I know you're not arguing that Noel and I would receive the same sentence. But I am arguing my position based on the assumption of Noel and I facing the same offense with the same priors. In that case I don't believe that I would have been treated as well as Noel. My experience with white middle class drug offenders tells me she got off easy.
>The prosecutor has lots of leeway in
>deciding how HE wants to proceed.
>
>Yes, and? How does popular jsutuce unconstrained by
>law fix that?
It isn't a "fix", it is a counterbalance. In some instances it works for the better and in others, not so well. Much like the judiciary.
> > Jury Nullification is a check on the
>power of the legislature.
>
>No doubt. And now and then it might be a good thing.
When you said you were "opposed <to> simply applying common sense justice instead of law" I thought you meant you were opposed to applying common sense justice instead of law. Apparently you think "now and then it might be a good thing" so I guess I misread you. I stand corrected?
> > It is very democratic.
>
>If you think that disregarding the determinations of
>the body elected in a democracy to determine the law
>is democratic.
So you believe it's democratic for 12 peers to judge your guilt or innocence based not on all the evidence that may be relevant but only on the evidence that's allowed in court. But those same 12 people deciding to disregard a law they see as unjust as it is being applied in that particular case is undemocratic? If those 12 were changing the actual law I would agree it was undemocratic but since that is not what jury nullification does I fail to see how it is less democratic than the entire flawed judicial process. I am open to the idea that jury nullification may be harmful to society but there was a time when many runaway slaves would have argued that it helped them and society. The Camden 28 argued the same.
John Thornton