Jury nullification.

Stage2, all you showed is what's already been mentioned: The government doing it's best to destroy the liberty upon which our nation was founded.
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You guys kill me. You sit here all day and talk about how our rights are being eroded and liberty trampled upon.

Please Please PLEASE show me here its written in the constitution where jury nullification is a right. Better yet, show me where the constitution outlines the power of a jury at all.

You can't. Specifics like this were left up to the courts and the legislature to work out. Thats what the framers intended. The constitution wasn't meant to deal with every single problem or situation, only to hit the high points. Since jury nullification didn't make it in, it obviously wasn't a pressing matter.


Jury Nullification has been a right of the citizens for centuries. The right doesn't evaporate simply because some statist judges say it doesn't exist.
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Yes it does. Or if a legislature enacts a law eliminating it, it does. This is how our system works. In case you didn't notice, there is no "law" in the constitution. Legislatures and courts make up the vast body of law we have including procedural law. A court can set precedent or congress can pass a law regarding jury nullification.

Bottom line, a right can't be trampled upon if it was not there to begin with. There is NO enumerated right to jury nullification PERIOD.
 
Stage 2, the Constitution does not list all of our rights. It doesn't claim to. The Constitution was not written about US, the citizenry, it was written about the government. As a lawyer you should have been taught that.

Jury Nullification predates the Constitution, the Declaration of Independance, etc.

I an't believe that you are making the argument that if it's not in the Constitution it's not a right. You do that with a lot of things. You give power to the government that should ultimately belongs to the people. The government is meant to be the slave, not the master..but you are constantly reversing that role..making us out to be the slaves beholden to an all powerful government.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

These words point out the reason that the US Government was instituted. It also makes clear that the government was meant to be the servant of the people..not the other way around and that WE have the final say over what the government does..not the other way around. And when the government becomes an enemy of the rights of the people..it very existence is subject to the will of the people.
 
quoted from Stage 2: "Bottom line, a right can't be trampled upon if it was not there to begin with. There is NO enumerated right to jury nullification PERIOD."

Stage 2, read the ninth amendment and get back to us.
 
Stage 2, read the ninth amendment and get back to us.
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The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals stated as follows in Gibson v. Matthews,

[T]he ninth amendment does not confer substantive rights in addition to those conferred by other portions of our governing law. The ninth amendment was added to the Bill of Rights to ensure that the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius would not be used at a later time to deny fundamental rights merely because they were not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.

Professor and constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe shares this view. He writes, "It is a common error, but an error nonetheless, to talk of 'ninth amendment rights.' The ninth amendment is not a source of rights as such; it is simply a rule about how to read the Constitution."

Likewise, Justice Antonin Scalia has expressed the same view, in Troxel v. Granville...

The Declaration of Independence...is not a legal prescription conferring powers upon the courts; and the Constitution’s refusal to 'deny or disparage' other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even farther removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges’ list against laws duly enacted by the people.

Fundamental rights have been clearly defined and jury nullification is not among them.

But, even if I were for a moment to agree with you that there is some fundamental right of jury nullification, it is not beyond the power of the judiciary or the legislature to explain what this right is or how far it extends.

But theres also the problem of state trials. Take texas for example, where in their charge to the jury they expressly state that the jury is not to take the wisdom of the law into account. This is perfectly acceptable with their constitution and their history of jurisprudence. What are you to do about that? You can't turn to the federal system since its not applicable.

So we are back to the start. In all our years of case law, there isn't anything stating jury nullification is a fundamental right. As such, the legislature and courts can proscribe it as they see fit. You have no legal grounds to complain.
 
Thanks for a clarification Doug. Jury Nullification is NOT about letting the guilty go free..it's about nullifying bad laws.
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Now I ask you. What the hell is the difference?

If there's a bad law and the facts would convict a defendant, and you use jury nullification to nullify a bad law, of which, by the facts, said defendant is guilty, you have just let the guilty go free. There aint no difference.

When you nullify, you are letting a person "guilty " of a non-law (because it is offensive to justice) go free by definition. You are striking down the law.

If you are clever enough, you'll pass voir dire even if you know about jury nullification. I intend to.
 
Stage 2, are you saying then that the Zenger case means nothing? Do you contend then that the citizens are NOT the final arbiters of the law? That the government can pass any law it pleases and so long as the judiciary arbitrarily decides that the law does not violate the letter of the Constitution and that We The People have no say in the matter?

Is it your contention sir, that the judiciary then is the master and that the People are the subjects?
 
Invention, intention...that is the difference. The intention of Jury Nullification is not to let dangerous people walk the street..but to let people walk the street who are guilty of nothing more than disobying some unreasonable or Unconstitutional government edict.

It's not to let the Charles Mansons of the world roam free but to let the Laura Krihos, John Lawmasters, and Peter McWilliamses of the Nation live in freedom without fear of punishment for violation of some law that should not even exist!
 
"Jury Nullification is NOT about letting the guilty go free"

Danzig, look up the definition of "jury nullification" and then get back to us.

"There may have been an case where true jury nullification was exercised but I am not specifically aware of it."

The O.J. trial is, by definition, a classic case of jury nullification. You are aware of the O.J. trial aren't you?
 
fmb:

One of the major purposes of the legal system itself is to prevent vigilante justice.

OJ gets the benefit of a misaken (perhaps) application of jury nullification and he's getting the pants sued off him by the Goldman family.

If the Goldman family were MY family and I were in Goldman's place, and, further, if the ability to sue were not available, OK might be pushing up daisies today.

So yes, it is true that misapplication of jury nullification is possible. But the potential consequences of that misapplication can be very severe, sometimes severe enough that the defendant might prefer that you not exercise it.

