[lbo-talk] Jury nullification (was: volume

[DoreneFC at aol.com]

Jury nullification opens a Pandora's box? I think that's hyperbole. Jury 
nullification is only one path for active dialogue about what the law should be, 
Outright jury nullification should be rare because juries get to decide not 
only does this (or that) part of the legal code apply but also which versions of 
the applicable facts they find most credible. Plus if both sides of the 
judicial machine have done their job who might not be able just to apply laws, stick 
to evidence presented in court are probably screened out of the process 
because like any amchine, the justice system has quotas and targets to meet, 
production goals to grind through.

Examples from my life

--Last time I got called for jury duty I actually showed up and participated. 
That is I showed up for my two days and went where told to go as pools for 
different cases were created. (The previous times I was away at school or 
pre-screened out on a questionnaire.) The first case I might have been in the pool 
for got settled just before the pool was called to report to the courtroom. 

--The second pool was a drug case, someone caught in a buy-bust operation in 
one of our most notiorious drug dealing areas. I do not know how I would have 
felt about the facts of this case. I know I think differently of some illegal 
drugs than of others. I know I share a well-known public dislike for things 
that smack of entrapment. I know I could babble at length about various social 
and economic imperatives of drug-dealing--and that I could easily call drug 
dealers scum sucking swine just as I do of many other business people. I also 
know all that ws irrelevant because I got screened out very fast for saying 
during Voir dire that I had signed various versions of medical marijuana 
authorizing petitions even though I thought early versions were way off base.

--The next pool was even worse. It was a first-degree murder trial. Once I 
found that out, I tried to get screened off immiedately based on opposition ot 
the death penalty. I did not know the prosecutor had already taken the death 
penalty off the table and wound up having to invokve the oppresive demands of my 
work obligations to get excused. Much as I believe in doing one's civic duty, 
I am glad I got excused. The trial took three months instead of the six weeks 
originally planned. I had am ployer who paid for jury duty, but I would have 
died to have to live on $10 / day for that long.

--I once was a witness in a very messy felony assault Domestic Violence case. 
I am VERY glad that the jury did not invoke jury nullifcation over the 
legislatively enacted definitions of domestic violence in this state, over any of 
the witness characteristics or over other points that get ample attenion in 
ohter jurisdictions.

After all that though, I still understand many reasons juries make 
unpredictable decisions.

DoreneC
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