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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

#371

Post by thrashh »

freeopinion wrote: post #319

Jury nullification is just one manifestation of good-ol'-boy-ism. Good-ol'-boy-ism is a good thing when it let's the sheriff of Mayberry teach a kid a lesson without making him a felon and ruining his future. Good-ol'-boyism is a horrible thing when it let's the sheriff of Mayberry teach a kid a lesson, making him a felon and ruining his future. I have personally benefited from the former. I don't know how to reconci…

I don’t think the issue is with “good-ol’-boyism”

The root issue is that human beings are racist or otherwise prejudiced and that’s causing way more problems in many more areas

And prejudice is natural human behavior. Anyone can become prejudiced if they grow up in the right environment

But if all your friends are from all walks of life, you will naturally not be prejudiced. So all we need to do is make sure that we have even the right outreach programs so forces are diverse. When people in places of power are going to cookouts and all theirs buddies are all sorts of different people, all these stupid problems will literally disappear in a generation

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#372

Post by scarecrowbob »

pdonis wrote: post #115
scarecrowbob wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to think that saying lynching black folks is "in principle clearly wrong" is one example where I am okay with thinking that I am certain enough to override a "community's beliefs" about what is right or wrong. I don't think that this is a magical power.

The problem is that the people who thought lynching was fine had the same sense of certainty that you have. Which all by itself is enough to refute the claim that such a sense of certainty is sufficient.

To me, any syllogism which tells me I am not qualified to say that lynching is not immoral is probably broken.

Rational argumentation is fine but it requires that we start with some reasonable premises.

Like any math problem, if you get strange answers it indicates that you're doing the problem wrong. If you divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter and you get something like 31.4 you might wanna check your math.

In this case, if you've "refuted" the idea that racially-based lynchings are universally morally impermissible, you might really wanna look at your math.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#373

Post by snovv_crash »

andsoitis wrote: post #329
snovv_crash wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patching the compiler means getting a law passed, not bypassing the legal system.

Once you've patched the compiler, you can re-run your program through it. Likely not possible to do the same for your legal case, and that assumes you can even get a law passed, which is highly doubtful. So, while you can work around the compiler issue, you cannot really remedy the legal system for your case, which could be deleterious.

Absolutely, it's more of an 'eventually consistent' system.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#374

Post by salawat »

jfoutz wrote: post #132
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."

That is a fantastic quote. I had to read up on it. So, from my very limited understanding, the point is kinda like you have to pass the legal steps before you have a chance at getting justice. Rules of evidence, Miranda warnings, whatever. I think it's sorta like you have to pass the compiler before you get a chance at a working program. Now, I'm going to strain this analogy, what do you do when there's a bug in the…

Your patching the compiler is basically jury nullification. Doing that though, creates a huge mess in terms of interpreting the overall effect on precedent. Should jury nullification occur, it is almost certain that in the long run, there will end up being legislative clarification or revisiting of what led to it.

Nullification, however, is the last bulwark against an overzealous State, and a powerful signal of no confidence. It's so destructive to the credibility of the system, it is one of the few things I can honestly say is only spoken of in hushed contexts, and with dread by many because of the unpleasant nature of the circumstances that warrant the existence of such a safeguard.

No one wants to believe a government could get so out of hand it has to get reined in in such a way. It can though. That's why it's important.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#375

Post by denton-scratch »

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.

The jury's main task is to weigh the testimony of witnesses, I guess. That's not a technical matter, for lawyers to evaluate; it's a question of whether a witness is reliable, which is a judgement. I don't see why a trained lawyer is going to be better at that than a layman.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#376

Post by denton-scratch »

Hamuko wrote: post #300
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> So perhaps your suggestion of lawyers deciding on verdict has some issues? As far as I know, bench trials are successfully conducted throughout the world.

