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July 30, 2005
Jury Nullification
Scott on AMCGLTD brought up the notion of Jury Nullification yesterday on his blog. The notion of Jury Nullification is basically that a jury has an obligation not only to consider a person's guilt or innocence under the law, but going a step further decide if the law itself is just. Historically this process has been used to allow the public to release a guilty person from punishment because they feel the law is unjust. On the surface the nobility of the notion is dramatic and hard to resist, but at some point the harsh realities of the this notion have to be considered and ultimately it must be rejected for the danger it possess to the very fabric of our society.
The lists of ways the law have been used to protect society from out of control legislatures is long and distinguished. So I'm not going to bother to go over how it's suppose to be used. Instead lets look at the make up juries in America these days as the first reason this is a bad idea. In this country the more educated you are, the more unqualified for jury duty you are. Basically anyone with a job is almost immediately released from jury duty, especially the most educated such as teachers or doctors. When juries are being picked by defense teams they practically demand that only the most ignorant and gullible people be put on the jury and with the process of exemptions they are almost guaranteed to get their wish. So we have the first danger to the jury nullification. You have an inadequate cross section of the American Population with the power to decide if a law is just or not.
The second major problem is that you have radical right wing organizations that train their people to exploit this loophole in the law in hopes of changing the nature of legislation that they have no hope of changing through the proper channels. The public at large has little knowledge of these loopholes in the legislative process, but the effects of a violent and vocal minority in this country hoping that they are the ones picked to make a decision that could propel their radical hate ideology forward is terrifying. A perfect example of this is the test jury trials done for the Rudolph case. Radical Neo-Christian fanatics were able to get on three quarters of the test juries that were set up from the pool in the area. These radicals sought basically the make murder a legal act when it was used against people they felt were "immoral". While there is a long tradition of this where the Klan thrived in the South and Midwest, it doesn't represent the will of America at large. These radicals were hoping to reward followers of their hate ideology who resorted to violence. The long term goal was likely to encourage more violence and spread that hate ideology.
Ultimately we must look at the notion of Jury Nullification as a double edged sword. We must make sure that a single radical isn't able to mislead a jury towards bringing harm to the laws of the land. At the same time we must allow Americans to protect their peers from unjust legislative actions. Our justice system would rather err on the side of caution and let a guilty man go, instead of let an innocent one rot in jail. While I agree with the notion given a choice of allowing a radical minority to abuse the legislative process through the courts, then it's safer to let the innocent go to jail than risk the Republic falling to the treachery of an evil group of America haters. I would rather depend on the people's representatives to step in and do the right thing.
Posted by ManDrake at July 30, 2005 10:21 AM
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Comments
One reason why juries are made up of mostly uneducated people is the fact that a lot of people who would be very qualified often times find ways to avoid jury duty. I was stunned when I was picked from the jury pool for two separate murder trials several years ago. I also noticed a lot of people willing to serve were retirees. I was very interested in seeing how the system worked but figured since I was an RN and had the background to understand the medical information I would be excluded. BTW Guilty as Charged on both cases. Of course I don't live in California. lol
Posted by: Pat at July 30, 2005 11:49 AM
I've got nothing against people being convicted of any crime that they did. :)
Posted by: ManDrake at July 30, 2005 11:58 AM