Jury nullification.

This one...

Next, look at section 4.1, titled "Deadlocked Jury".

Notice that it says that (to paraphrase) by law you are not required to participate in the unlocking of a deadlocked jury. You are being asked to.

They must have choked to have to say "by law you don't have to" in the instructions.

So there's a law somewhere that says you don't have to.
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...and this one:

918.10 Charge to jury; request for instructions.--

(1) At the conclusion of argument of counsel, the court shall charge the jury. The charge shall be only on the law of the case and must include the penalty for the offense for which the accused is being charged.

(2) All charges to the jury shall be delivered orally and shall be taken by the court reporter, transcribed, and filed.

(3) At or after the close of the evidence, a party may file written requests that the court instruct the jury on the law as stated in the requests. The court shall inform counsel of its proposed action on the requests before their arguments to the jury.
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The first one is the expression of the concept that it is undesirable and intolerable that the inner workings of a juror's mind, once he's a juror, be questioned. The rules say this is, by law, to be conveyed to each juror. So someone, sometime, must have written a law demanding this. What would you imagine the intent of that law to be? My money is on that it is license to deliberate and argue for acquittal without being made to reveal the real reason you are doing so, thus licensing jury nullification.


The second flatly states that the jurors must be made aware of the sentence, along with the facts and the law associated with that sentence. What possible use would a juror have for the knowledge of the sentence if he is expected, by law, to decide based only on the facts? None. It is another license to use extraneous information to acquit if a juror sees fit.
 
I think you need to study up a bit more. Your points, while creatve, are meaningless in the context of the argument.

WildonwardthenAlaska
 
Wow. Its real clear that most of your guys have never been in a court room, and don't know piss about the current state of the law today.
 
I have never ended up on a jury. So we have 12 folks who are not lawyers and jurists in a room making a decision based on the evidence presented them. The standard is beyond a reasonable doubt.

They make the decision. I think that things go awry when prosecutors use a lot of technical evidence in a jury trial that the jurors dont understand. The standard to arrest a person is probable cause and to bring them to trial. That means to convict a person the gap between probable cause and beyond a reasonable doubt has to be bridged by the DA and law enforcement. If that is done I wouldnt have a problem voting guilty.

I couldnt say ahead of time if I would ever use jury nullification. One of those things where you had to be there. If I did I certainly wouldnt say anything about it. I would just say that I wasnt convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. If I did it would have to be a pretty outrageous case against the defendant with little or no evidence. So the answer is probably no.
 
I know of a case right now where a 21 year old guy is being prosecuted for sending 4 dirty pictures to a 16 year old buddy. Under Georgia Law, sending dirty pics to a minor is a crime (he sent the pics electronically). Both the accused and the victim were males, and the pictures were of a male and female.

The 21 year old, if convicted, will be put on the sex offender registry! Forever and ever he will be marked as a pervert. He won't be able to live near a church, a bus stop, a school, etc. Why? I remember getting my brother's buddies to get me Hustlers and Playboys. I guess they should be on the sex offender registry too?

The Solicitor in this case absolutely refuses to reduce the charges, despite acknowledging that the law is absurd. Why?

He doesn't care.

I hope to God the jury nullifies on this one.
 
I saw news about a case in Georgia where a guy was sent to prison for having oral sex with his ex wife. :eek:

Laws are made to establish societal norms and boundaries. If that's the what the people want in Georgia......

Here in Texas we had a crazy case. A local police officer had sex with a 17 year old girl, which wasn't illegal. He got convicted for taking nude shots of her on the police car. You can have consensual sex with a 17 year old in Texas but leave the cameras at home.
 
There are a couple of good law review articles on the subject, relatively recent. What you will take away from these is that the issue is not as cut and dried and the two polar opposite opinions shouting at each other on here make it out to be. The purpose of an inviolable power of the jury to acquit is to be merciful where justice, rather than a mechanical application of the law, requires it.

See:
33 VALULR 449
Honorable Robert D. Rucker (J., Ind. Ct. of App.)
Valparaiso University Law Review
THE RIGHT TO IGNORE THE LAW: CONSTITUTIONAL ENTITLEMENT VERSUS JUDICIAL INTERPRETATION
Spring, 1999

66 BKNLR 1207
Irwin A. Horowitz, Norbert L. Kerr, Keith E. Niedermeier
Brooklyn Law Review
JURY NULLIFICATION: LEGAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
Summer, 2001
 
I will use a current law that is on the books that just about everyone here is guilty of.
Possion of materials for making a weapon of mass destruction.
You are arrested and tried on these charges, yes you are guilty because in your home you have the needed parts. Now is the jury to convict you because of the cleaning supplies you have or the things you have in your garage to take care of your yard? This is where J.N. comes into play, yes you are guilty but no that is not why you had said components at your house.
 
C Philip:

Re the link to Fully Informed Juries you included in your post, seems that one needs Microsoft Office to open the file. Unfortunately, I don't have Microsoft Office on my computer.

Is there another link to this material, or do you happen to know a way around the seeming need for Microsoft Office software in this case?
 
Now is the jury to convict you because of the cleaning supplies you have or the things you have in your garage to take care of your yard? This is where J.N. comes into play, yes you are guilty but no that is not why you had said components at your house.
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No, JN does not come into play here. Possession of materials for making a weapon/destruictive device is not a strict liability crime. You would lack the necessary mens rea; a lack of guilty intent if your possession of those materials was for their generally accepted uses (cleaning supplies, etc.) and not for the purpose of making a WMD. Could I use pool chlorine to make a destructive device or a chemical weapon? Certainly, but I have pool chlorine because there's a pool in my backyard and I'd rather not swim in a pool full of slime.
 
News flash: Government charges firearms dealer with recordkeeping violations and seeks revocation of FFL. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury is charged with determining whether several 4473 forms that the dealer accepted with "Y/N" answers were improperly completed and the judge explains that the law requires answers on 4473s to be in the form of "Yes/No."
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Acquit or convict? And please explain how justice is served by your decision.
 
Laws are made to establish societal norms and boundaries. If that's the what the people want in Georgia......
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If I were on a jury in that case, I'd be happy to finish that sentence:

...they can go to hell. I'll acquit.
 
I think you need to study up a bit more. Your points, while creatve, are meaningless in the context of the argument.
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Creative as I like taking credit for being, I can't claim to have created those laws. Somebody else gets the credit. I only found them.

Meaningless? Those laws are two more reasons than I had before to exercise my power of jury nullification to right an injustice if it comes down to it. To the defendant it's going to be very meaningful.
 
You know, after 8 pages of discussion on this subject I’m still amazed with the idea that all it takes is for one to get on a jury and vote “not guilty” to acquit the defendant and “nullify” the law. Last time I looked it takes twelve to convict or twelve to acquit in criminal cases.
So unless you can find twelve jurors that have managed to get through voir dire and are willing to nullify, the best you are going to come up with is a hung jury. All it takes is one that refuses to acquit, so until your poll comes up to 92% in favor of J.N., the odds of coming up with a jury pool that will give you 12 jurors that are willing to nullify are quite high. Nothing is going to happen other than a retrial. And I don’t have any idea on how to calculate the odds on coming up with a second jury that has 12 seated ready to “nullify”, or a third, or however many it would take to get the law changed.
I think I would rather spend my efforts on trying to “nullify” the law through the ballot box where it only takes a simple majority rather than a 92% one.
(And I don’t have to “play games” with the judge and lawyers during jury selection.)
 
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