> bench trials are successfully conducted throughout the world

True, for some value of "successful". A bench trial is much cheaper than a jury trial, and is much less likely to come up with the "wrong" verdict. Bench trials are characteristic of justice in authoritarian countries.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#377

Post by Kranar »

thrashh wrote: post #371
freeopinion wrote: post #319

Jury nullification is just one manifestation of good-ol'-boy-ism. Good-ol'-boy-ism is a good thing when it let's the sheriff of Mayberry teach a kid a lesson without making him a felon and ruining his future. Good-ol'-boyism is a horrible thing when it let's the sheriff of Mayberry teach a kid a lesson, making him a felon and ruining his future. I have personally benefited from the former. I don't know how to reconci…

I don’t think the issue is with “good-ol’-boyism” The root issue is that human beings are racist or otherwise prejudiced and that’s causing way more problems in many more areas And prejudice is natural human behavior. Anyone can become prejudiced if they grow up in the right environment But if all your friends are from all walks of life, you will naturally not be prejudiced. So all we need to do is make sure that we…

>But if all your friends are from all walks of life, you will naturally not be prejudiced.

I'd be careful jumping to the conclusion you did based on this premise because there are a lot of subtleties here. More generally this is known as the contact hypothesis (and related to the diversity exposure hypothesis) and there isn't that much evidence to justify the idea that exposure to multiple walks of life reduces prejudice and on the contrary there is evidence that the opposite is true.

While there is substantial evidence that people who do have friends from all walks of life are less prejudiced as you point out, that's mostly due to self-selection. People less prejudiced have less issue with befriending people from all walks of life, so we should not be surprised that they do so. However, concluding that all people need is to be exposed to diverse groups of people will reduce prejudice is unsupported by research and in fact to the extent that research exists on this, it actually points to the opposite conclusion. For example in situations where people are required to work or interact among different cultures, studies show unfortunately that those people have more negative attitudes towards that community than the general population. This phenomenon is known as negative intergroup contact:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/136843021876156...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4457726/

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#378

Post by post_break »

sophacles wrote: post #370
post_break wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The court for me is 40 minutes away. They make you park in a parking lot down town that isn't safe and you have to walk or take some shuttle to the courthouse. Can't take my gun with me for obvious reasons. Spend my gas getting there. Then if the parking lot gets full I have to pay for parking as well. All for me to be sent home because I know what jury nullification is, don't believe prostitution is a crime, or mino…

You get compensated for your jury duty - not well compensated, but enough to cover gas for sure. The rest of your whining is likely just as factually false - get over yourself.

What do I gain from lying? I get paid $6 for each day of jury duty. It's 50 miles round trip per day. Depending on traffic that does not cover my gas. Your comment adds nothing to this discussion.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#379

Post by dixie_land »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #326
freeopinion wrote: post #319

Jury nullification is just one manifestation of good-ol'-boy-ism. Good-ol'-boy-ism is a good thing when it let's the sheriff of Mayberry teach a kid a lesson without making him a felon and ruining his future. Good-ol'-boyism is a horrible thing when it let's the sheriff of Mayberry teach a kid a lesson, making him a felon and ruining his future. I have personally benefited from the former. I don't know how to reconci…

Why doesn't anyone think that ruining people's future regardless of age is a horrible solution to social problems? Part of the problem is that there's so much policing of "social issues" that aren't what we traditionally see as crimes. Still even for people that are arguably pretty bad eg. street thugs, repeat DUI offenders, ect., I'm not sure of the wisdom of this policy... and that's not even considering small time…

Repeated DUI offenders should be charged with attempted murder every time they enter a vehicle

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#380

Post by denton-scratch »

vkou wrote: post #200
Hamuko wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

> Juries are finders of fact

There are "facts" and facts. The undisputed facts are those where both parties "stipulate" - neither party intends to adduce evidence that the claim is false. Juries aren't at liberty to make up their own minds about facts that haven't been disputed.

It's the disputed "facts" that juries weigh - that is, the evidence and testimony.

> Lawyers instruct juries on the law

That's rather slippery; I think that technically, the lawyers are "servants of the court", so they really instruct the court on the law. And "the court" means the judge. The judge then instructs the jury on the law.

But in fact, these lawyers are advocates; their business is to expose those parts of the law and the evidence that are advantageous to their client, and damaging to their adversary. It's not reasonable to assume that the judge is unbiased (any more than the advocates).

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