Jury nullification.
- Thread starter Danzig
- Start date
+1 to Antipitas and Wildalaska.
Quote from Wildalaska: "So how does this all pertain to jury nullifcation. Simple. The essense of the argument by us "anti nullifiers" is that it entails disrespect for the system. The system itself is designed to dilute governmental power and the law as codified and interpreted using doctrines such as stare decisis does dilute that power."
I have no respect for the systems as it is because it is extremely biased against freedom and in favor of the government. There has been no dillution of government power. Instead, over the last several hundred years we've seen a steady concentration of government power.
As wiser men than me have said, the trend is always toward more government power and less freedom for the people. U.S. history has borne this out.
"More free" than other nations does not constitute free. Our basis for comparison should not be China, Cuba, Venezuela, or any other nation. Our standard for comparison should be the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Quote from Wildalaska: "So how does this all pertain to jury nullifcation. Simple. The essense of the argument by us "anti nullifiers" is that it entails disrespect for the system. The system itself is designed to dilute governmental power and the law as codified and interpreted using doctrines such as stare decisis does dilute that power."
I have no respect for the systems as it is because it is extremely biased against freedom and in favor of the government. There has been no dillution of government power. Instead, over the last several hundred years we've seen a steady concentration of government power.
As wiser men than me have said, the trend is always toward more government power and less freedom for the people. U.S. history has borne this out.
"More free" than other nations does not constitute free. Our basis for comparison should not be China, Cuba, Venezuela, or any other nation. Our standard for comparison should be the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Wildalaska
Moderator
My response is as follows:
1. If you have no respect for the system, you have no right to complain, since only those who work with the system or to fix the system are part of the process and deserve to be heard. I equate lack of respect to those who simply would tear down the eiifice and have no conception of how to build something workable in it's place.
2. Next we dont have several hundred years of history, only a little over two. And goverment power is as circumscribed as it has ever been. For as the Government grows the laws and systems to check it grow with it. One cannot apply 18th century methods to 21st century reality...as government expands and contracts to accomadate modernity, so do the methods and means to assist the expansion or check it.
Since you raised the issue of the law being biased against "freedom" (whatever that means), let me ask you: in those glory days of 1799 were blacks and natives "people", could women vote, were women still subject to dower and curtesy laws, was habeus corpus an expansive writ, did lawsuits under section 1983 exist, could whites marry blacks, were stores closed on sunday so some folks could go to church, did women have control over their own bodies, could you read the Marquis de sade openly? Did you have flush toilets, interstate highways, clean water, minum wages, wage and hour restrictions, telecomminications, the right not be be locked up en masse as an enemy alien? Did you have the right then to have a law kicked out as violative of the constituion? Could everybody even vote?
Agian...ya got a bitch about some of your personal feedoms being violated by big intrusive government? Those are POLITICAL bitches. That means you can work with the system to change them to your liking. Thats your right. Just to complain and not do anyhting else is meaningless.
And as to your personal freedoms being violated. Tell me how many ARENT de minimus?
WildnonjuratlexAlaska
Wildalaska
Moderator
Naw, i thought I was so correct that no answer was necessary
WildbrokenAlaska
Let it Bleed
New member
Trial by ordeal worked well for a time. 
Wildalaska
Moderator
That was part of the common law too
And remember the All Writs Act!!!!
WildwritofmandamuswritoferrorcorumnobiswritofquowarrantoAlaska
And remember the All Writs Act!!!!
WildwritofmandamuswritoferrorcorumnobiswritofquowarrantoAlaska
Wildalaska
Moderator
In what way would they have disagreed?
Wildandpartwofmystatement?Alaska
I agree, and I think that was the case in the Rosenthal example I cited earlier. Those jurors disagreed with the law and thought their own ruling an injustice, and there was certainly good reason to believe the law itself was unconstitutional and therefore not a law at all, but mere usurpation.
I don't think nullification should be done lightly, for the reasons you stated in that long ode to stare decisis. I'd still do it if someone came before me charged with a violation of 922 (q) because I don't see how being near a school with a gun is interstate commerce. Do you?
Wildalaska said: "Since you raised the issue of the law being biased against "freedom" (whatever that means), let me ask you: in those glory days of 1799 were blacks and natives "people", could women vote, were women still subject to dower and curtesy laws, was habeus corpus an expansive writ, did lawsuits under section 1983 exist, could whites marry blacks, were stores closed on sunday so some folks could go to church, did women have control over their own bodies, could you read the Marquis de sade openly? Did you have flush toilets, interstate highways, clean water, minum wages, wage and hour restrictions, telecomminications, the right not be be locked up en masse as an enemy alien? Did you have the right then to have a law kicked out as violative of the constituion? Could everybody even vote?"
I respond: "The taxes we face are MUCH higher than those which led the founders to rebel against Britain. In decades past our fathers and grandfather's brought back fully automatic weapons from World Wars 1 and 2. Nobody questioned it. It was even taken for granted that those who served in such wars had earned the right to keep their service weapons after their term of service had ended. Now we need permission to bring home so much as a bayonet or knife. The right to self medicate is as old as humanity, but in the last century, the government made the practice of that right illegal with the war on plants. We now have designated "free speech zones" instead of our natural born right to speak freely whenever and wherever we please. Once upon a time a man was responsible for educating his children and providing for them..he needed no help from the government. Now you cannot educate your own children without the permission of the government, or at least "notifying" them that you were going to do so. Let's not delve too deeply into the topic of discipline! At one time a man's land was his to do with as he saw fit..it was truly his land. Not anymore. At one time a man could run HIS business as he saw fit so long as he was not harming anyone else. Now you have to jump through hoops to get licenses and permits and you have to abide by literally hundreds of laws in order to operate a business of your own.
