jury nullification starting to take a little hold

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/in_focus&id=8707381

Israel Rangel was charged with possession of less than a gram of cocaine. Cops said he had half as much coke as there is Sweet’N Low in a single packet.

When citizens showed up in court to pick a jury, it started the way all cases do.

“The prosecutor asked a question to the first 65 people,” Dupont said.

“The jurors if they believed beyond a reasonable doubt that the offense was committed, would they convict?” Walker said.

“I was surprised, first of all, of the bluntness of the question,” juror Lou Ellen Wheeler said.

But Wheeler – who was eventually picked for the jury – was even more surprised by the answers. She said yes, but 50 out of 130 jurors said no, they would not convict someone even if it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

“I was surprised it was that many,” Walker said.

One juror was more blunt than the others.

“She said, ‘I can’t believe I had to get in my car and come down here for this,’” Dupont said.

“It says there is a segment of the population that doesn’t think small possession cases should be punished as severely as the law call for them to be,” Assistant District Attorney Julian Ramirez said.

This isn’t a so-called trace case, the DA says she won’t prosecute. A trace is equal to single grain of equal; this was 40 times that. The law is clear.

“It’s against the law,” Ramirez said.

But Rangel’s defense lawyer says something else is clear too.

“They said they weren’t going to make somebody a felon and ruin their lives over less than a gram of cocaine,” Dupont said.
 
jury nullification doesn't exist because I can't read any literal interpretation about it in any founding document.
 
jury nullification doesn't exist because I can't read any literal interpretation about it in any founding document.
Then neither does speeding, identity theft, child abuse and a number of other crimes( look up the child abuse one, the first time they tried somebody they had to do it under animal cruelty).
 
http://reason.com/blog/2012/07/19/more-evidence-of-growing-citizen-resista

In Charlottesville, Va. (where I spend most of my time) a jury just found Philip Cobbs not guilty of marijuana possession. As the superb local weekly The Hook reports:

Cobbs, a 54-year-old who takes care of his elderly mother, was arrested last summer after a marijuana eradication helicopter flew over his southeastern Albemarle home and spotted two pot plants near his house. A team of approximately 10 law enforcement agents drove up bearing semi-automatic weapons and confiscated the illegal plants. A month later, he received a summons to court.

His case was taken up by the Albemarle-based Rutherford Institute, which focuses on Constitutional issues. Cobb was convicted of possession in October, and appealed the case.

“I feel like justice finally was done,” said Cobbs after a seven-person jury deliberated for about two hours– including a dinner of Domino’s pizza–July 18.

Two plants and ten officers? Really? Evidently aware of the inherent stupidity of the case, the local prosecutor feared jury nullification. The Hook reports how he attempted to forestall that problem:

Before the jury was selected, prosecutor Matthew Quatrara read the opening paragraph of a New York Times Paul Butler op-ed calling for jury nullification: “If you are ever on a jury in a marijuana case, I recommend that you vote ‘not guilty’– even if you think the defendant actually smoked pot, or sold it to another consenting adult. As a juror, you have this power under the Bill of Rights; if you exercise it, you become part of a proud tradition of American jurors who helped make our laws fairer.”

That, instructed Quatrara, would not be the proper attitude for those chosen to serve on the jury.

Nevertheless, the judge and prosecutor had a tough time actually seating a jury in this case. The Hook interviewed several people who had been cut from the jury pool on the grounds that they disapproved of criminalizing marijuana use:

“I think this whole thing is a waste of time,” said Richard Merkel, a psychiatrist and potential juror in today’s marijuana possession trial against an Albemarle County man.

Merkel was among five people struck from the first group of 13 – all because they had a problem with this country’s criminalization of people using marijuana.

Aware that this attitude is growing among citizens, the judge ordered up a larger than usual jury pool:

This isn’t the first time Albemarle has had trouble seating a jury in a pot case. Judge Cheryl Higgins, who, during a break, chatted with a visiting gaggle of Rutherford Institute interns told them, “The last marijuana case we tried, we couldn’t even seat a jury because they were so biased against the marijuana laws.”

In any case, the jury decided to let Cobbs go on the grounds that while the plants may have been on his property there was reasonable doubt that he had “dominion” over them and so did not “possess” them.


Another potential juror, University of Virginia psychologist Douglas DeGood, was struck from service because said he would not be comfortable convicting someone of marijuana possession. He added:

“Pragmatically, I don’t think it’s an efficient use of the legal system.”

