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Man arrested for promoting jury nullification wins federal case
- Buttons840 4y agoI wonder what portion of jurors know what jury nullification is? I've always thought I could simply utter those words and get out of any jury duty. Not that I would, I would love to serve on a jury. I also wonder how many HN readers would be allowed on a jury?
- duxup 4y ago> I also wonder how many HN readers would be allowed on a jury? I served on a jury. Can’t imagine why any given HN user wouldn’t be allowed…
- j-bos 4y agoThere's stereotype that neither prosecuters nor defense attorneys(ies?) want critical thinkers on the jury. Limits their powers of influence.
- dbcurtis 4y agoBut in the end, they only get a fixed number of preemptory challenges. (Over their unlimited number of “excused for cause” because even the judge agrees. ) I served on a jury once because the prosecutor rolled the dice on his last preemptory, knowing he would be stuck with whatever clown was next in line. I was that clown.
- bbddg 4y agoHN readers should be perfect jury members then.
- ninkendo 4y agoHN readership is large enough that we’ve pretty much regressed to the mean with respect to critical thinking. I don’t think HN readers are statistically better than average here, there’s just too many of us for that to be possible.
- duxup 4y agoCan confirm, reads HN, been on jury, i am pretty dumb.
- duxup 4y agoWhat is interesting is I have sever lawyers in my family. Criminal, corporate, and otherwise. All do trial work. They all say no matter how many test juries (their clients sometimes actually pay for them to try out arguments on a group of people), or how much jury study they do…. it is hard to predict how a juror will act / be influenced based on demographics. My limited experience was similar, folks were not super predictable.
- kasey_junk 4y agoWhy in the world would HN readers not be eligible to serve on a jury. I was on a jury trial when a spouse of a prosecutor office employee was allowed on. People drastically overestimate what will get you moved out of the pool.
- Spooky23 4y agoDepends on the case. I served on a jury with a very surprised former deputy US Attorney. In general, they don’t like technical people on technical cases. My employer is known to pay for jury duty, so I always get picked.
- nybble41 4y ago> My employer is known to pay for jury duty, so I always get picked. Wouldn't that unduly bias the jury selection? In effect the employer is being allowed to buy extra representation.
- mcv 4y agoYes, but so does everything else around jury selection.
- Zak 4y agoI imagine it being the side that isn't confident in its technical position that doesn't like technical people on juries. Usually, there's a limited number each side can dismiss without cause. To dismiss more than that, they have to convince the judge that the juror will not honestly decide the case according to the evidence and the law.
- Spooky23 4y agoIt’s more that they don’t want specialized knowledge spoiling the deliberation. If I’m an expert in cellular towers, you don’t want me contradicting the expert on cellular towers testimony on the basis of the magic knowledge that I claim to have.
- 4y ago
- SantalBlush 4y agoI served on a grand jury for three months. We listened to police testimony, the DA's office told us the charges, and we voted. Police testimony was all we had to work with when deciding whether or not to indict. It felt like a charade.
- brewdad 4y agoSure but that's only the indictment phase. Basically, is there any case here at all. The rest will come out in the trial phase.
- SantalBlush 4y agoI'm not sure why I'm getting multiple replies explaining the purpose of a grand jury when I just said I served on one for three months. I understand the purpose and process more than most here. Indictment alone is serious business. It is enough to ruin someone's life, and is not to be taken lightly. So when a grand jury is only given police testimony as evidence, that indicates a shortcoming in the system.
- netheril96 4y agoThe grand jury and the jury for trial are different things.
- mcv 4y agoI've never been on a jury and live in a country that doesn't have juries at all, as far as I'm aware, but if I lived in the US and served on a jury there, I would never convict solely on police testimony. The police are often not a neutral party. And especially with all the stories of police quotas, extremist groups infiltrating the police, rampant racism in some police departments, and even law enforcement experts telling people to never talk to the police without a lawyer, the US police doesn't come across to me as particularly trustworthy.
- lesuorac 4y agoGrand juries aren't a real trial. It's a procedural requirement before you federally try somebody for a felony. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_...
