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They could, for instance, prevent for most of a century most prosecutions for lynching.
by mcherm 4y ago
They could, for instance, prevent for most of a century most prosecutions for lynching.
- gumby 4y agoInstead they simply acquitted the defendants in almost all cases, though few were brought.
- CDRdude 4y agoThat’s not an “instead”. What you are describing is what jury nullification is.
- throwawaylinux 4y agoBetter to leave the law to the self-proclaimed "experts" who wrote and enforced laws permitting slavery for most of a century.
- themitigating 4y agoYou mean people who were elected by other people. There's no difference
- throwawaylinux 4y agoCorrupt people who were elected by other people and don't necessarily serve there interests, yes. And I disagree.
- addingnumbers 4y agoElected officials aren't "self-proclaimed." Election is the best possible example of proclaiming.
- throwawaylinux 4y agoIn fact many are self-proclaimed experts.
- addingnumbers 4y agoIf the definition of "self-proclaimed" includes agreeing with popular proclamation, who is ever proclaimed but not self-proclaimed? You've rendered the "self-" prefix redundant, in which case why include it?
- throwawaylinux 4y agoWinning an election is not a proclamation or any other kind of indication that somebody is an expert in law, governing, or anything else except winning elections. I can't work out how you've made that leap.
- addingnumbers 4y agoElection to office is an indication that voters generally agree with your claims of expertise, and thus are proclaiming you an expert. Voters who want someone in office who is not an expert at governing vote for someone who doesn't claim to be an expert.
- throwawaylinux 4y agoIt's no such thing.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- manuelabeledo 4y ago> You mean people who were elected by other people. In reality, it was people elected by male landowners.
- drewcoo 4y agoSlavery wasn't a crime. And the slaves were property, not allowed trial by jury. Stopping the punishment of crimes is not halting all injustice.
- mannerheim 4y agoHelping slaves escape was a crime (Fugitive Slave Act) and an early use of jury nullification.
- RC_ITR 4y ago> Slavery wasn't a crime. Slavery was 100% enabled by the fact that escaping from slavery was a crime.
- eru 4y agoYes, but keeping someone enslaved was not a crime by the laws of that time and place.
- tzs 4y agoIt 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 jurors found the prosecution witnesses more believable (and so the judge should let the conviction stand) and the jurors found the defense witnesses more believable but decided to convict anyway because they didn't like something about the defendant such as their race, or bad things they did not relevant to the crime they are being tried for (and so the judge should acquit the defendant).
- duped 4y agoNot really since a court can overturn a verdict without a second trial by jury. A jury nullification can't be overturned by a court. You'd have to abolish double jeopardy if you wanted equivalence.
- implements 4y agoAside: England and Wales abolished DP in 2005 for serious crimes: (“two conditions: the retrial must be approved by the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the Court of Appeal must agree to quash the original acquittal due to "new and compelling evidence"). Prior to that, innocent verdicts could be appealed for jury / witness tampering, etc.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- thereare5lights 4y agoYes, that's the corresponding miscarriage of justice during that era where white juries would acquit lynchers. See George Stinney Jr. for an example.
- makeitdouble 4y agoI used to think of this as an utter failure of the system, but lingering on this for a while: if the vast majority of citizens (= people who can meaningfully participate in the society) thinks lynching is a good thing, the jury nullification is only a step behind making lynching OK in the books for that group. Of course there could be upper laws blocking them from making it an official stance, but it really feels like fighting a reality with theorical boundaries. The issue is not the abuse of a system hack, and probably more around changing people's mind (which can take centuries and get reversed in a few years...)
- zapdrive 4y agoI mean, if "the vast majority of citizens thinks something is a good thing", shouldn't it be legal in the first place? Because democracy.
- mijowi 4y agoTrue but that works better when the lynchees get to vote with the same ease as the lynchers.
- washbrain 4y agoEven if they can vote equally, there's no guarantee that minority populations will have the numbers to protect themselves from the tyranny of the majority. We haven't even gotten to the "equal access to voting" part here in the States yet, so we have a long long road before we get to the "voting is a good tool for minorities to protect themselves" phase.
- yieldcrv 4y agoAlthough this is about the jury, this is actually something that turns me away from progressive parties: the only reason you're fighting for something is because Congress failed to acknowledge it for 250 years consecutively and we're supposed to pretend that this time its different. The similarity here being that Congress sat on its hands regarding lynching for over a hundred years, followed by another 100 years of the Senate blocking everything the House brought up till just this year, long after everyone independently decided "hey, let's not lynch people". Its not supposed to be a defeatist approach, its just "hey lets focus on something that has consensus because trying this again is just a waste of energy". I'm interested in some aspects of fiscal and foreign policy, for example. That priority might not come from the same party.
- bryanrasmussen 4y agoI sort of think that people who are willing to use jury nullification would just vote not guilty if they didn't know the option existed.
- b3morales 4y agoNot if they are instructed or for other reasons believe that their job is to make a strictly legal finding. I.e. to decide only the question "did $DEFENDANT violate $LAW". As opposed to the broader questions: whether $LAW is good; whether it is being applied fairly, and so on. It's not uncommon for people to disagree with an outcome but decide it's acceptable because of the way it was reached: "This sucks but it's the rules/my duty". Jury nullification makes considering the rightness of the outcome part of the rules.
- bryanrasmussen 4y agosure I guess there would be people who would think like that, but not sure what percentage, if it were me and I were instructed to make a strict legal finding and I thought the law was wrong I would say not guilty when it came time to vote and would not be swayed. But maybe I'm an outlier like that. I guess also its rather conceited of me, but that's the way it is.
- snovv_crash 4y ago"They" could also use this to prevent prosecution for abortion. The knife cuts both ways.