Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case • Hacker News Board

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#141

Post by ummonk » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 6:41 AM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #69

CoastalCoder wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Juries are generally charged with determining matters of fact; the judge matters of law. I've always found this deeply troubling. If the law isn't clear enough for 12 jurors to determine if an act was legal, then how is it possibly just to hold the accused liable transgressing it? I don't see much practical difference between this and ex-post facto laws. In both cases, a person can be convicted for an act that wasn…

It's not a matter of determining the law; more often than not it's determining who is lying. Sometimes this is relatively easy ("you left blood with your DNA at the scene") and sometimes hard (you have 3 eyewitnesses, they have 7 people claiming an alibi).

> Sometimes this is relatively easy ("you left blood with your DNA at the scene")

Not so easy when you realize that DNA labs are shockingly prone to making type II errors.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#142

Post by sofixa » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 6:42 AM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #131

simonh wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the argument advocates of direct democracy generally support, but no actual democratic systems fully implement direct democracy. In practice what we generally have is representative democracy, where we delegate the power to make laws, and make and implement policy to representatives. Those representatives have personal moral responsibility for the laws and decisions they make and are sovereign individuals in t…

> That’s the argument advocates of direct democracy generally support, but no actual democratic systems fully implement direct democracy. To be fair, Switzerland comes very close. The public can pass initiatives or constitutional amendments without government intervention through public votes, and the few Swiss people I know consider this to be the primary political system in Switzerland (not the representative elect…

> The flip side is that in representative democracies (especially with broken voting systems that are not even remotely representative such as in the US, UK, and most of the world) you are very limited in your choices of leader and thus sentiments which are popular with the public can be completely ignored. There is no mechanism to force a public initiative that has legal weight, so you have to hope that a major party will be in favour of your pet issue and they can convince other bureaucrats to support something that is popular.

Please don't lump the extremely broken US political system with the slightly less broken British and former colonies (Canada, Australia, NZ, etc.) and even less so with the rest of democratic countries around the world which is usually using representative systems. Furthermore, some countries have explicit constitutional schemes where a petition with enough signatures needs to be voted on in parliament or even called in as a referendum.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#143

Post by charlieyu1 » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 6:49 AM UTC

daenz wrote: post #6

Is jury nullification the ultimate trump card? From what little I know about it, it seems that if enough people in a community knew about it, they could 100% control what crimes are punished in that community. On face value, that makes a sort of sense intuitively, but obviously it has to be balanced against crimes that are in principle clearly wrong, despite what a local community believes.

During 2019 protests in Hong Kong, the idea of jury nullification was known to many people, in hopes of setting the protesters free. The government used loopholes so most protest related cases were trialed without jury.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#144

Post by altacc » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 6:52 AM UTC

In the UK jury nullification came into the spotlight at the beginning of this year when four people who helped topple a statue of a slave trader in Bristol were found not guilty by a jury, even though they admitted doing so and there was video & photo evidence. The jury decided that they had acceptable reasons for their actions. [1]

The reaction from the right wing government and its supporters was barely short of apoplexy, followed by promises to appeal the verdict and change the law to remove this as an option for juries. (So far I don't believe any such legal changes have been made.)

Jury nullification is one of the strengths of the jury system, allowing a representation of the public decide if an act was truly criminal, and should be protected, otherwise it's just 12 people following a decision tree and no better than trial by judge.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/05/four-cleared...

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#145

Post by nostromo » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 7:00 AM UTC

thayne wrote: post #139

Someone told me that knowing what jury nullification is can get you out of jury duty, because if the attorneys find out you know what it is during the jury selection process, they won't want you on the jury. I don't know if that's true though.

Don’t try to get out of jury duty. Someone’s life is on the line. Suck it up and do your civic duty.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#146

Post by markdown » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 7:01 AM UTC

altacc wrote: post #144

In the UK jury nullification came into the spotlight at the beginning of this year when four people who helped topple a statue of a slave trader in Bristol were found not guilty by a jury, even though they admitted doing so and there was video & photo evidence. The jury decided that they had acceptable reasons for their actions. [1] The reaction from the right wing government and its supporters was barely short of ap…

Huh? I had no idea the UK had juries. I live in a former colony where we don't have juries and just assumed the same would be true of the UK.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#147

Post by spoonjim » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 7:03 AM UTC

jker wrote: post #136

spoonjim wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The problem is, plenty of other people agree with you, except they consider you to be in that 0.25%.

Of course. I think the real measure of who that 0.25% is though, are the ones where if someone McElroyed you, an entire town of 40 people would stay silent about it.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#148

Post by roomey » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 7:10 AM UTC

markdown wrote: post #146

altacc wrote: post #144

In the UK jury nullification came into the spotlight at the beginning of this year when four people who helped topple a statue of a slave trader in Bristol were found not guilty by a jury, even though they admitted doing so and there was video & photo evidence. The jury decided that they had acceptable reasons for their actions. [1] The reaction from the right wing government and its supporters was barely short of ap…

Huh? I had no idea the UK had juries. I live in a former colony where we don't have juries and just assumed the same would be true of the UK.

If you don't mind me asking, which colony is that? Would be interesting to know how that came about

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#149

Post by Beltiras » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 7:10 AM UTC

thayne wrote: post #139

Someone told me that knowing what jury nullification is can get you out of jury duty, because if the attorneys find out you know what it is during the jury selection process, they won't want you on the jury. I don't know if that's true though.

Prosecutors will probably try to strike you for cause.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#150

Post by justzisguyuknow » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 7:10 AM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #145

thayne wrote: post #139

Someone told me that knowing what jury nullification is can get you out of jury duty, because if the attorneys find out you know what it is during the jury selection process, they won't want you on the jury. I don't know if that's true though.

Don’t try to get out of jury duty. Someone’s life is on the line. Suck it up and do your civic duty.

That's only true in some cases. What about when it's a frivolous civil liability suit, e.g. a slip and fall case. Is there a moral duty to participate in that?