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On Drug laws and Jury Nullification

Northern Light said:
There is a "good conscience" aspect to jury nullification. It's not about willy nilly tossing out laws you don't like. It's when you've heard the whole case and you can't in good conscience sentence someone. You think a jury would agree unanimously to that in the average murder case?
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Some say, and I agree, that the jury is the conscience of the community. It is the duty of the jury to know right from wrong, and rule in favor of what is right, to rule against what is wrong.

For just the case being tried, the jury sits in judgment of the law. It gets to vote against a poor law, or uphold a good law. We the People created the government, and we may judge its behavior when sitting as jurors.
 
Carjosse said:
Not to the average murder case, but an exceptional one. Studies show that juries are more likely to ignore evidence and nullify based on feelings for the defendant if they are told about jury nullification.
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Studies show? Ok, you're going to need to back that one up.
 
longview said:
Only is a very strong word, and incorrect in this case. Juries can nullify not just because of reasonable doubt, but becaust they do not think the law is
fair or well written.
As in my opening OP, I have little doubt the state could make it's case against the defendant on cocaine possession,
my problem was with the vagueness of the law as presented.
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To me, reasonable doubt is not nullification. Reasonable doubt is not being convinced of guilt.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Doesn't matter how much you change it. There will always be instances that the law should not cover. No law is perfect.



You can thank laws for that.



Bold: We don't have that here. Wish we did, but we don't. But let me ask you...what constitutes "starving" up there?

Underlined: I would end up shooting that person. Because I have no idea why he's breaking into my home and no sane person (in my minds eye) is going to risk their kids lives over the chance that the person is just hungry vs someone breaking in with the intent to rape and/or kill my family. And my families lives are worth far more than that persons life.

Red: Funny thing about Jury Nullification. It's been around for hundreds of years. Even before the United States, or Canada were even found (re-found to be more accurate) by Christopher Columbus (1215 Magna Carta is when Juries started). And yet no anarchy exists. The United States has been in those same waters since its inception and no sharks have arisen, even though there has been abuse of Jury Nullification it is more often than not used for good. Even today it is being used to stop marijuana convictions. And I support that, despite my own personal anti-drug policy.
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So change the laws through legal means, not manipulating juries

I sense some hostility over the second part, but the last example I have a man entered and lived in a remote cabin during severe winter conditions. He was discovered, arrested and charged. The crown dismissed the charges based on a law about survival as the man hadn't eaten in weeks. Shoot him if you like, here that get's you life even if the person has broken in. Laws are different here, you cannot simply shoot someone because they are in your house; here you get life unless your life was in peril. In Canada you have no right to use lethal force to defend mere property.
 
radcen said:
Studies show? Ok, you're going to need to back that one up.
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Jury nullification: The impact of judicial instructions, arguments, and challenges on jury decision making.
Horowitz, Irwin A.
Law and Human Behavior, Vol 12(4), Dec 1988, 439-453. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01044627

Determined the effects of nullification information (NI) to the jury from judge's instructions and lawyers' arguments on juries' verdicts and decision making in 3 criminal cases and tested the impact of challenges to NI on trial outcomes. Results from 144 6-person juries, indicate that when juries received NI from the judge or defense attorney they were more likely to acquit a sympathetic defendant and judge a dangerous defendant more harshly. In trials in which a nullification defense was successful, juries used the outcome of the case and the intent of the defendant to evaluate the evidence. Pronullification conditions devalued the currency of the evidence and permitted juries to utilize nonevidentiary factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)
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Fearandloathing said:
So change the laws through legal means, not manipulating juries
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1: It can take years to change a law. Sometimes decades. Not a valid thing to be thinking about while in the process of convicting/not convicting someone wouldn't you say? Or do we just compromise our conscience and let the person rot in jail while we wrestle with a bureaucracy that may or may not do something about it? And that's even assuming that we have the money to wrestle with the bureaucracy to begin with.

2: As I've already stated in this thread, laws are inflexible and can not account for every instance where the law should not be applied. No matter how many times you re-write the law.

Fearandloathing said:
I sense some hostility over the second part, but the last example I have a man entered and lived in a remote cabin during severe winter conditions. He was discovered, arrested and charged. The crown dismissed the charges based on a law about survival as the man hadn't eaten in weeks. Shoot him if you like, here that get's you life even if the person has broken in. Laws are different here, you cannot simply shoot someone because they are in your house; here you get life unless your life was in peril. In Canada you have no right to use lethal force to defend mere property.
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No hostility at all. I'm just passionate about self defense and jury nullification. ;)
 
Carjosse said:
Jury nullification: The impact of judicial instructions, arguments, and challenges on jury decision making.
Horowitz, Irwin A.
Law and Human Behavior, Vol 12(4), Dec 1988, 439-453. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01044627
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1: The guy is a lawyer so he's suspect for that alone.

