Jury nullification.

Sec Def, it you are going to cite a quote from Dougherty, put it in context.
Click to expand...

The citation I made was in line with what I believe in. Thanks for adding the rest as after reading it, I feel more supported as it does NOT condemn jury nullification. The core argument as I read it is that it does not want to support CASUAL JN and turn every single case into a circus where the jury is expected to decide the law.

And I fully agree with this. It would slow down the legal system to a crawl. Requiring more courts to try cases to ensure a trial is somewhat timely. Do I agree that anarchy would ensue? Hardly.

However (you knew this was coming), there may come a time when I feel that justice will not be served by my following the judges instructions to the letter.

Jury Nullification is a check against a time when the government is tyrannical. However, just because it currently isn't doesn't mean that you exclude JN. You keep your armies well armed and trained in times of peace, too.. you don't go looking to use them, but if the situation calls for it, into action they go.
 
WildAlaska, here is such a case, at least according to the jurors.
Click to expand...

Publius, if I read correctly, they were in federal court and this guy was charged under federal law which clearly makes it illegal to grow pot.

The judge was perfectly correct in what he did. California law has NOTHING to do with federal law. People who grow pot don't have to worry about being prosecuted by california, but they do have to worry about the feds.

You take your chances.
 
On medical marijuana, isn't the Supremacy clause of the Constitution the governing law?

Federal law trumps state law, if both are on the same subject?

S
 
There is more to take into consideration that just the "supremacy clause"

More important is the question of the validity of the law in question.

The United States Government can pass any laws it desires (and worry about the constitutionality of the law later)

The laws in question, Federal Drug laws, are they constitutional? Well according to the 10th Amendment, every power that the government is supposed to have has been granted to it by the Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution does it give the government any power to make drugs illegal.

Some erroneously claim that the "interstate commerce" clause gives the the government the power to control EVERYTHING that MAY be involved in Interstate commerce. Wrong, "regulate" in a Constitutional sense simply means to "make regular". The erroneous interpretation simply gives the government too much power. Our founding fathers, having just broken free from a monarchy would not have basically given the new government such unlimited power.

Others would say that the "necessary and proper" clause allows the government to get around the 10th amendment by passing new laws. However, the "necessary and proper" clause does not confer upon government any new powers. It simply allows them to pass laws to enforce the powers they've already been granted. Again, there is NO power granted to the government to prohibit drugs any more than there was power granted to prohibit alcohol.

So we are left with an unconstitutional law (therefore not rightly protected by the "supremacy" clause.) which should have been nullified by the jury. (and WOULD have been had the jurors been informed of their right to judge both "the facts and law"

But the government, always seeking it's own power, decided that the jurors did not need to be informed of their historical right, power, and duty.
 
So we are left with an unconstitutional law (therefore not rightly protected by the "supremacy" clause.) which should have been nullified by the jury. (and WOULD have been had the jurors been informed of their right to judge both "the facts and law"
Click to expand...

Well unfortunately, legal scholarship hasnt come around to YOUR interpretation of the constituionality of drug laws.

Read Dougherty carefully by the way. Its a two edged sword for the nullifiers

WildlostaboltAlaska
 
Wild & Stage,

Yes, the judge acted properly, in that he was just doing his job. The problem with his job was that it offended the peoples' sense of justice, as illustrated by their passage of Prop 215 and by the comments of the jurors. Making sure that legal proceedings are in line with our sense of justice is a job of government, is it not?

I'm not saying the judge was wrong, but the law in that application was wrong, and I think the jurors should have acquitted. I believe that the various quotations from the founders of our republic show that they understood JN as a check on just this kind of thing being shoved down our throats. A profoundly unpopular law would be difficult to enforce.

Wild, I appreciate the education, and the opportunity to play on your jury, but I have a job and a farm and still only rarely need reading glasses. So no, I have not read the cases you posted yet.
 
I think it is funny that this thread has gone on for 13 pages now, and no one has recognized the obvious-

as a juror, a person can say guilty or not guilty, and not have to give a reason at all.
 
