Recently I saw an interesting, if a wee bit over dramatic, internet video about Jury Nullification.
Overhead disclaimer. What follows is a massively over simplified explanation of an already over simplified explanation of a legal concept that from what I can gather is so complicated people have made entire legal careers out of arguing about it. I have zero legal expertise. I am not a lawyer. I haven't even watched an episode of Matlock all the way through. So sprinkle grains of salt all over this to taste, if you know what I mean. Also this is gonna come from a sorta US perspective just because that's where I'm at and getting all my info from, although I'm sure the concept exists to some degree in most other countries with trial by jury and I would be interested to see if any other countries have tried to either codify or remove jury nullification to any degree.
Now as I understand it now Jury Nullification isn't really part of the law in the traditional sense, as in it is not really officially spelled out in any law or legal document or procedure or anything like that. It exists as a logical result of certain other legal concepts, mainly that juries in a legal sense can't really be wrong from a certain point of view. That is there is nothing legally speaking stopping you from sitting as a member of jury, listening to the all the testimony, observing all the evidence, and giving a verdict that is 100% polar opposite to all that. Jurors in most cases cannot be punished for coming to the "wrong" conclusion.
So basically this, combined with restrictions on double jeopardy means that legally speaking if someone comes before your jury and is obviously 100% beyond any shadow of a doubt guilty of a crime but you don't think the crime should be a crime there is nothing really stopping you from nullifying the law and letting the person go free by... well lying and saying standards of evidence for conviction weren't met. You could possibly get in trouble for perjury depending on what questions you were asked during jury selection combined with how you brought it up to the other jurors, but from the most part the person who was on trail would be pretty much untouchable.
So is this a good thing?
Alright my own shot from the hip answer... no but it's completely irrelevant since there is zero way of getting rid of it.
On a base level the Judicial Branch, of which our hypothetical "you" is a part of while serving on a jury, exists to determine what the laws mean, not decide if they are right or not. The Judicial Branch over ruling laws this way (separate from say SCOTUS ruling a law unconstitutional) erodes some of the balance of power away from the Legislative Branch. A SCOTUS member has to argue why a law is Unconstitutional, not just decide they don't like it.
But the core legal concepts that inherently lead to jury notification are sorta impossible to get rid of if we still want to have a functioning jury system so this is all academic from where I'm sitting.
What does everyone else think?
*If anyone is interested: http://ift.tt/1lCBJdl
Overhead disclaimer. What follows is a massively over simplified explanation of an already over simplified explanation of a legal concept that from what I can gather is so complicated people have made entire legal careers out of arguing about it. I have zero legal expertise. I am not a lawyer. I haven't even watched an episode of Matlock all the way through. So sprinkle grains of salt all over this to taste, if you know what I mean. Also this is gonna come from a sorta US perspective just because that's where I'm at and getting all my info from, although I'm sure the concept exists to some degree in most other countries with trial by jury and I would be interested to see if any other countries have tried to either codify or remove jury nullification to any degree.
Now as I understand it now Jury Nullification isn't really part of the law in the traditional sense, as in it is not really officially spelled out in any law or legal document or procedure or anything like that. It exists as a logical result of certain other legal concepts, mainly that juries in a legal sense can't really be wrong from a certain point of view. That is there is nothing legally speaking stopping you from sitting as a member of jury, listening to the all the testimony, observing all the evidence, and giving a verdict that is 100% polar opposite to all that. Jurors in most cases cannot be punished for coming to the "wrong" conclusion.
So basically this, combined with restrictions on double jeopardy means that legally speaking if someone comes before your jury and is obviously 100% beyond any shadow of a doubt guilty of a crime but you don't think the crime should be a crime there is nothing really stopping you from nullifying the law and letting the person go free by... well lying and saying standards of evidence for conviction weren't met. You could possibly get in trouble for perjury depending on what questions you were asked during jury selection combined with how you brought it up to the other jurors, but from the most part the person who was on trail would be pretty much untouchable.
So is this a good thing?
Alright my own shot from the hip answer... no but it's completely irrelevant since there is zero way of getting rid of it.
On a base level the Judicial Branch, of which our hypothetical "you" is a part of while serving on a jury, exists to determine what the laws mean, not decide if they are right or not. The Judicial Branch over ruling laws this way (separate from say SCOTUS ruling a law unconstitutional) erodes some of the balance of power away from the Legislative Branch. A SCOTUS member has to argue why a law is Unconstitutional, not just decide they don't like it.
But the core legal concepts that inherently lead to jury notification are sorta impossible to get rid of if we still want to have a functioning jury system so this is all academic from where I'm sitting.
What does everyone else think?
*If anyone is interested: http://ift.tt/1lCBJdl
via JREF Forum http://ift.tt/1eYj5MF
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