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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

#341

Post by cool_dude85 »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #231
_8j50 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter, judges have no obligatons to be just or fair. They just have to interpret the written law and precedent law as well as legislate themselves by way of precedent. Justice means to correct wrong and make it right. The law is written such that judges can apply their interpretation of it with no obligation towards reason or implied rights and wrongs by the legislature. Take asset forfeiture for example, th…

> Doesn't matter, judges have no obligatons to be just or fair. Yeah, they are. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/453 > The legislature can't even stop companies from being treated as persons which any sane person will tell you is unreasonable or illogical. I've never gotten why people are so opposed to the idea of corporations being treated as unnatural persons for certain purposes. Companies are owned and…

>Why should it be any different if you happened to have purchased that house through a corporation?

A corporation can't be homeless, so I'm fine with them being treated differently when the bulldozer comes to knock their house down.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#342

Post by andsoitis »

shadowgovt wrote: post #277
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.

There was a time in England that theft was punishable by the death penalty. When I was younger, I learned that changed because of behavior of criminals under incentives: when stealing the bread is punishable by death, you may as well kill the baker too, to cover your tracks and maximize survival odds. That might be true, but the more specific issue England (specifically, London) ran into is that trials for theft were…

> There was a time in England that theft was punishable by the death penalty.

Having death as penalty for theft is pretty extreme in the first place. Even countries that only chop of your hand seem highly advanced in contrast.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#343

Post by frumper »

cogman10 wrote: post #71
foerbert wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true. The only way to preclude jury nullification is to infringe on the rights of the jury as the sole determiners of fact, as you put it. Without adding another non-jury body that can overrule the jury on what actually happened, how can you ever get rid of the possibility of jury nullification?

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".

Is there a case in the US where a jury found the defendant not guilty in criminal court and the judge overturned that?

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#344

Post by SantalBlush »

brewdad wrote: post #92
SantalBlush wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure but that's only the indictment phase. Basically, is there any case here at all. The rest will come out in the trial phase.

I'm not sure why I'm getting multiple replies explaining the purpose of a grand jury when I just said I served on one for three months. I understand the purpose and process more than most here.

Indictment alone is serious business. It is enough to ruin someone's life, and is not to be taken lightly. So when a grand jury is only given police testimony as evidence, that indicates a shortcoming in the system.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#345

Post by infamouscow »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #274
credit_guy wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First time I hear this quote, and maybe I don't know the context, but as is, it's a pretty bad quote. It implies that in that court, people care only about laws not justice. That may be so, but if that's the case, that's pretty sad, not something to be proud of.

It certainly is, especially because without serving justice the law loses its raison d'être. But on the other hand there are reasons why members of the judiciary need to interpret the law to the letter. If the laws are wrong or unjust, legislative forces need to change them because it is their responsibility.

> If the laws are wrong or unjust, legislative forces need to change them because it is their responsibility.

That rarely happens because nearly everyone votes based on what politicians say rather than the substance of their policies.

The people always get the government they deserve.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#346

Post by simondotau »

zaphar wrote: post #294
rjbwork wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a description of the legal system as a whole. It does not pursue justice, it merely seeks to enforce the laws as written. And I think it's pretty clear that our laws do not seek justice. For, how can locking up a man - a man who has not yet reached his 20th birthday - for years on end in a concrete box for the "crime" of consuming a plant be just?

Justice is the job of the people. We vote, directly or indirectly, on the laws as written. And in the case of jury nullification can bypass the law completely.

A jury is also the people.

Representative democracy is, in my opinion, a significantly worse form of distilling the will of the people into applied justice.

If the task is deducing justice from the will of the people, I’d sooner pick a tiny random sampling of the population to make isolated decisions, than the votes of party-affiliated politicians on laws which cannot take into account individual circumstance.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#347

Post by simonh »

elliekelly wrote: post #284
credit_guy wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First time I hear this quote, and maybe I don't know the context, but as is, it's a pretty bad quote. It implies that in that court, people care only about laws not justice. That may be so, but if that's the case, that's pretty sad, not something to be proud of.

It reminds me Scalia’s infamous Troy Davis dissent[1]: > This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged “actual innocenc…

I think that’s fine, as is the court of law not court of justice line, in context. The court should be focused on the law and process to ensure that it is as fair and objective as possible. However perfect fairness and objectivity is not realistically possible. Where justice comes in is the jury room, and that’s why juries should be free to find whatever outcome they choose, as the representatives of the sovereign citizenry.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#348

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #195
addingnumbers wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#349

Post by andsoitis »

lokar wrote: post #105
tptacek wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but you might be put in a jail cell overnight for contempt.

I explained I would never impose the death penalty (it was 1st degree murder) and I was excused

I wonder whether that strongly suggests that most people (everyone?) who serves on the jury for a 1st degree murder case then believes the death penalty is just.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#350

Post by cyphar »

simonh wrote: post #311
cyphar wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are many flavours of representative democracy. It depend what is being represented. In the British system that’s constituencies. In proportional systems, that’s political parties. Neither are particularly more or less inherently legitimate IMHO. I would consider 10% of a country voting for a party as first preference but less than 0.7% of parliament seats (by which I mean a single seat) being allocated to the…

That’s only unrepresentative if you privilege parties over constituencies. There’s an argument for that but it’s not a given. I detest party lists though, it’s a terrible idea to suborn elected representatives to a party bureaucracy. Elected representatives should be ultimately answerable to the electorate. I don’t think it’s fair to phrase it that way, I’m terms of choice. Democracy doesn’t give individuals a choice…

> That’s only unrepresentative if you privilege parties over constituencies. There’s an argument for that but it’s not a given.

How would multi-seat electorates privilege parties over constituencies? It would literally mean more representation of different views in on electorate.

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