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US citizens, can you give historical context and examples of jury nullification?

Let's address the elephant in the room

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23 comments

  • CGP Grey’s video offers both explanation and examples, and helps explain why Americans mostly don't know about the topic. i.e. it was used by people in the North to protect slaves running away, but also by people in the South doing lynch mob activities - either way, it reflects a breakdown of all of society and complete and utter lack of trust in the governing bodies, and a lifting up of personal preferences above the needs of society, to the point of even lying to a judge to accomplish the end goal.

    i.e., totally setting aside right vs. wrong, there is a process by which things are most helpful to happen - e.g. voting, and in this case a trial by jury - and this topic completely bypasses that process. In short, it claims that the end justifies the means.

    And that is a very dangerous topic indeed. As with the mod on LW, who gets to decide those ends - the Christian God? And who speaks in His place then, you?

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  • The thing about jury nullification is that it isn't a checkbox.

    For example you could argue that the OJ Simpson murder trial was a case of jury nullification. It probably wasn't, the jury just came to a conclusion many people disagree with. In fact OJ was found guilty in the civil trial. Was it truly just the difference between "beyond a reasonable doubt" and "a preponderance of evidence"? Or was it jury nullification? Or were the jury idiots? (In which case?)

    Rodney King was beaten by police officers but ultimately acquitted, was that jury nullification?

    Kyle Rotten shot people but was ultimately acquitted, was that jury nullification?

    Additionally, the same law that allows for jury nullification also allows for the opposite situation. Someone who definitely didn't commit the crime still being convicted.

    I'm sure there are plenty of cases where an "unfair" verdict is rendered. Proving actual jury nullification is difficult, unless jurors actively speak out about it, which even then can be risky.

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  • The example that comes to mind for me, an Australian, is the Camden 28. They were a group of anti Vietnam war protestors who were acquitted after the jury gave not-guilty verdicts despite clear evidence against them.

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  • I just read the sidebar and noted that you would prefer political discussions to happen on !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world

    But under the new LW ToS, jury nullification of future crimes cannot be discussed there. Could we maybe relax that rule?

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    • It's up to jgrim and lazyguru, I don't want to cause them any problems. Though this topic is arguably not "political" (at least in the sense of one side vs. another), just an extremely controversial one, and we also need to be careful bc of the slippery slope: like even if parts of it were considered okay, where is the line between that and when it all of a sudden is not? Lemmy.World was helpful in being very clear where that line should be.

      If the admins want to lock this, I will absolutely support that call. Especially with the USA becoming more fascist in a few months time - we need to preserve this space to discuss things in more than we need to have a single discussion about any one topic in particular.

      Edit: oh and I just re-read the part about "future crimes" - that seems very likely to get us in trouble, so I would say no, not at all in relation to future crimes. It's one thing to discuss a topic in theory, and quite another to bring federal attention down upon us to scrutinize everything happening here.

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      • Lemmy.World was helpful in being very clear where that line should be.

        Indeed. I had a look at DO's rules, they link to the the Lemmy Code of Conduct, which doesn't explicitly address this topic

        Edit: oh and I just re-read the part about “future crimes” - that seems very likely to get us in trouble, so I would say no, not at all in relation to future crimes. It’s one thing to discuss a topic in theory, and quite another to bring federal attention down upon us to scrutinize everything happening here.

        But then couldn't this topic being discussed on LW as well now, even with the new ToS?

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  • Here’s a ~30 year old excellent law article on jury nullification by James Joseph Duane, who is also somewhat well known for his excellent “Don’t talk to police” lecture on YouTube. Click through the SSL warning in that first site to get the pdf - I think that’s better than the JSTOR library-login-wall link but you can see it there too.

    It’s a pretty comprehensive positive treatment on jury nullification, with a bunch of history and context, well worth your time.

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