- IncRnd 4y ago> I also wonder how many HN readers would be allowed on a jury? Most of them.
- mindcrime 4y agoI also wonder how many HN readers would be allowed on a jury? I don't know, but I was selected for a jury once. That said, I did not make any particular effort to get out of serving. I answered the voir dire questions honestly, but didn't go out of my way to volunteer something just because I thought it might get me out of jury duty. For example, I didn't say "I'm a radical Libertarian who considers the State invalid in principle and strongly supports jury nullification." Had I been asked "are you a radical Libertarian who ..." I would have answered "yes", but it never came up. So I tried to be honest and neutral, and in the end they picked me. The moral of this story? I'm not sure. I will say this though: I learned a lot from the experience. Hopefully I'm never on trial for anything, but if I ever am, I believe my jury experience might actually be helpful to me.
- ch4s3 4y ago> but it never came up I laughed out loud at this.
- agotterer 4y agoI wasn’t trying to get out jury duty, but knowing my juror rights had me excused. When the lawyers went around the room asking questions, one of the questions was something along the lines of “will you uphold the law as the judge describes it”. 40 odd people leading up to me all said yes, and then I said “maybe”. I was asked to step outside to discuss my answer. I pretty much said “I know my rights as a juror and if a law is unjust it’s my duty to say so”. They said I could go home after that.
- LatteLazy 4y agoSurely this defeats the whole point of jury nullification? Yo should have said yes and then voted your conscience no?
- mcv 4y agoIs it perjury to lie in this case?
- LatteLazy 4y agoI guess we could argue back and forth about "will you uphold the law as the judge describes it". Are jurors usually sworn in in courts? But you're in a very difficult position morally when asked that question (assuming it's for the purpose of removing anyone who will engage in jury nullification). If you actually believe in jury nullification then morally you have to lie right? Otherwise you're allowing someone to override what you consider to be an important civil right. It's no different to someone standing outside a polling booth and refusing entry unless you promised to vote for his candidate: if you actually believe in democracy you need to lie... To be clear, I am not absolutely convinced by the whole Jury Nullification thing. Obviously it's practically possible but I am not convinced it is a good thing, let alone a civil right or a check on power etc. I am a limey brit and over here we don't "pick" or "disqualify" jurors for better or worse. So aside from knowing people involved in the case, you don't get asked questions like this...
- curiousgal 4y agoI don't understand what the big deal about perjury is. You have politicians lying under oath all the time and having 0 punishments despite the huge ramifications of those lies. Why should the "small time" liars be punished.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ALittleLight 4y agoI was on a jury when I was young, maybe eighteen, and haven't been on one again. I was disappointed not to get a whodunnit or some complex case. Instead ,I was on a DUI that resulted in a crash with some extra circumstances. The defense was entirely presented at closing and amounted to the claim that the defendant stopped his car right before the crash, let a hitchhiker take the wheel, the hitchhiker caused the crash, moved the defendant into the driver's seat and belted him in there so that the fire department arrived and photographed the defendant there, and then ran off. Even if the crazy hitchhiker story were true then the defendant was still admitting to DUI, and, in my mind, being responsible for the crash. It was basically a huge waste of time since all jurors instantly voted to convict.
- credit_guy 4y agoThat's quite a funny story. Was that self-defense? If not, is a lawyer ethically allowed to present such a defense?
- the_only_law 4y agoWouldn’t be the dumbest thing I’ve heard out of a lawyer.
- cornstalks 4y agoCGP Grey has a video discussing jury nullification, for those interested in a further explanation of the subject: https://youtu.be/uqH_Y1TupoQ https://youtu.be/uqH_Y1TupoQ
- bombcar 4y agoIf jury nullification doesn’t exist, then juries are pointless
- doctorzook 4y agoThat's just not true, though. I say that without taking a position on the merits of jury nullification. Juries are generally charged with determining matters of fact; the judge matters of law. Even without jury nullification, a jury still determines whether the person performed a proscribed act, or did so with the requisite intent, etc. When people talk about jury nullification, they generally mean the act of a jury actually believing that the person committed the act, but let them off because they don't think they should be punished for some other reason.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago> Juries are generally charged with determining matters of fact If that is axiomatic, it's not the constitution of the US. I don't know about other jurisdictions, but it's silent on the exact duties of a jury.