We hope that jurors have common sense. Sometimes they don't. But that's no reason to abolish (or to effectively abolish by lack of education) jury nullification. Just like abuse of prosecutorial discretion is no reason to abolish it (even though it's only a tradition and is not to be found in the constitution).
 
It's not to let the Charles Mansons of the world roam free but to let the Laura Krihos, John Lawmasters, and Peter McWilliamses of the Nation live in freedom without fear of punishment for violation of some law that should not even exist!
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Danzig:

Exactly.

It's amazing to me that one can support no-knock even though people aren't perfect and the result could be an occasional wrongful death, yet can refuse to support jury nullification based on the OJ Simpson result.

Then again, I'm 53, so perhaps "amazing" isn't the right word.
 
Jury nullification has nothing

to do with the OJ verdict, at least if the jurors themselves can be believed.

What I remember them saying afterward was that the LAPD had screwed the investigation up so badly, with officers taking evidence home with them, broken chains of custody, and all the rest, that even though they thought Simpson was probably guilty, they simply couldn't trust the evidence enough to support a conviction.

That's not nullification. That's a jury doing it's job. They weren't nullifying a bad law, they were punishing the police department. "If you mishandle an investigation, you won't get a conviction" is not nullification. It's the way the system is supposed to work. Prosecutors lose cases when investigators don't follow the rules. Unless you want the police to be above the law, that's as it should be.

I think there have been some nullifications in medical marijuana cases here in CA, where defendants who were clearly guilty were acquitted at trial. IIRC, the Government had no recourse in those cases.

Remember also that, as a juror, you can always at least cause a mistrial. Simply refuse to convict. Even if the other jurors won't go along with you in acquitting, nobody can make you vote "guilty." It only takes one to hang a jury. It's a tough spot to put yourself in, but if you're standing for your principles, well, sometimes that's hard.

Whether it's in the Constitution or not, your vote in the jury room is solely yours, to cast as you will, and there's nothing the State can do to you for casting it.

--Shannon
 
It can also be used to let the guilty go free, and I'd wager a guess that it has been used more in that fashion than the other way.

There have been quite a few all-white juries letting white defendants go free for killing non-whites, especially during the Civil Rights era in the Deep South.

Jury nullification is a two-sided sword...great when it works to right the wrongs of an unjust law, bad when it serves to nullify a just law.
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While this is true, juries can and have done this, which is more to be feared, a jury that lets a guilty man go free or a jury that is forced to condemn an innocent man?
In fact, setting a guilty man free is not always the wrong thing to do. Like I said JN is the final defense against unjust laws OR a law that is not serving justice in said case. For instance if Marko Kloos is arrested for carrying a concealed handgun without a license the jury sees that this man has done no real wrong (which in that sense makes him innocent) even though he has broken the law of illegally carrying concealed. Sending him to jail would not be serving justice (and as far as I personally am concerned, laws against carrying concealed w/o licenses are unjust) the jury has the right to nullify that law by returning with a not guilty verdict.

In fact, sometimes, on a case by case basis, even if the law is a just law (laws against murder and vigilantism) setting the guilty man free might be the right thing to do.

A good movie that ends with what essentially amounts to a jury nullification is A Time to Kill based on a book by John Gresham. Samuel L. Jackson's little black daughter is raped by two pieces of white trash. Samuel L. Jackson, fearing that the two animals will not be convicted bursts into the courthouse with an AR-15 and guns them down for raping his daughter. The jury in the end sets him free even though he is in fact guilty because sending him to jail or the chair would not be serving justice in this case.
 
So the OJ jurors thought that murder was a bad law? interesting take.


But theres also the problem of state trials. Take texas for example, where in their charge to the jury they expressly state that the jury is not to take the wisdom of the law into account. This is perfectly acceptable with their constitution and their history of jurisprudence. What are you to do about that? You can't turn to the federal system since its not applicable.

So we are back to the start. In all our years of case law, there isn't anything stating jury nullification is a fundamental right. As such, the legislature and courts can proscribe it as they see fit. You have no legal grounds to complain.
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Whether it's in the Constitution or not, your vote in the jury room is solely yours, to cast as you will, and there's nothing the State can do to you for casting it.
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If in Texas, they expressly state that I cannot take the wisdom of the law into account, I still can come to any conclusion I want with any reason I want. It seems more like rice paper walls being put up. I am not breaking a law by choosing jury nullification, and it seems that any law enacted against such would be obviously unenforceable.
 
FMB, you quoted me out of context. I was responding to the post about TV shows when I stated that I was not aware of instances of JN. I meant "in TV shows."

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law - Cite This Source
Main Entry: jury nullification
Function: noun
: the acquitting of a defendant by a jury in disregard of the judge's instructions and contrary to the jury's findings of fact
NOTE: Jury nullification is most likely to occur when a jury is sympathetic toward a defendant or regards the law under which the defendant is charged with disfavor. Except for a statutory requirement to the contrary, a jury does not have to be instructed on the possibility of jury nullification.

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
Perhaps I did not state myself clearly before. JN is not about letting evil people go free so that they may harm others. It is about rendering bad laws moot.
 
a jury does not have to be instructed on the possibility of jury nullification.
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And that is a relatively modern development. I think that is something some judge (I'll have to go back and check for specifics) in the late 1890s declared. They don't want you to know about jury nullification.

EDIT: Here it is:

Sparf v. United States, 156 U.S. 51 (1895)[1], was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that federal judges were not obligated to inform jurors of their full rights and powers to judge both the facts as well as the law in bringing a general verdict. The decision was 5–4 with two strong dissenting opinions.
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Good quote Doug..note that it acknowledges the right to judge the law at the same time as it says that the courts have decided that they may keep jurors ignorant of that right
 
They might have declared that the juror has no right to judge the law itself, but if I make it past voir dire I can cast my vote based on whether I like the color green or not.
 
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