[lbo-talk] Jury nullification (was: volume

[andie nachgeborenen]

I AM a lawyer, though I don't see that that is relevant here. It's not a matter of what's just. It's a matter of what the law is. People have different ideas about what is just. There are disagreementsa bout the law, too, but these are much more constrained, in part because we much maligned professioins are trained to follow rules and obey precedents. You might think that it's just to let people sell drugs. Other might think that drug dealers should be boiled alive. The place where we decide questions like that is called the legislature. Once the legislature settles it for the moment, we are all supposed to apply the rules they adopt on our behalf. That way we don't get, for example, the manifest injustice of one drug dealer walking because of a jury of people like you while his co-conspirator is boiled alive because the jury is of a different composition. If you don't like the law -- the rules the legislature adopts -- try to have them changed. This isn't rocket science. It's

 elementary democracy. 

R <rhisiart at charter.net> wrote:i'm not a lawyer.  but my experience is they hate it.  it's a threat.  especially to those lawyers who've become judges.  you see, the common human isn't smart enough to know what's just and what isn't without "professional" help.

 
i'll step aside and let the lawyers speak for themselves.

 
R
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jon Johanning 
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org 
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 8:01 AM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Jury nullification (was: volume

I was once rejected for jury duty in Philadelphia after I expounded a 
jury nullification position. I wasn't really trying to get myself 
excused; I really believed it. However, my dismissal may have been due 
simply to my very confused explanation of my views sounding like the 
ravings of a madman.

A question for the list's lawyers: what do they think of potential 
jurors who take such a position?

On Tuesday, June 24, 2003, at 09:50  AM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:


> Actually, I take jury duty seriously, and my experience so far is that
> most people do as well.  In fact, I would like to serve on a drug case -
> because it would give me an opportunity to refuse to convict under the
> rubric of jury nullification of unjust or simply idiotic laws (such as
> drug laws in the US).

Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org
______________________________
"When I fed the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why are they 
poor, they called me a communist."

    -Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop, Propaganda and the Public 
Mind

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