- Calavar 4y agoI am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the idea that juries are for matters of fact comes from English common law. The constitution is a rather barebones framework. There is a lot that it doesn't cover.
- foerbert 4y agoIt 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?
- cogman10 4y agoIn 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".
- daenz 4y agoIs 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.
- c3534l 4y agoThey could, but you could do it better by voting. All jury notification does is introduce randomness and bias.
- dathinab 4y agoThis is why a judge can bring in a jury from outside of the community. But yes, the US law system is deeply flawed in many many ways, and most of it is intentionally (through also historically).
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoWhat would be a better alternative?
- bruce511 4y agoTo juries? Or to the US legal system? In an ideal world a good judge is likely better for you than a jury if the law is on your side. Unfortunately good judges are hard to pick, and elections of judges don't seem like a solution. In terms of the legal system itself, there is way too much room for power bias that needs reform. In theory the law is blind, applying to everyone equally. In practice it is executed by humans who are anything but blind. Bad actors exist at every level, police, DAs, prosecutors, judges and yes, juries. Humans, and humanity, should be in the loop, but equally its hard to find sufficient quantities of good humans to participate. Especially in the current political climate, elections for judges seem particularly fraught. A blood-hungry mob favours those who take a "lock up everyone forever" approach. Equally, seeing the court as a mechanism for politics, from the highest court to the lowest, while it might be good for politics is bad for justice. There is a lot to dislike about the current system with its various prejudices - but reform is hard because quality people are hard to find. And every bad apple in the system erodes public trust - and once trust in the system has gone it is hard to regain it. So what would be a better alternative? Not necessarily a better system, but a system populated with better candidates. In many places that means voting for moderate candidates who are focused on justice, not law. On people with character, not who screams the loudest, or has the most extreme viewpoint. On supporting those police honestly "protecting and serving" while at the same time having a police force actively rooting out corruption and prejudice. Trust is hard earned, and easily lost. Mostly its in the "lost" bucket right now. It will take a lot to get that back.
- hirundo 4y ago"Picard says he'll be back to his advocacy now that the case has concluded, though it remains to be seen how the government will answer the above questions." Hero.
- duxup 4y agoSeems pretty reasonable result as he wasn’t targeting a specific case. I do think fans of jury nullification overestimate how much juries would be interested in such things.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoIt doesn’t have to be the entire jury, one juror can hang everything.
- nwiswell 4y agoThat isn't the same thing. Nullification is when the ENTIRE jury votes not guilty, producing an acquittal and double jeopardy protection for the accused.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoI disagree. Jury nullification sounds plural, but a single juror can nullify everything; I’m voting this way because I think the law is wrong. That decision has nullified the process, and could lead to a hung jury. Or that one person could convince everyone else. I think you might be confusing the hole with the part, and not grasping the power of a single juror.
- beeboop 4y agoA single juror cannot nullify - they can cause a hung jury which then results in a retrial, where it is mostly likely not going to contain a juror that advocates for jury nullification. If you cannot create consensus to nullify then you're most likely just wasting time and money of everyone involved and clogging up the legal system for other people who have a right to speedy trials
- Overtonwindow 4y agoWasting whose time? Each juror is supposed to decide based on a reasonable doubt, if someone comes in there and says look I think the crime is wrong, and I think this person should Have this verdict, and I’m going to vote that way, if no one goes along with you fine. If they do great, if they don’t, then you have a hung jury. Either way that single person has nullified the verdict. Thus a mistrial. If anything, the government waste the time of people by bringing cases that should never have been brought to begin with.
- systemvoltage 4y ago> he was in violation of a New York law barring people from standing within 200 feet of a courthouse "calling for or demanding any specified action or determination by such court or jury" Simiarly: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-abortion-zones/u-s-supreme-court-rebuffs-abortion-clinic-protest-zone-challenges-idUSKBN2432CD https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-abortion-zones/...
