Jury Duty
 

I had Jury Duty today. A criminal case - possession of 20 grams or less of Cannibis.

If you personally disagree with this law, could you vote to convict?


If there is interest I'll post the actual results later.

Prime95,

I would excuse myself from the jury if I felt I couldn't apply the law fairly (i.e. I'd tell the judge I would vote not-guilty no matter the evidence). Otherwise I would feel obligated to follow the law. But I'd only do this on laws I feel are morally wrong to comply with, not with laws I just feel were foolish.

So, on the specific instance you cited, I would have no problem voting for guilty (if that's what the evidence pointed to).

Best,
Pace

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush#Substance_abuse_controversy[/url] :shock:

What your guy needs is a nice daddy do get him off the hook :whistle:

[QUOTE=Prime95]I had Jury Duty today. A criminal case - possession of 20 grams or less of Cannibis.

If you personally disagree with this law, could you vote to convict?


If there is interest I'll post the actual results later.[/QUOTE]

Is this for the U.S.?

If so, is this for state law or federal law?

The supreme law of the land is the U.S. Constitution. The purpose of this
document is to grant very specific powers to the federal government. If
one reads, for example, the Federalist papers, it is clear that our founders,
in their great wisdom [no sarcasm here!] intended that anything not
explicitly allowed by the Constitution is prohibited. There is nothing
in the Constitution that gives the Federal government the right to restrict
usage of drugs. Indeed, we tried the "great experiment" and it failed.
I ask: If an amendment was required to ban alcohol, why isn't a similar
amendment needed to ban other drugs? I say that it should be required.

OTOH, the Constitution does deed some power to the states through the
9'th and 10'th amendements, although the ^&*#@*#!&^ on the Supreme
Court often have chosen to ignore these amendements.

If it is a state law that prohibits the cannibus, then I would have to say
that the state does have the right to prohibit its use.

Of course, in the U.S. the people are sovereign (theoretically), so we
always hold the power to nullify laws we think are bad through jury nullification. [even though judges and such would like to prohibit it; they
can't].

Follow your conscience.

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux]I would excuse myself from the jury if I felt I couldn't apply the law fairly[/QUOTE]

Interesting. If you felt a law was morally reprehensible (say, the old Jim Crow laws), wouldn't you get a better moral result by using jury nullification than by passing the buck to the next person?

I'm not saying this law rises to the level of the old Jim Crow laws. But, perhaps jury nullification should be a useful tool in society's checks and balances.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman]Is this for the U.S.?
If so, is this for state law or federal law?[/QUOTE]

The case was brought by the State of Florida.

Being the only one to vote for the first item, I guess I'm a hard-ass. If I disagree with the law, then it is up to me (and those who believe the same as me) to try to change the law. Until that happens, I have to follow the law. In this case, I would hope that upon a guilty verdict that the judge would not be harsh (such as the three strikes rule where the guilty party would be send to prison for 10 years or so). BTW, I do think that some controlled substances should be legalized, but that doesn't matter.

Zeta-Flux, it depends upon whether or not the judge tells you what the case is about. If he says it is a drug case (without more detail), how can you honestly say that you will always vote not guilty?

There might be cases where "it depends upon the law", but I can't think of any at the moment. I'll change my vote when that happens.

I belive that if they broke the law then they should be convicted thats why the law was put into place. If you break the law then you got to pay the price im saying this because there was proibally a reason why that law passed though are system and why (if national law) 400 and some odd reprisentaives voted for it and agreed upon it setting apart there differences to come into the goal of passing the law. This is a good moral question but i do believe that the person should be convicted.

[QUOTE=Prime95]Interesting. If you felt a law was morally reprehensible (say, the old Jim Crow laws), wouldn't you get a better moral result by using jury nullification than by passing the buck to the next person?
[/QUOTE]That is a good point. I know my first reaction would have been to excuse myself. But, if I had the power to cause a jury nullification, which in this case might be considered a form of protest, then it is something I would consider doing. Especially if the end result would stand even a remote chance of educating just one person.

The rathing unexciting result of jury duty:

During jury questioning, the prosecutor, who was wearing a purple suit, asked: "If there was a silly law making it illegal to wear purple on Mondays would you convict me." She asked 5 or 6 potential jurors who happily would convict her. Then she asked me and I replied I'd be hard-pressed to convict her. I should have said "Are you saying you are prosecuting a case about a silly law?", but I doubt the judge would be happy with a smart-aleck response like that.

The defense questioning centered on "Would you be more inclined to believe a police officer or an average person's story in a he-said she-said case". A rather leading question, and every prospective juror replied yes to some degree.

The end result was that of the 14 prospective jurors, 2 were dismissed because they could not serve for two days. I'm sure the prosecution dumped me and probably the person next to me that was either acting or had fried his brain many years ago. Of the remaining 10, I'd guess the defense raised enough objections that they could not come up with the required 6 jurors and 1 alternate.

Case postponed. Maybe this was part of the defense's effort to force the prosecutor to drop the case or plea it down. We'll never know.

Thankfully, I did not have to decide over a few hours time whether or not I would have to exercise the right of jury nullification. Upon further reflection and reading online, I've decided jury nullification does have a proper role in the judicial system. It should be used sparingly and only for cases that are immoral or clearly against the wishes of the founding fathers. If in doubt, jury nullification should not be exercised.

For me, a person has a right to run his own life free of excessive government intrusion as long as his activities do not impact the rights of other citizens. In the future I will use jury nullification for possession of small amounts of pot, assisted suicide, hate crimes (you have the right to hate someone or some group, but not the right to act on it), and perhaps others.

My advice is next time you are called to jury duty, give some thought beforehand as to the circumstances under which you would use jury nullification.

[QUOTE=rogue]Being the only one to vote for the first item, I guess I'm a hard-ass. If I disagree with the law, then it is up to me (and those who believe the same as me) to try to change the law.

<snip>

[/QUOTE]

The difficulty is that this point of view leads to what our founders called
the 'tyranny of the majority'. If a law, voted in by the majority, oppresses
a minority, changing it is nigh-to-impossible. The only alternative is
nullification.

We are seeing this in the U.S. now. Many states have voted to restrict
rights (indeed, placed the restriction in their state constitution) of a minority
because the majority are offended by that minority. Can you say "biggots"?

And no, I am not gay. But I am appalled by the states that have passed
laws that forbid gays to marry. This goes against the principles under which
the U.S. was founded: equal rights for all. And yes, I am aware that black
people had no rights until the civil war, and even later. But today, no
state would dare pass laws restricting the rights of blacks. But apparently
it is open season on gay people and lesbians. It makes me want to throw up.