Is Jury nullification a good thing or a bad thing?

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Who gave you my elementary school graduation photo? I know for a FACT that as I flunked out the only pictures are photo shopped. Who's your inside contact?

 

[Revoltingest]

I won't answer that.
But I will post this interesting pie chart.....

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I won't answer that.
But I will post this interesting pie chart.....

Great. Now I have an identity crisis IN ADDITION to my self-esteem crisis.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Is this "jury nullification" a good idea or a bad one?

First of all, thanks for the post. I know little about jury nullification and new even less before you raised it here.

Wiki notes:

Judicial opinion

In the 1895 in the case of Sparf v. United States written by Justice John Marshall Harlan, the United States Supreme Court held 5 to 4 that a trial judge has no responsibility to inform the jury of the right to nullify laws. This decision, often cited, has led to a common practice by United States judges to penalize anyone who attempts to present a nullification argument to jurors and to declare a mistrial if such argument has been presented to them. In some states, jurors are likely to be struck from the panel during voir dire if they will not agree to accept as correct the rulings and instructions of the law as provided by the judge.[36]

In recent rulings, the courts have continued to prohibit informing juries about jury nullification. In a 1969, Fourth Circuit decision, U.S. v. Moylan, 417 F.2d 1002 (4th Cir.1969), the Court affirmed the concept of jury nullification, but upheld the power of a court to refuse to permit an instruction to the jury to this effect.[37] In 1972, in United States v. Dougherty, 473 F.2d 1113, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a ruling similar to Moylan that affirmed the de facto power of a jury to nullify the law but upheld the denial of the defense's chance to instruct the jury about the power to nullify.[38]

In 1988, the Sixth Circuit upheld a jury instruction: "There is no such thing as valid jury nullification." In 'United States v. Thomas (1997), the Second Circuit ruled that jurors can be removed if there is evidence that they intend to nullify the law. The Supreme Court has not recently confronted the issue of jury nullification. Further, as officers of the court, attorneys have sworn an oath to uphold the law, and are ethically prohibited from directly advocating for jury nullification.[39]

I am voting against jury nullification, but it's a provisional vote and I could be convinced otherwise.

 

[Revoltingest]

First of all, thanks for the post. I know little about jury nullification and new even less before you raised it here.

Wiki notes:

​

I am voting against jury nullification, but it's a provisional vote and I could be convinced otherwise.

Suppose you were on a jury back in the days of yore.
A defendant is accused of sitting in the wrong section of a bus (whites only), & refused to move.
Would you convict, or would you find the defendant not guilty because the law is wrong?

The above is a case where I'd employ jury nullification.
But I can also imagine a jury exculpating a murderer for killing a doctor for performing abortions.

 

[Valjean]

The law as practiced and its intent are frequently at odds, and the law as written is frequently subverted. Jurisdiction is frequently ignored.

President Jackson ignored a Supreme Court ruling and forcibly removed Cherokee farmers from their titled landholdings and property. Nixon pursued a war illegal under international law. Bush did the same, as well as getting torture declared legal. It happens all the time. Those in power do what they want and bend the law to condone it.

The role of the judiciary has evolved over the years. The supreme court has become a lawmaker, for example, and the intent and legal power of the jury system has been supressed.

Nullification produces a massive courtroom brouhaha every time it rears its head. Usually it looses, as the powers-that-be are dead set against it and have no respect for either the intent of the law or the people they're supposed to be serving. Nevertheless, the original intent and practice of judgement by one's peers remains.

The jury is the highest authority in the courtroom. it can overrule the judge. It can dismiss the judge. It can order the bailiff to arrest the judge. In the US, the people are the supreme and final authority.

 

[fantome profane]

Double jeopardy refers to being tried for the same crime twice, which means that the trial has to be completed. If (as in the source I provided, among others) the judge decides the entire trial to be invalid (whether the judge sets the verdict asides or just grants a motion for a retrial), then double jeopardy doesn't apply.

Exactly, and once a verdict is in the trial is completed, and jeopardy is attached. A judge can order a mistrial anytime before a verdict is in, or can overturn a guilty verdict. But you are wrong if you think a judge can order a mistrial after a non-guilty verdict is reached.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Suppose you were on a jury back in the days of yore.
A defendant is accused of sitting in the wrong section of a bus (whites only), & refused to move.
Would you convict, or would you find the defendant not guilty because the law is wrong?

Having been arrested multiple times in the early Civil Rights Movement that type of scenario was one of the first things that came to mind.

My assumption is that I would gain enough knowledge of the case during voir dire to recuse myself.

 

[Revoltingest]

My assumption is that I would gain enough knowledge of the case during voir dire to recuse myself.

Avoiding the hypothetical, eh?
Still, should a real world opportunity present itself, I bet you'd use jury nullification when you believe it appropriate.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Avoiding the hypothetical, eh?
Still, should a real world opportunity present itself, I bet you'd use jury nullification when you believe it appropriate.

Hopefully I will always do what I believe to be (ethically) appropriate.

 

[Revoltingest]

Hopefully I will always do what I believe to be (ethically) appropriate.

I've no doubt you would.

 

[Wirey]

Cicero said an unjust law is no law. What other mechanism is there for someone charged using an unjust law?