2: 144 cases is not enough to make an accurate statistic on anything. Particularly since in this case there is no way to tell if Jury Nullification was a factor or not since it is illegal to ask juries why they voted the way that they did and the fact that those people very well could have been innocent of the crime even without Jury Nullification being a factor.
 
Kal'Stang said:
1: It can take years to change a law. Sometimes decades. Not a valid thing to be thinking about while in the process of convicting/not convicting someone wouldn't you say? Or do we just compromise our conscience and let the person rot in jail while we wrestle with a bureaucracy that may or may not do something about it? And that's even assuming that we have the money to wrestle with the bureaucracy to begin with.

2: As I've already stated in this thread, laws are inflexible and can not account for every instance where the law should not be applied. No matter how many times you re-write the law.



No hostility at all. I'm just passionate about self defense and jury nullification. ;)
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Well we have gone further down a tunnel than I would care to do. I believe in the fundamental aspect of British Common law from which both our systems originate. And as stated earlier, the difference here is that I trust my government, we arm police and look after one another; the US arms themselves against one another., thus you do not. Boiled down, the reason I left 50 years ago is that I didn't trust the American government.

That is not to say we don't have similar issues. As far as I, and a lot of other Canadians are concerned, it is time to either eliminate the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or rip the ****ing lid of with a Parliamentary inquiry. The Horsemen operate under 170 year old rules, are paramilitary, and cover everything from terrorist threats to writing DUI's in the Arctic and municipal policing in some areas.

However, I get the idea that if the RCMP existed in the states, the solution would be to arm themselves and try to nullify by jury. I admit that the 'justice' we have distilled from their wrongdoing [murdering Polish traveler Robert Dziekanski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dziekański_Taser_incident) has been fought for, with the Mounties having to make a choice: accept a provincial special inquiry, or we open a Special Prosecution with parliamentary powers, the latter a kind of special prosecutor on steroids. And I fully admit the final outcome was less than fulfilling, but we nailed the bastards and got rid of the use of tasers at the same time

I cannot imagine living with such distrust of everything. I think the politicians and the civil servants have lost their fear of the people.
 
Kal'Stang said:
1: The guy is a lawyer so he's suspect for that alone.

2: 144 cases is not enough to make an accurate statistic on anything. Particularly since in this case there is no way to tell if Jury Nullification was a factor or not since it is illegal to ask juries why they voted the way that they did and the fact that those people very well could have been innocent of the crime even without Jury Nullification being a factor.
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They were mock trials, so they can ask whatever they want. There were only three criminal cases, each with a different type of defendant, tested with 144 juries, one group of juries was told about jury nullification and the other was not. The study found that when told about jury nullification the trials with the "more sympathetic" defendants were more likely to be nullified and evidence was made less relevant in those instances.
 
Carjosse said:
It is detrimental to society and is needed to ensure the courts can function as intended.
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Just because something may be detrimental to society is no good reason to ignore the 1at amendment. If that's the bar you want to use for denying free speech you may as well start gagging people because you'd outlaw lots of speech.

If it's that bad an idea let people discuss and and reach their own conclusions. That's the point of free speech.
 
Carjosse said:
That is one example but what happens when it is a murderer or someone guilty of abuse? There has to be more accountability.
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We claim to prefer that guilty go free rather than lock up an innocent.

That's the claim anyway. In reality we seem to want to lock up pretty much everyone.
 
Carjosse said:
See post #106.
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Thanks! I'll give you credit for giving me a credible source. My problem with the source is: small sample size, it was mock trials and not real trials (thus nothing really on the line), and it deals with cases where the judge prompted the jury that they have the ability to nullify. That's called biasing the jury, something I don't support. If a judge says, "Hey jury, did you know you can ignore the law at the end of this case?", then that's going to stick in their mind right from the beginning.

What I'm proposing is that in the world at large people should already know about jury nullification before they even get called to jury duty, so that the right gets exercised more organically.

I can see how this ability could get abused but I have to err on the side of the Rights and Freedoms of the People, so I support this kind of community power within the court room.
 
radcen said:
To me, reasonable doubt is not nullification. Reasonable doubt is not being convinced of guilt.
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Sorry I misstated that, I meant to say lack or reasonable doubt, (I.E. the Jury likes the defendant) is not the only reason for Jury Nullification.
 
Carjosse said:
It is detrimental to society and is needed to ensure the courts can function as intended.
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The fundamental function of the courts is to ensure the law is applied evenly.
At an even lower level, the courts provide a mechanism, to remove people from society, who do not want to adhere to the
limits we have placed on the laws of nature, so we can live together in groups.
The law (speaking broadly) is created by people and as such is imperfect.
By allowing the Jury the final say if a defendants actions were sufficient to warrant removing their freedom,
the system provides a additional safe guard in protection of liberty.
It is condescension on the part of the modern legal system to assume The People from whom the LAW in derived,
cannot be trusted to apply that law fairly.
Jury Nullification cannot add guilt where none exists, it can only judge weather in that case the law as written should be applied.
 
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