[Peace-discuss] Jury Nullification

[E. Wayne Johnson]

No, I am sure that both juries and voters get it wrong, and I recognize 
that my particular views may
not always have sufficiently broad popular support to get the outcome 
that I would think was desirable.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with 
over 2 million people behind bars.
I think that is not only unjust but ridiculous.   I figure that the 
direct and indirect cost is over $100 billion,
which is no money compared to the cost of our military, but still is a 
huge sum, and the cost in lost
quality of life, bitterness, and human suffering is incredible.  One has 
to consider it to be tyrannical.

The original purpose of jury trials was to allow nullification to occur 
to avoid this sort of tyranny.

The first courts are local, there are higher and higher and more central 
courts to which matters can be taken
when it appears that local biases are resulting in general miscarriage 
of justice.

Ron Szoke wrote:
> Wayne:  I hope you're not so naive as to think that jury nullification will, in 
> practice, always or usually result in verdicts that tend in the direction of values 
> or norms that you support.  John has cited the case of local juries that refused 
> to convict the murderers of civil rights workers in the south, c. 1965.  
>
> Suppose that a jury does not convict a Minneapolis policeman who has 
> assaulted, beaten or otherwise abused a dissident demonstrator at the RNC in 
> 2008, citing local values of "law & order" in asserting that the demonstrators 
> had it coming, deserved what they got, had only themselves to blame, etc.  
>
> Compare the acquittals of the gang of policemen who mercilessly beat Rodney 
> King in L.A., as recorded on videotape.  
>
> Are you saying there are no universal norms or values that apply in such cases?   
> How far does your localism go?  Is there, in your mind, anything to prevent the 
> persecution of local minorities?  Do juries ever get it wrong?
>
> --  Ron
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