FW: [Peace-discuss] Jury Nullification

[LAURIE SOLOMON]

-----Original Message-----
From: LAURIE SOLOMON [mailto:LAURIE at ADVANCENET.NET] 
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 11:39 PM
To: 'E. Wayne Johnson'
Subject: RE: [Peace-discuss] Jury Nullification

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

And where do you come by this bit of information?  Is this your analysis and
interpretation or is it accepted historical fact?

>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. 

While trial courts, where one can have a jury trial in criminal cases, are
more or less local (especially in the state court system and less so in the
federal court system), the higher courts in each type of court system are
less and less local the higher the court.  More to the point, the higher
courts are not trial courts but appeal courts and do not have juries. As
such, they only examine matters of law and not fact and when local biases
violate the law or due process; they do not typically address such issues as
judge and/or venue shopping, cherry picking of juries and manipulation of
the jury selection process, trial by the media, and other indirect local
prejudices that may impact pre-trial decisions and actions such as bail,
decisions on what evidence and testimony to collect and what to ignore,
timing of the actual trial dates, offers made to defendants and witnesses in
exchange for plea bargains and testimony, etc.


-----Original Message-----
From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of E. Wayne
Johnson
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 10:30 PM
To: Ron Szoke
Cc: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net; C. G. Estabrook
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Jury Nullification

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
>
>
>
>   
_______________________________________________
Peace-discuss mailing list
Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss