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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

#81

Post by thereare5lights »

tzs wrote: post #77
mcherm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It can also go the other way, with a jury convicting someone even though they don't believe the person is guilty. Some say this would not be a problem because unlike in an acquittal the judge can overturn a guilt verdict. That's not a convincing argument because much of what a jury does is decide which of believable but conflicting witness accounts to believe. The judge often has no way to distinguish between the jur…

Yes, that's the corresponding miscarriage of justice during that era where white juries would acquit lynchers.

See George Stinney Jr. for an example.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#82

Post by chii »

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".

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.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#83

Post by eru »

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.

> 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.

Only in one direction, I think. Jury nullification still can't render a guilty verdict, when the law says the defendant ain't guilty. (At least in principle.)

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#84

Post by eru »

RC_ITR wrote: post #75
drewcoo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery wasn't a crime. And the slaves were property, not allowed trial by jury. Stopping the punishment of crimes is not halting all injustice.

> Slavery wasn't a crime. Slavery was 100% enabled by the fact that escaping from slavery was a crime.

Yes, but keeping someone enslaved was not a crime by the laws of that time and place.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#85

Post by spoonjim »

daenz wrote: post #38
themitigating wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Imagine a town didn't like someone of a certain political leaning. They could murder that person and it would only take one jury member.

Reminds me of the killing of Ken McElroy[0] >In all, there were 46 potential witnesses to the shooting, including Trena McElroy, who was in the truck with her husband when he was shot. No one called for an ambulance. Only Trena claimed to identify a gunman; every other witness either was unable to name an assailant or claimed not to have seen who fired the fatal shots. The DA declined to press charges. An extensive f…

No post body was provided.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#86

Post by brewdad »

hirundo wrote: post #18
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.

It's a limited trump card, in that a jury can nullify law but not make it, or even adjust the charge. And their decision holds no legal precident beyond the immediate case. I think of an informed jury as the tire between the wheel and the road, to fill the gap between the abstract judgement of the legislature and the concrete particulars. Tires do fail, sometimes fatally, but they save a lot of wear on the whole syst…

The one case I was a juror on, there were questions about specific details of the charge vs the standard for a conviction on that charge. We couldn't get clarification because the judge decided to go home at 4:30, 40 minutes into deliberations.

No one wanted to come back to deliberate another day, so we convicted on the counts we were sure of and acquitted on the remainder. The aggravated details made no sense as the verdicts were read as they ended up being grossly inconsistent. In the end, the defendant was sentenced to 6 years. It could have been 60 years if the judge had hung around though.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#87

Post by googlryas »

mattkrause wrote: post #59
idontwantthis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why downvoted. This is true.

Eh, not really. Rule 606 of the Federal Rules of Evidence prohibits a juror from testifying “about any statement made or incident that occurred during the jury’s deliberations; the effect of anything on that juror’s or another juror’s vote; or any juror’s mental processes concerning the verdict or indictment.” [0] Without testimony, how would you make the case for perjury? You can’t force the juror to incriminate the…

You'd make the case for perjury, because people who like jury nullification love to talk about it. Chances are they talked about it extensively online using poor opsec.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#88

Post by throwawaylinux »

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

Corrupt people who were elected by other people and don't necessarily serve there interests, yes. And I disagree.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#89

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

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.

In civil cases, juries often are in charge of determining damages.

Re: Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case

#90

Post by brewdad »

refurb wrote: post #42
Alex3917 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People drastically overestimate what will get you moved out of the pool. If you say in voir dire that you wouldn't vote to convict even if the person is guilty, you're not going to get put on a jury.

Sit through jury selection and you'll see people vastly overestimate their ability to convince a prosecutor that they truly believe that. When I observed jury selection I saw several people back down from stances that were clearly attempts to get kicked off the jury. It's not like the lawyers ask one question then dismiss you. I did see one guy who claimed he believed "all courts are invalid" hold up to some pretty i…

I can just picture the wrong judge thinking "Give me a reason. Just one reason...and I'll show you who's valid"
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