- shrubble 4y agoSome quotations... for me, the quote from Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is important: 'The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both the law and the facts.' https://www.jurorsrule.com/quotations-and-comments-on-fully-informed-juries/ https://www.jurorsrule.com/quotations-and-comments-on-fully-...
- MerelyMortal 4y agoThe only quote from him that I know by heart: "This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice."
- _8j50 4y agoWow! I have been saying for a while now that in the US at least the judicial system had no relationship with justice or reason. The false pretense of impartiality and apolitical decision making leads most to believe otherwise.
- Quekid5 4y agoIndeed, the Adversarial system includes some 'preconditions' that don't really hold in the real world, alas. Of course there are lots of other systemic issues with the US 'justice' system, but I also think the foundation is fundamentally flawed.
- MiguelX413 4y agoAny legalist country is like that.
- jmeister 4y agoIt’s the job of the legislature to fix the laws and make them aligned with your idea of justice.
- manuelabeledo 4y agoWhile true, then there is an argument to be made about getting rid of precedents, not an ideal scenario given how ineffectual the legislative branch is.
- IncRnd 4y agoNow, we need to pay attention to Presidents, DoJ Attorneys, and District Attorneys who pick and choose which laws to enforce, based upon their politics. It's interesting how they aren't getting charged for those actions.
- _r4nc 4y agoHas there ever been a case where a jury has actually “invoked” nullification? I put quotes because a jury wouldn’t directly invoke nullification, they would just present a finding clearly contrary to the evidence. Follow up question, does a jury have to provide any reasoning for their finding? Or just the finding itself?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ggm 4y agoDoes the door open to the other side, which is an all-white jury finding Ruben Carter guilty?
- xmprt 4y agoYes but a judge can overrule it. A judge cannot however overrule a not-guilty verdict and find the defendant guilty.
- ggm 4y agoA useful asymmetry. Thanks.
- mcv 4y agoMany apparently don't; there are lots of examples of defendants of colour getting convicted in cases where white defendants get acquitted or receive a very light sentence.
- Amezarak 4y agoAre the cases the same, or just the charges? Why did the defendant choose a jury trial as opposed to a bench trial if they believed the jury was going to be racist? What was the racial composition of the jury in both cases? The story is usually a lot more complicated. There also reverse cases of this too, because high-profile cases are usually dealt with more severely, not because of race. For example, a cop in Florida killed a 36 year old white man in very similar circumstances to George Floyd, and got off scot-free. So for better or worse, notoriety also comes into play.
- tzs 4y agoA jury is not required to explain the reasons for their verdict. In many, probably most, cases the judge won't be able to tell that the jury convicted for improper reasons.
- LatteLazy 4y agoThere is also the other-other side, where a white jury finds a klansman innocent of lynching etc.
- thayne 4y agoSomeone told me that knowing what jury nullification is can get you out of jury duty, because if the attorneys find out you know what it is during the jury selection process, they won't want you on the jury. I don't know if that's true though.
- nostromo 4y agoDon’t try to get out of jury duty. Someone’s life is on the line. Suck it up and do your civic duty.
- justzisguyuknow 4y agoThat's only true in some cases. What about when it's a frivolous civil liability suit, e.g. a slip and fall case. Is there a moral duty to participate in that?
- panda-giddiness 4y agoHow do you know whether the case is frivolous before it's even been tried?
- ransom1538 4y ago"Don’t try to get out of jury duty." My mother was a court stenographer. She had a job in a small court once in nowhere northern california. They had a few jurors skip out of jury duty. The judge told the bailiff walk outside get 2 random people. Sure enough, there was a chef wearing a uniform and some construction worker. BAM. The court is ready.
- gambiting 4y agoI believe jury duty is an awful way to decide justice and it shouldn't exist. Other countries manage without it just fine. In my opinion it's your civic duty to get out of it and not support it.
