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> ...argue this issue in front of a jury of their peers, and then be acquitted, establishing a precedent? This is conceptually confused. Juries aren't judges
by SEMW 13y ago
> ...argue this issue in front of a jury of their peers, and then be acquitted, establishing a precedent?
This is conceptually confused.
Juries aren't judges or lawyers. They don't get to rule on questions of law, and their verdicts don't set precedent.
If Google does what you suggest and then a judge rules that, as a matter of law, the FISC order was unconstitutional, that means that what Google would have been accused of doing was not illegal -- which means no jury ever gets involved.
If on the other hand a judge holds that what Google would be accused of was illegal, then you get a jury to decide whether, as a matter of fact, they did what they're accused of. But in that case, an acquittal by the jury wouldn't set a precedent that their actions were legal, any more than a jury finding someone not guilty of murder sets a precedent that murder is legal.
All of which means there's no reason for them not to seek a declaration of the order's unconstitutionality before breaching it.
- pilsetnieks 13y agoJury nullification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification A jury can rule on questions of law.
- SEMW 13y agoNo. Jury nullification does not mean a jury gets to rule that 'thing X is not illegal'. Rather, it's a jury saying 'I know thing X is illegal (and I can't change that), but I'm going to say that the defendant is not guilty of doing thing X, even though I think he did, because I think thing X shouldn't be illegal'. That may sound like a fine distinction, but it isn't, it's crucial. A legal precedent that X is not a crime means no-one can thereafter get tried for X (where the precedent applies). A jury nullification doesn't have that effect.
- mullingitover 13y agoTrue, but if it happens regularly enough that the law can't be successfully enforced, the law itself would be de facto nullified.