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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

#211

Post by manuelabeledo »

jmeister wrote: post #207
_8j50 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow! I have been saying for a while now that in the US at least the judicial system had no relationship with justice or reason. The false pretense of impartiality and apolitical decision making leads most to believe otherwise.

It’s the job of the legislature to fix the laws and make them aligned with your idea of justice.

While true, then there is an argument to be made about getting rid of precedents, not an ideal scenario given how ineffectual the legislative branch is.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#212

Post by manuelabeledo »

themitigating wrote: post #47
throwawaylinux wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better to leave the law to the self-proclaimed "experts" who wrote and enforced laws permitting slavery for most of a century.

You mean people who were elected by other people. There's no difference

> You mean people who were elected by other people.

In reality, it was people elected by male landowners.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#213

Post by mcv »

chii wrote: post #82
cogman10 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, judges can overturn jury verdicts. That will be appealed to a higher court (which means they need a REALLY good reason to do it). The most common place for this to happen is in civil court. A jury can come back with "11ty billion dollars" and the judge can decide "Ok, they got a little overzealous with that, $100".

juries don't determine damages, only that damages occurred as evidenced. Similarly, jurors don't determine guilt or innocence, but determines whether the presented evidence from both parties are convincing. Judges determine innocence or guilt, and also hands down sentences.

So all those movies where juries find the defendant guilty or not guilty are wrong?

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#214

Post by mcv »

LatteLazy wrote: post #187
agotterer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn’t trying to get out jury duty, but knowing my juror rights had me excused. When the lawyers went around the room asking questions, one of the questions was something along the lines of “will you uphold the law as the judge describes it”. 40 odd people leading up to me all said yes, and then I said “maybe”. I was asked to step outside to discuss my answer. I pretty much said “I know my rights as a juror and if…

Surely this defeats the whole point of jury nullification? Yo should have said yes and then voted your conscience no?

Is it perjury to lie in this case?

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#215

Post by mcv »

nybble41 wrote: post #79
Spooky23 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> My employer is known to pay for jury duty, so I always get picked. Wouldn't that unduly bias the jury selection? In effect the employer is being allowed to buy extra representation.

Yes, but so does everything else around jury selection.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#216

Post by baobabKoodaa »

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.

Merely knowing about jury nullification wouldn't be sufficient to act on it. Most people would face a serious moral conundrum choosing between upholding an unjust law vs lying about evidence as a juror.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#217

Post by magpi3 »

vintermann wrote: post #179
MerelyMortal wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only quote from him that I know by heart: "This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice."

A terrible, self serving quote, given that it was spoken by a supreme judge. It was always a court of men, justice Holmes, not law.

But laws can be unjust. I think the quote is simply accurate.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#218

Post by baobabKoodaa »

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.

Funnily enough, the lawyers present in the courtroom routinely arrive at a disagreement on this point. For some mysterious reason, the lawyers hired by the accused will routinely find that no law was broken, whereas the lawyers hired by the accuser will routinely find that laws had been broken. So perhaps your suggestion of lawyers deciding on verdict has some issues?

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#219

Post by southerntofu »

cyphar wrote: post #177
southerntofu wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saying "no system fully implements direct democracy" feels like a no-true-scotsman stance, since by the same token no system fully implements representative democracy either Of course some systems implement forms of direct democracies, although they are not represented in the UN because they are not taking part in the "game of thrones" of international politics. But saying that no Nation State implements direct dem…

Ah okay, you're having a philosophical argument about the concept of a direct democracy and how it technically should be a form of anarchy or possibly anarcho-syndicalism. While I think that is also a very interesting topic and I'm sure we would agree on many things, I'm not sure it helps to get into the philosophical argument while talking about real-life political systems and the different flavours of representativ…

> you're having a philosophical argument

I don't think i am, sorry if it sounds like bikeshedding. I'm interested in the practical question of who holds political power, and who holds the "legitimate violence" to enforce this political power.

If me and my neighbors can't "legally" define our own sets of rules and regulations (which we can't in France), i just can't call that a democracy. Time and time again i've witnessed local communes get crushed by national/industrial interests... that's a very practical concern, not philosophical, whether you can keep your home and your life or they're going to destroy your entire village like they did around the Hambach charcoal mine (or like they tried in NDDL, or are still trying in Bure).

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#220

Post by mcv »

SantalBlush wrote: post #35
Buttons840 wrote: post #2

I wonder what portion of jurors know what jury nullification is? I've always thought I could simply utter those words and get out of any jury duty. Not that I would, I would love to serve on a jury. I also wonder how many HN readers would be allowed on a jury?

I served on a grand jury for three months. We listened to police testimony, the DA's office told us the charges, and we voted. Police testimony was all we had to work with when deciding whether or not to indict. It felt like a charade.

I've never been on a jury and live in a country that doesn't have juries at all, as far as I'm aware, but if I lived in the US and served on a jury there, I would never convict solely on police testimony. The police are often not a neutral party. And especially with all the stories of police quotas, extremist groups infiltrating the police, rampant racism in some police departments, and even law enforcement experts telling people to never talk to the police without a lawyer, the US police doesn't come across to me as particularly trustworthy.
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