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Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

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Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#191

Post by masklinn »

spoonjim wrote: post #147
jker wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the south it used to be an entire town of hundreds would show up for a lynching and take pictures and a picnic below the tree.

Emmett Till’s river site memorial plaque had to be replaced by a bulletproof 500lbs one to slow down its vandalism. In 2019. Before that it had to be replaced 3 times, once because it was removed and tosse in the river, and the other 2 times due to damage from being shot at. It had been first erected in 2008.

Jury nullification is very much a two-edged blade, it’s been used against the Fugitive Slaves Act (this sort of acts was a big reason why the south decided to secede) and it’s been used, a lot, to protect racist murderers.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#192

Post by gambiting »

celticninja wrote: post #183
gambiting wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe jury duty is an awful way to decide justice and it shouldn't exist. Other countries manage without it just fine. In my opinion it's your civic duty to get out of it and not support it.

Examples of other countries that don't use jury systems and have better outcomes?

Most EU countries don't use juries, or only use them for the worst crimes(rape/murder) and only in very narrow set of circumstances.

"and have better outcomes?"

Honesly I have no idea how you'd define what is a "better" outcome.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#193

Post by konschubert »

standardUser wrote: post #76
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.

Cops, prosecutors, DAs, judges, mayors and governors all have varying authority to "control what crimes are punished", in addition to who gets punished and the severity of that punishment. In that context, it doesn't seem so strange for juries to have some authority too. All this latitude among different actors in the justice system just shows how having an incredibly vast number of "crimes" on the books guarantees l…

Making everything illegal and then selectively enforcing it means that there is no Rule of Law.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#194

Post by Zak »

Spooky23 wrote: post #7
kasey_junk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why in the world would HN readers not be eligible to serve on a jury. I was on a jury trial when a spouse of a prosecutor office employee was allowed on. People drastically overestimate what will get you moved out of the pool.

Depends on the case. I served on a jury with a very surprised former deputy US Attorney. In general, they don’t like technical people on technical cases. My employer is known to pay for jury duty, so I always get picked.

I imagine it being the side that isn't confident in its technical position that doesn't like technical people on juries.

Usually, there's a limited number each side can dismiss without cause. To dismiss more than that, they have to convince the judge that the juror will not honestly decide the case according to the evidence and the law.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#195

Post by throwawaylinux »

addingnumbers wrote: post #167
throwawaylinux wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact many are self-proclaimed experts.

If the definition of "self-proclaimed" includes agreeing with popular proclamation, who is ever proclaimed but not self-proclaimed? You've rendered the "self-" prefix redundant, in which case why include it?

Winning an election is not a proclamation or any other kind of indication that somebody is an expert in law, governing, or anything else except winning elections. I can't work out how you've made that leap.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#196

Post by gjs278 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #181

The jury's task in a criminal trial is to determine guilt or innocence based on the uncontested facts and the evidence (In the USA, I gather they can also recommend a verdict). That doesn't leave a lot of room for the jury to decide which laws ought to be enforced. I suppose it's reasonable for a jury to decide that a prosecution should not have been brought, even if the criminal act can be shown to have occurred. I…

No post body was provided.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#197

Post by Hamuko »

denton-scratch wrote: post #181

The jury's task in a criminal trial is to determine guilt or innocence based on the uncontested facts and the evidence (In the USA, I gather they can also recommend a verdict). That doesn't leave a lot of room for the jury to decide which laws ought to be enforced. I suppose it's reasonable for a jury to decide that a prosecution should not have been brought, even if the criminal act can be shown to have occurred. I…

What is even the point of a jury composed of laymen if their only task is to decipher if a law has been broken? Surely at that point you'd only want lawyers, as in, people with a professional understanding of the law.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#198

Post by notahacker »

makeitdouble wrote: post #102
mcherm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could, for instance, prevent for most of a century most prosecutions for lynching.

I used to think of this as an utter failure of the system, but lingering on this for a while: if the vast majority of citizens (= people who can meaningfully participate in the society) thinks lynching is a good thing, the jury nullification is only a step behind making lynching OK in the books for that group. Of course there could be upper laws blocking them from making it an official stance, but it really feels lik…

One must also remember that what people privately are willing to vote for (which in practice, probably means voting for a fringe alternative pro-lynching party, because nationwide parties have to appeal to anti-lynching constituencies too) is not the same thing as what they're willing to do when sat with 11 other local people being reminded that the whole town will learn which way they voted and some of the townsfolk are really, really aggressively pro-lynching...

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#199

Post by mcv »

celticninja wrote: post #183
gambiting wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe jury duty is an awful way to decide justice and it shouldn't exist. Other countries manage without it just fine. In my opinion it's your civic duty to get out of it and not support it.

Examples of other countries that don't use jury systems and have better outcomes?

Netherland, for example. There's probably no shortage of other examples. From what I understand, most civil law systems do not rely on juries, or to a much lesser extent than common law systems tend to do. But even many common law countries rely a lot less on juries than the US does, and often with better results than the US with its frequently blatantly racist/classist verdicts.

The big problem with juries is that guilt is determined by a random cross section of the population in that area, and if certain prejudices are common in the population in that area, those prejudices will influence the verdict. For example, black people are more likely to be found guilty in racist areas, and white people less so.

Of course judges can also be subject to prejudice, but it's a lot easier to train them out of those prejudices and hold them accountable for them, because it's a much smaller group that requires special training.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#200

Post by vkou »

Hamuko wrote: post #197
denton-scratch wrote: post #181

The jury's task in a criminal trial is to determine guilt or innocence based on the uncontested facts and the evidence (In the USA, I gather they can also recommend a verdict). That doesn't leave a lot of room for the jury to decide which laws ought to be enforced. I suppose it's reasonable for a jury to decide that a prosecution should not have been brought, even if the criminal act can be shown to have occurred. I…

What is even the point of a jury composed of laymen if their only task is to decipher if a law has been broken? Surely at that point you'd only want lawyers, as in, people with a professional understanding of the law.

Juries are finders of fact - that is, when Bob says one thing, and Bill says another thing, it is the jury's job to decide who to believe.

Lawyers instruct juries on the law - "If you believe Bob's account (or, typically, something a bit more specific), then Bill is, by law, guilty of XYZ."

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