Well, there mixed questions of fact and law that get submitted to juries, like whether an ambigious contract has been breached. Then the jury gets to decide the meaning of the contract. Or what "reasonable care" is in a negligence case. However, I don'ts ee any such mixed question at issue in this case. The question was, did the Sheik conspire to commit terrorist acts and solicit murders and other crimes?
>
> A friend of mine in law school first explained the
> concept to me years ago when had me go
> with him to attempt to distribute pamphlets to
> potential jurors that would be deciding the case
> of a retarded man accused of murder. His father was
> the defense attorney and said he was
> barred from ever mentioning jury nullification as a
> possible defense.
It's not a defense.
The father didn't think he
> had a strong case with which to defend Johnny Wilson
> so his son thought maybe this would
> help. A bailiff came out and confiscated our
> phamphlets so we didn't get to pass them out.
> Maybe it would have helped maybe it wouldn't. His
> father was pissed because he feared he
> might get in legal trouble if they traced the jury
> nullification pamphlets back to his son.
>
> The cops had coerced a confession from retarded kid
> and he was convicted of robbing and
> burning alive an 80 year old widow in their small
> town. 10 years later the real killer confessed
> and Johnny was set free after having been severely
> tramatized in prison all that time. Great
> system, coerced confessions are admissable but jury
> nullification pamphlets are not.
"Admissible" is not the right word for information pn JN, which is not evidence. Only evidence is admissible.
Coerced confessions are NOT adfmissible, which is presumably why the guy was eventually set free.
> Maybe if juries had more power there would be fewer
> fuck ups like these.
>
How so? If they believed the confession, and rejected the argument that it was coerced, they would have convicted like they did, not nullified. Nullification means acquittal despite the law because you think the law is unfair. Since acquittal is final and unappeable, and double jeopardy prevents you from being retried on the same charges, JN is a potentially powerful tool, but probably fairly rarely used.
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