sanity check on prosecutors all the way to an autonomous body empowered to investigate all aspects of governance in their jurisdiction.

There have even been grand juries that were long treated as rubber stamps for prosecutors, but found the laws of their state envisioned much more, went "rogue", and started bringing down corrupt politicians, prosecutors, judges, etc..

Re: Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

#129

Post by steve-howard »

Joakal wrote: post #116
JoshTriplett wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the opinion of a court, which would rather not recognize the concept at all. Courts hold a dim opinion of jury nullification, going so far as to legally sanction mentions of it in a courtroom, and to provide "instructions" to the jury that try to expressly prohibit them from considering anything other than whether the facts of the case meet the law as explained to them. Even hinting that you might understand the c…

Sounds like it's grounds for mistrial because the judges are giving incorrect legal advice, unless the appeal process judges don't like it too. Why can't the judges ask politicians repeal the relevant laws instead of causing mistrials?

Politicians don't listen to the public on repealing pot laws, why should they listen to judges?
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