- celticninja 4y ago
- altacc 4y agoIn the UK jury nullification came into the spotlight at the beginning of this year when four people who helped topple a statue of a slave trader in Bristol were found not guilty by a jury, even though they admitted doing so and there was video & photo evidence. The jury decided that they had acceptable reasons for their actions. [1] The reaction from the right wing government and its supporters was barely short of apoplexy, followed by promises to appeal the verdict and change the law to remove this as an option for juries. (So far I don't believe any such legal changes have been made.) Jury nullification is one of the strengths of the jury system, allowing a representation of the public decide if an act was truly criminal, and should be protected, otherwise it's just 12 people following a decision tree and no better than trial by judge. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/05/four-cleared-of-toppling-edward-colston-statute https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/05/four-cleared...
- markdown 4y agoHuh? I had no idea the UK had juries. I live in a former colony where we don't have juries and just assumed the same would be true of the UK.
- roomey 4y agoIf you don't mind me asking, which colony is that? Would be interesting to know how that came about
- tsimionescu 4y agoJuries originated in UK common law, the US mostly inherited the idea from there.
- darepublic 4y agophew that was a close one
- denton-scratch 4y agoThe 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 don't know what other body is in a position to make that determination, so I guess that in some kind of "natural law" view, returning an innocent verdict when the facts say guilty, is morally permissible. But I'm not OK with juries deciding what the law is, or just completely ignoring the law. My experience (IANAL) is that jurors are interested in the judicial process, assess evidence carefully, and try hard to return a "correct" verdict. I haven't served on a real jury; I did serve on a mock jury, in a mock trial for training advocates (barristers). It was a date-rape trial, and the "evidence" was equivocal. Interestingly, although all the jurors were sincere and honourable, the jury split male/female on the verdict (I'm a male, and I came down on the male side of the split).
- gjs278 4y ago
- Hamuko 4y agoWhat 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.
- vkou 4y agoJuries 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."
- denton-scratch 4y ago
- tzs 4y agoWhat most people overlook when considering the power of jury nullification is that like almost all other powers of participants in our legal system there needs to be checks and balances. The check and balance on jury nullification is not telling people that it exists. Yes, it is a pretty crappy check and balance, but no one has been able to come up with a better one.
- freeopinion 4y agoJury 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 reconcile the latter when the only difference was the kid's last name, or skin color, or religion. Every good thing can be abused. Sometimes the scale of abuse calls for the abolition of the "good thing". Sometimes it is better to tolerate some abuse because of the scale of good that comes from the good thing. For me, this train of thought always breaks down to reasoning that good-ol'-boy-ism is good when the ol'-boys are good and bad when the ol'-boys are bad. But that's obviously broken when 'good' or 'bad' is left to the decision of the ol'-boys. Historically, we just have constant war to decide who gets to be the ol'-boys this week.
- P_I_Staker 4y agoWhy 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 first offenders (also ignoring our most serious crimes).
- OrvalWintermute 4y ago>Why doesn't anyone think that ruining people's future regardless of age is a horrible solution to social problems? I concur, I think ruining people's futures can be a horrible thing. Depending on the crime, I do think that what we see in some of Europe around "Right to be forgotten" for crimes is a good path forward. I do not want to advocate for laws that firmly set someone onto a path of crime because of some youthful indiscretions, or, that forever treats a person as a pariah because of something that happened 30 years ago.
- dixie_land 4y ago
- andsoitis 4y agoThe article omits that it was the ACLU who filed the lawsuit on Picard's behalf: https://www.aclu.org/cases/picard-v-magliano https://www.aclu.org/cases/picard-v-magliano
- noasaservice 4y agoPerhaps a proper addressing of "Should this law be a law?" be considered, before the case is presented? That way, the jury can decide, without any evidence, if a law is just. And that should be with as many biases removed, including things like sex, gender, skin color, clothing, etc. There's always a disconnect in republics between the populace and the representatives. Reps may pass laws the populace doesn't want, and the reps say "we know your best interest". And, getting laws to legalize illegal things usually end up in its own malthusian trap of "politician is soft on crime!"