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Pre-trial Jury Nullification
Druk
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So apparently a Montana court couldn't even put a jury together that would uphold the law in question.
Yes, it's about marijuana.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/montana-jury-marijuana-mutiny_n_800074.html
Gotta be honest, this puts a big smile on my face. Checks and balances working like they were intended, and all that.
From Pg. 10:
Yes, it's about marijuana.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/montana-jury-marijuana-mutiny_n_800074.html
Gotta be honest, this puts a big smile on my face. Checks and balances working like they were intended, and all that.
From Pg. 10:
Ok so here is the full story as printed by our local paper, where this took place.
http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_464bdc0a-0b36-11e0-a594-001cc4c03286.html
The Huffington Post skipped over a lot of information, like the fact that the marijuana bust was a violation of his probation.
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Bunch of asshats.
If they hated the law/cops/DA so much they could have gotten on the jury and then voted Not Guilty regardless of the evidence, like the OJ Simpson jury did.
edit: I just read the link in the article, one more conviction isn't going to matter much considering the defendant's record.
As far as the jury's job:
"First Chief Justice of the US John Jay wrote: "It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision... you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy". State of Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. 1, 4 (1794)," (wikipedia) (emphasis added)
It's every citizen's duty to decide if the law is just or not.
What are you even saying here? Checks and balances, what the fuck?
When the South couldn't put together a jury to uphold the law when a black man was lynched was that also 'checks and balances working like they were intended"?
Edit: Lots of people posted before me so I direct all you "people get to decide if laws are just" replies to the civil rights examples where a jury of Klansmen would routinely decide that it's unjust to convict a white man for the murder of a black man.
If you think a law is unjust use your fucking votes to get rid of it.
When the SCOTUS upholds a law that allows for discrimination of women in the workplace, is that also "checks and balances working like they were intended"?
Your argument can be very broadly used.
It is.
The Supreme Court's purpose is to decide if laws are constitutional or not. It doens't matter if it's something completely immoral or outright evil, if the constitution allows it then the Supreme Court doens't strike it down.
Don't like it? Amend the constitiution.
A jury's purpose is to decide if a person is guilty or not guilty of a crime. Not whether the law they broke should be upheld at all.
Again, if you don't like it, change the goddamn law.
Jury nullification is a tried and true way of protesting unjust laws. I don't remember a case that saw true jury nullification in the last 20 years, though.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Not a jury's
Would you tell this to an abolitionist in the South, refusing to uphold a Black Code?
There is a historic precedent for jury's deciding that a particular law should be thrown out or not adhered to in a specific case.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Is he a juror?
Also I'd like to point out how ridiculous your analogy is since voting is exactly how slavery was defeated. We spent years in deadlock on the issue, making compromises and then the Republicans elect Abraham Lincoln on an abolition platform without a single southern vote.
The South seceded because they realized they didn't have the votes, that they were powerless.
Can you cite these precedents? The only widespread cases of jury nullification I know about were with regards to civil rights and that really doesn't help this argument at all.
Basically, once the jury finds you not guilty, that's it. They can come out of the jury room and say they acquitted you because they didn't like the color of the prosecutor's tie, and there's nothing the government can do about it.
Rigorous Scholarship
Well same difference since without the ability to force 1:1 free:slave state entrance they could see the writing on the wall.
Yes, the hypothetical abolitionist is a juror in this case. (edit: A reminder that in the case of the OP, the jury never got around to giving a verdict at all. This is more the case of them refusing to sit on a jury to uphold a law that they don't approve of. Not trying to say that nullification-through-verdict is at all off-topic, though.)
And it's hardly fair to say "voting is exactly how slavery was defeated" when you say it caused the secession of half the country, starting a bloody war.
It's also happened in cases of conscientious objectors, mostly during the Vietnam War.
Lots of drug cases end in nullification, too. Not a huge percentage, but since we prosecute so much on drugs there's a lot of opportunity to nullify there.
It's most broadly applicable in civil rights cases, but that's not the only place it happens.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
During the run-up to the English civil war, juries would refuse to convict people of evading taxes that had been laid by the king, as opposed to parliament. Similarly, in the run-up to the American Revolution, they would refuse to convict people accused of smuggling.
Since judges and lawyers hate the idea of jury nullification, you're not really allowed to talk about it in court to the jury. But this jury was kind of dumb. You don't announce that you are going to refuse to convict, you just do it. Otherwise, like in this case, they get the guy to enter into some super-secret plea deal that doesn't admit guilt, but still allows the government to sentence you to 20 years.
Bringing up cases and case law from hundreds of years ago isn't really relevant.
It's pretty relevant in that our justice system is pretty much the same justice system from 1776 and earlier.
Try to cite a ruling from the 1700s in a court case and see how that goes.
In most cases, the jury isn't so blatant about it. Jury members are not required to say why they found someone guilty or not guilty. So, if someone on a jury thinks a law is unjust, he's free to vote his conscience.
Rigorous Scholarship
If all of the jurors feel that they are unable to be independent then THAT is a thing, though.
It's a form of civil disobedience. Refusing to sit for a trial is a heck of a lot better than riots, no?
"If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge and contrary to the evidence. This power of the jury is not always contrary to the interests of justice."
- U.S. v Dougherty 473 F.2d 1113 at 1130 (1972)
"The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge; for example, acquittals under the fugitive slave law."
I fail to see an issue here. Are you saying court cases before the 1900s aren't valid just because they happened before the 1900s? Marbury vs Madison maybe?
There's a reason that the phrase "checks and balances" has two parts to it.
No one part is ever going to be perfect 100% of the time. Thats why you have other parts, in order to balance thins out. No one is saying that Juries are the ultimate authority on laws, but rather, that having juries have some amount of authority helps to deal with unjust laws.
In this country unjust laws simply don't get passed by decree or by accident, by definition most people need to think it's a good idea.
I'm just saying if we're arguing the validity of jury nullification is probably a good idea to confine where we want to draw samples from. If you start going too far back or too far abroad the conversation gets into a sort of "well back in 1523 such and such happened" and thats not going to add much to the discussion.
Not true. Majorities are against tax cuts for the rich, but that's happening, and opposition to DADT was at supermajority across the board for years before it was repealed.
True, but I think history of the American justice system is a pretty narrow field anyways being only a few hundred years old and pretty much having the same system for those few hundred years.
If you were on a jury that was prosecuting a man for something you found to be harmless, lets say sodomy or something along those lines, would you convict them if they clearly broke the law? or would you not convict them because that is the morally correct choice?
Your last 2 sentences here somewhat contradict each other. Representative democracy is different from pure democracy, so you can easily have a law that people think is a bad idea. Sometimes bad laws that 51+% of people disagree with are relatively minor issues and don't make or break elections. But they still make or break individual lives in courts of law.
Yes but the responsibility lies on the people who elected those politcians. Appanrelty despite being opposed to those things people don't give a damn about electing people on platforms against them.
IMO if you disagree with the law don't sit on the jury.
I'd try to have myself released from selection. Any competent prosecuter would have me gone anyway.
lets assume you somehow made it to the jury