I spend ALOT of time in court as an expert witness. My GF is a law student. I have never once heard a judge ask a jury why a verdict was made the way it was. They don't have to give a reason.
 
I'm not saying the judge was wrong, but the law in that application was wrong, and I think the jurors should have acquitted.
Click to expand...

Federal law makes it illegal to grow or possess pot. This guy was growing pot. Could you explain to me how the law was not applied correctly/
 
I think you've got that one backwards

Stage2. Not that the jury applied the law (Thou shalt not grow weed) incorrectly, but that the application of the law to this particular person was wrong (in a moral sense).

--Shannon
 
Stage2. Not that the jury applied the law (Thou shalt not grow weed) incorrectly, but that the application of the law to this particular person was wrong (in a moral sense).
Click to expand...

How can a law thats been clearly written, validly passed, and properly enforced be immoral? Furthermore, since when was "morality" the standard.

For every member in this board I can show you a different morality. Thats why we have laws.
 
divemedic

"I spend ALOT of time in court as an expert witness. My GF is a law student. I have never once heard a judge ask a jury why a verdict was made the way it was. They don't have to give a reason."
Click to expand...

That's a fine answer, but not an answer to the question I asked.

Again......have you ever served on a jury ??
 
Last edited:
Isn't a moral basis one of the defining characteristics of the "rule of law?"
Click to expand...

No. It can be, but its certianly not required. I don't see any morality behind jaywalking ordinances or tax laws.
 
For some people yes, but for others no. Thats the problem with using morality as a yardstick.
Click to expand...
Then you could condone anything - slavery, eugenics, euthanasia - as long as the legal forms were followed.
 
How can a law thats been clearly written, validly passed, and properly enforced be immoral? Furthermore, since when was "morality" the standard.

For every member in this board I can show you a different morality. Thats why we have laws.
Click to expand...
The jurors interviewed said their own verdict was wrong, and offended their sense of justice. The guy was, according to his State and city officials, legally providing medicine. The feds say he was a criminal, but the people in his community disagreed, and thought that punishing him as a criminal would be wrong. If you can't sell the idea that a law is both valid and being properly enforced to a jury, then something is wrong with the law, or something is wrong with the people. Ultimately, the question is, do you trust the law to be right all the time, or are you willing to let the people decide whether it is right. The question becomes more important as laws are made further away from the people, and with less input from them. Centralized federal power will require more jury nullfication than decentralized local power. The locals had already decided the question in the Rosenthal case, and the feds came in to shove a different decision down their throats.

Many of us question the validity of the law as it is being applied in cases like this one, and I'm not just talking about internet conspiracy buffs. If there were not a reasonable case to be made, the case would not have made it to the Supreme Court, and Justices Thomas, Rhenquist, and O'Connor would not have agreed with our side of the issue.

I'm aware that the left wing of the Court with their New Deal interpretation of the Constitution won that case, but that had not happened when the Rosenthal case was heard. Your assertion that the law was "validly passed" was the one of the questions they wanted to argue.

I still agree with Justice Thomas on this issue. The commerce clause was never intended to have such scope, and allowing it makes a mockery of Madison's promise in Federalist 45:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security. As the former periods will probably bear a small proportion to the latter, the State governments will here enjoy another advantage over the federal government. The more adequate, indeed, the federal powers may be rendered to the national defense, the less frequent will be those scenes of danger which might favor their ascendancy over the governments of the particular States. If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of NEW POWERS to the Union, than in the invigoration of its ORIGINAL POWERS. The regulation of commerce, it is true, is a new power; but that seems to be an addition which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained."
Click to expand...

I think the practice of medicine is among "the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State." I also think that if the Founders had any idea that one day, a homegrown cannabis plant for personal consumption or a gun carried too near to a school would fall under the commerce power, a few more apprehensions might have been entertained.

Why are there federal laws against growing a cannabis plant? Please answer without any reference to morality or right and wrong.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top