You think? And I would like to think that there was just a little bit of jury nullification.

:clink:
 
good on them. PPl generally don't care about small posession cases, but try telling DA's or the DEA that. They have to have their boogyman ( drugs kill etc.), or else they'd be cut way back,or out of business.

I recallwhen Obama went to the Latin American Summit - a few leaders wanted to discuss legalization, Obama wouldn't even listen to them, much less discuss it.
" NO. That's not going to happen in our society" he said. Fucking dolt, then we wonder why Mexico is self destructing thru cartels.

we do all the consumption, we put our ppl in jails, but the damage doesn't stop at our borders. Our insatiable demand causes other countries to have almost partioning ( places where the gov't dare not police).

I've seen this Kabuki dance since the mid 60's -if anything the Fed's/local task forces are more crazed now. One would think we'd learn that reform is needed.
It's more convenient to "just say no" to sane drug laws.
 
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/in_focus&id=8707381

Israel Rangel was charged with possession of less than a gram of cocaine. Cops said he had half as much coke as there is Sweet’N Low in a single packet.

When citizens showed up in court to pick a jury, it started the way all cases do.

“The prosecutor asked a question to the first 65 people,” Dupont said.

That's not jury nullification.

: the acquitting of a defendant by a jury in disregard of the judge's instructions and contrary to the jury's findings of fact

That's jury selection. Both the prosecution and defense ask questions of the prospective jurors and are allowed to dismiss a certain number each.

Jury nullification was a common American practice prior to the Constitution.

The first example of actual jury nullification was in 1982.
 
Oh...THIS I gotta hear!

Wow...

The most famous known case in the US (the Colonies at the time) was in 1735.

John Peter Zenger, charged with printing seditious libels of the Governor of the Colony of New York, William Cosby. Despite the fact that Zenger clearly printed the alleged libels (the only issue the court said the jury was free to decide, as the court deemed the truth or falsity of the statements to be irrelevant), the jury nonetheless returned a verdict of "Not Guilty."

In the early 1800s many, and I do mean many, cases were decided against the Alien and Sedition act. It was also often done in the 1930s during Prohibition.

That the authorities call it, "deciding against the judge's instructions" the reality is it was a jury simply deciding to acquit people regardless of the evidence because they believed the laws to be wrong.
 
Oh...THIS I gotta hear!

Wow...

The most famous known case in the US (the Colonies at the time) was in 1735.

John Peter Zenger, charged with printing seditious libels of the Governor of the Colony of New York, William Cosby. Despite the fact that Zenger clearly printed the alleged libels (the only issue the court said the jury was free to decide, as the court deemed the truth or falsity of the statements to be irrelevant), the jury nonetheless returned a verdict of "Not Guilty."

In the early 1800s many, and I do mean many, cases were decided against the Alien and Sedition act. It was also often done in the 1930s during Prohibition.

That the authorities call it, "deciding against the judge's instructions" the reality is it was a jury simply deciding to acquit people regardless of the evidence because they believed the laws to be wrong.

kelso-burn-240x180.jpg


that gotta hurt, eh howey?
 
http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/14/kansas-prosecutor-defeated-by-glaring-st

Prosecutor Defeated by Glaring Stupidity of Pot Laws

During voir dire, my almost all white, middle-class, middle-aged jury went into full rebellion against the prosecutor stating that they wouldn't convict even if the client's guilt was proven beyond a reasonable doubt -- almost all of them! They felt marijuana should be legalized, what he does with it is his own business and that the jails are already full of people for this silly charge. Then, when the potential jurors found out that the State wanted him to pay taxes on illegal drugs, they went nuts. One woman from the back said how stupid this was and why are we even here wasting our time. A "suit" from the front said this was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. The prosecutor ended up dismissing the case. Judge gave me a dismissal with prejudice.
 
“It is not only [the juror's] right, but his duty…to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.” (John Adams, America’s second President; 1771)

“It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge’s view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.” (John Adams)

“I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Thomas Paine; 1789)

“The juries [are] our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it.” (Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval; 1816. ME 15:35)

Even the First Chief Justice of the U.S. John Jay, in 1789, chimed in on this issue with, “The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.”

Lastly, and most succinctly, Alexander Hamilton, in 1804, said that, “Jurors should acquit, even against the judge’s instruction… if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty, they have a clear conviction the charge of the court is wrong.”
 
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