Don't tell me that we are a more free people than we were in ages past. GROUPS of people have gained freedoms that they did not have. I am happy for that. But on a fundamental level, we as individuals have never been less free and it's only getting worse. For every perceived "gain" we make..we lose more."
I respond: "The taxes we face are MUCH higher than those which led the founders to rebel against Britain. In decades past our fathers and grandfather's brought back fully automatic weapons from World Wars 1 and 2. Nobody questioned it. It was even taken for granted that those who served in such wars had earned the right to keep their service weapons after their term of service had ended. Now we need permission to bring home so much as a bayonet or knife. The right to self medicate is as old as humanity, but in the last century, the government made the practice of that right illegal with the war on plants. We now have designated "free speech zones" instead of our natural born right to speak freely whenever and wherever we please. Once upon a time a man was responsible for educating his children and providing for them..he needed no help from the government. Now you cannot educate your own children without the permission of the government, or at least "notifying" them that you were going to do so. Let's not delve too deeply into the topic of discipline! At one time a man's land was his to do with as he saw fit..it was truly his land. Not anymore. At one time a man could run HIS business as he saw fit so long as he was not harming anyone else. Now you have to jump through hoops to get licenses and permits and you have to abide by literally hundreds of laws in order to operate a business of your own.
Don't tell me that we are a more free people than we were in ages past. GROUPS of people have gained freedoms that they did not have. I am happy for that. But on a fundamental level, we as individuals have never been less free and it's only getting worse. For every perceived "gain" we make..we lose more."
WildAlaska said:
I believe you have just made a logical error in this definition. If stare decisis is, "a logical and philosophical recognition that once an issue is determined, it is determined." then it cannot at the same time be "a guideline for orderly change." Logical opposites, that.
That would be an excellent argument except for this:
Because that is exactly what the Jury veto is all about. In a specific case, with a specific circumstance, for a specific defendant, the Jury finds that the rule is MANIFESTLY unjust. By its veto power, the Jury restores justice.
Please note that I do not call for indiscriminate Jury veto. Rather as Lysander Spooner says:
Of course, in the eyes of the ABA, Mr. Spooner was dead wrong... As was the passage I quoted from Elliots Debates.
There is something wrong, when we discuss constitutional issues and we neglect the history by which any meaning may be embedded. In this discussion of the Jury power of veto, we are not discussing a blank slate. That tablet was well written upon, before the Courts began to tinker!
note bene: During the October ABA Jury Symposium, a panel on Jury Reform, chaired by Professor Stephan Landsman, a jury historian and member of the ABA jury reform committee, was asked whether the committee had considered historical norms in assessing their suggested reforms. The answer was resoundingly no!
Now it is beyond the scope of this thread to dwell upon those reforms, other than to say that these reforms were drawn up, without benefit of peer review, and were in fact, written as if the slate was blank.
And you worry about a jury exercising its historical powers entails disrespect for our Judicial system? I worry that such tinkering would lead to further diminished respect for juries and diminished use of the jury system. I believe it would lead to an even more pronounced decrease in the willingness of jurors to appear for jury duty.
I posit that the Jury veto does not render the entire framework, useless. Rather, it points to a probable problem within the framework, thereby allowing correction (legislatively).
Exactly. However, I believe we view the vehicle differently.
See? Therein lies the rub. Between voir dire (Remember? The Government gets two shots to disqualify a potential juror) and the supposed jurors oath, we have at one stroke made Juries nothing more than puppets for the government. Further, it shows complete disrespect to the concept of a Jury by the legal profession, and it also shows utter disdain to the jurors and their own independence. Again, I bring to your attention the quote from Elliots Debates.
Now, as to actually lieing to the Judge, I won't and I haven't. Nor will I take an oath that serves only the government. Those are my standards and principles. I don't suspect they are every bodies.
CobrayCommando
Moderator
LOL
Wildalaska will soon have that experience from the judge's point of view, we'll see how he feels afterwards!
Wildalaska will soon have that experience from the judge's point of view, we'll see how he feels afterwards!
Wildalaska
Moderator
prohibition brings up intersting issues of nullification. real interesting. Al, care to explain how nullification is appropriate where the law being nullified is the constitution itself.?
Ill get to the rest of your post tomorrow
Wildrunninoutof gasAlaska
Ill get to the rest of your post tomorrow
Wildrunninoutof gasAlaska
Wildalaska
Moderator
One of my dearest friends died Wednesday of a drug overdose. She was 27.
I think I'll support the war on drugs.
Maybe view that big infringement on the rights of man from the point of view of those innocent folks who would be hurt by the legality of such vice.
And to toss one more in the mix: Common law. Gin Act. Read your history.
WildandishalltakeuptherestlaterAlaska
I'm not as smart as Al, but I'll take a shot.
When the people start nullifying a law in a significant percentage of cases, that's the "chuck engine" light in your vehicle coming on.
When the people start nullifying a part of the Constitution in a significant percentage of cases, that's the "chuck engine" light in your vehicle coming on.
The Constitution is the creation of the people, just like the laws are, and we can sit in judgement of our creation, and we can change it if we want to. Nullification is just another feedback mechanism in the system, indicating time for a change.
Sorry to hear about your friend, and that she was not helped by prohibition. I still believe what she was doing was most likely not interstate commerce, and was probably more related to "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."
Just because there's a problem does not mean there is federal authority.