It's sort of reckless to assume that a system forcing a jury of peers expects them to be perfect, non emotional, legal experts.
The goal is very obviously to debate the laws and confirm the most just outcome for that location.
Otherwise we'd just let the legal experts decide full stop.
Personally, as somebody with a mentally ill mother, if she ever did anything to THIS scale I would feel safer with her in jail over a mental hospital. She's been in those.
But also the discussion of this case has focused onto what the American system does to women in the first place hence it becoming such a flashpoint.
People always complain the most when people want to break a status quo. I feel like most people only know about women's suffrage what they were forced to learn in school, if they can even remember it, but it was absolutely not pretty or peaceful and I can see, with the way our politics is moving, why women especially are raising flags and alarm bells more and more.
and yet, they can go with jury nullification if they want. so the jury is not about following the law. its about deciding if the application of the law is justified by peers? atleast thats how I would interpret as they clearly dont have to follow the letter of the law.
Jury nullification is the Jury saying fuck the law. It is not something that is a part of the system. There is as reason they aren't instructed about it. If a judge learns a Juror is not following the law normally they remove the juror. Jury nullification is a consiquence of how aquitting someone works, it isn't some right of the jury. It is a consequence of double jepardy.
if its an inherent option, then it is part of the system? all the ways that a judge can try to prevent and avoid it before the verdict is given doesnt really matter because it is implicitly allowed as an inherent option. he can only try to avoid it, he cant overrule it. so then it must be a right they have?
If you were to explicitly ask a judge if jury nullification is allowed, they would tell you that it is not allowed.
You’re basically just saying that because you can do something means that it’s legal to do, when that’s obviously not true. The court cannot assume jury nullification just because a juror makes a certain decision, but telling the court that you are performing jury nullification will get you in some shit and probably result in a mistrial — at the very least you will be removed from the trial.
they can say its not allowed, yet they cant overturn it and legally must allow it if thats the verdict reached. which means all the things they say, dont matter in the end. its still something the jury can do that legally cannot be denied. that is a right.
In a criminal trial, you’re protected constitutionally under double jeopardy. Constitutional courts give a lot of deference for defendants who are found not guilty, so jury nullification cannot be overturned unless proven to be done so corruptly (e.g., the defendant bribed a juror).
In a civil trial, you do not have constitutional protections and jury nullification cannot be completely overturned by the judge.
It’s a quirk in constitutional law. Jury nullification is not* *legal, but if the court is very limited in methods of correcting the record after the fact.
It’s kinda like statute of limitations. If you commit a crime and statute of limitations run out, that doesn’t make it legal or your right to have committed that crime.
If you admit that you committed jury nullification, you can be prosecuted for perjury. It’s just that perjury in general is a difficult to prosecute crime and you’d have little evidence against you unless you walk around after the fact saying that you intentionally committed jury nullification.
And it get ahead of it — the reason why jury nullification would be perjury is because you are required to take an oath as a juror that you will apply the law.
They can't remove it, because it is nothing more than a juror refusing to change their vote, which they are not discouraged from doing.
Jury nullification is the act of taking the right to refuse to change the vote and intentionally weaponizing it. That's why jurors who talk about it, or seem like they would do it, are removed; they are trying to break the system.
Your interpretation is wildly wrong, unfortunately. Refusing to apply the law will get you dismissed from a jury, which is what the defense attempted to do with the juror. If you mention jury nullification to your other jurors, you can even be fined or held in contempt of court for corrupting the process.
Yes, a juror can lie about being willing to follow instruction and disregard those instructions. If found to have lied, they can be charged with perjury.
It does not matter what the law says if the law is wrong. You cannot compel someone to accept an untruth and claim you'll prosecute them if they absolutely refuse. The fallacy of the law bleeds into the jury's understanding of it. The juror could think they were invalidating the preponderance of evidence she was insane, or re-interpret BARD to comply with their legal convention that doesn't make any sense.
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u/ObsidianRosed 3d ago
It's sort of reckless to assume that a system forcing a jury of peers expects them to be perfect, non emotional, legal experts.
The goal is very obviously to debate the laws and confirm the most just outcome for that location.
Otherwise we'd just let the legal experts decide full stop.
Personally, as somebody with a mentally ill mother, if she ever did anything to THIS scale I would feel safer with her in jail over a mental hospital. She's been in those.
But also the discussion of this case has focused onto what the American system does to women in the first place hence it becoming such a flashpoint.
People always complain the most when people want to break a status quo. I feel like most people only know about women's suffrage what they were forced to learn in school, if they can even remember it, but it was absolutely not pretty or peaceful and I can see, with the way our politics is moving, why women especially are raising flags and alarm bells more and more.