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The jury acquitted anyway, but do you think Emmett Till's killers should have been able to present a "he was black so it wasn't murder for me to lynch him" defe
by GavinMcG 5y ago
The jury acquitted anyway, but do you think Emmett Till's killers should have been able to present a "he was black so it wasn't murder for me to lynch him" defense?
We ask juries to render a verdict based on the law.
- Dylan16807 5y ago> The jury acquitted anyway, but do you think Emmett Till's killers should have been able to present a "he was black so it wasn't murder for me to lynch him" defense? I guess? The jury's going to be thinking it anyway, so it might as well be addressed by defense and prosecution. > We ask juries to render a verdict based on the law. A guilty verdict needs to be based on the law. For not guilty it's probably best if it's almost always based on the law.
- mannerheim 5y agoThe law can be changed, and in this case it should. Snowden's detractors have claimed he has given US intelligence to Russia. I am not aware of any publicly available evidence of this, but very well, let us assume that this is true. In that case, grant him his request for a public interest defence, and convict him on those grounds instead.
- ben_w 5y ago> The law can be changed, and in this case it should. I agree (my limited knowledge of how the law actually works notwithstanding), but I don’t think the jury should be the ones to change it.
- mannerheim 5y agoIt happens nonetheless. Jury nullification is a feature of the legal system, not a bug.
- ThePowerOfFuet 5y agoJury nullification exists for a reason.
- StanislavPetrov 5y agoCall me naive but when you are accused by the state of wrongdoing I think that you should be able to say whatever you want in your own defense. Its fine for the judge to instruct the jury on the law, but it doesn't seem fine to me for the judge to prevent you from presenting whatever defense you see fit.