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Title: Georgia man grows pot. Admits it. Jury sends him home
Source:
WSB-TV Atlanta 2
URL Source: https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/ge ... -jury-sends-him-home/799784904
Published: Jul 27, 2018
Author: Bill Torpy for the AJC
Post Date: 2018-07-27 16:13:24 by Hondo68
Keywords: Jury Nulification, respect for the law, this was about fairness
Views: 7283
Comments: 64
DUBLIN, Georgia - This article was written by Bill Torpy for our investigative partners at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and AJC.com. Javonnie McCoy was growing marijuana when the cops came to his middle Georgia home. He was caught red-handed with it. Almost a pound of it, in fact. He admitted it to police, and later he looked jurors in the eye and said, "Yep, it was mine. I used it as medicine." The jurors let him go. He was minding his own business and wasn’t hurting anybody, they reasoned. He just doesn’t belong in prison. The jury’s decision earlier this month in Dublin, Georgia, may have been due to a muddled prosecution of a muddy case. Or it may have been jury nullification, another case of citizens saying prosecutions for pot are not worth law enforcement agencies' time and effort -- or the impact on otherwise law-abiding people’s lives. It was the second such win in the Laurens County circuit for Atlanta attorney Catherine Bernard, a conservative Republican who’s also a staunch civil libertarian. Late last year, another client of hers fessed up to a jury that he had sold a couple of nickel bags to an insistent undercover drug cop. That client was cut loose after just 18 minutes of deliberation. And this is no liberal soft-on-crime region. Donald Trump won the county 2-1. Bernard also helped get North Georgia authorities to drop charges against the parents of a 15-year-old whose parents allowed him to smoke pot to help combat severe seizures. Ultimately, what may have kept McCoy out of an orange jumpsuit was that his lawyer urged the jury to empower themselves. She told them they are not potted plants or an unthinking arm of government. They, in fact, are the government. She read to the jury a section from the Georgia Constitution that says, “The jury shall be the judges of the law and the facts.” Bernard said the judge chided her for bringing that up, but it seems the words sank in. The case started when police were called to McCoy’s mobile home four years ago. McCoy’s half-brother had allegedly attacked him with a stick and McCoy grabbed his .22-caliber rifle, the one he uses to hunt squirrels, and shot his sibling in the shoulder. Police found several potted plants in McCoy’s bedroom and tagged him with several charges including aggravated assault and manufacturing marijuana, a felony that can bring 10 years. The case stalled in the system and McCoy decided to go to trial. Right before the trial, the state dropped the assault accusation but kept the pot felony charge. (Prosecutors did not respond to my messages.) McCoy was offered eight years’ probation, Bernard says, but chose to fight the case. During trial, McCoy decided to testify. He had little choice. He was caught red-handed. He said his attorney told him, “Talk to them. They will connect with you.” He gulped and sat in the witness box, telling jurors that 15 years ago he was mugged and beaten into a coma. He has suffered migraines and depression and ended up self-medicating with pot “because Zoloft turned me into a zombie.” Prosecutors “tried to make it look so bad, that I was selling it. But I had nothing to hide,” McCoy told me, explaining his decision to testify. “The jurors had their eyes on me. I had my eyes on them.” “Marijuana makes you eat,” McCoy told the jury. “It made me feel calm. It made me relax. It helps with my pain.” He is a country guy who lives by “hustling” -- painting, landscaping, selling fish, driving people to the store. Ultimately, he said, “We had a jury you could relate to. Truck drivers, mechanics, construction. People who worked. They saw I wasn’t bothering nobody. That’s what I believe they felt.” Bernard said she doesn’t coach defendants before testifying because juries pick up on that. “I think they appreciated his honesty.” People in Dublin have respect for the law, Bernard said. But this was about fairness, about properly using law enforcement resources. “In America we leave someone alone if they are not bothering somebody,” Bernard said. “A world where he needs to be dragged away by armed men and put in a cage is not a world where people want to live.” She doesn’t like the term jury nullification. “It brings up a negative image. It’s simply part of being a jury. The jury judges the law and the facts.” Denise de La Rue, a jury consultant not involved in this case, said, “Jurors are really interested in justice. There are often cases of no loss, no foul. There’s no real victim here.” That’s pretty much what the jurors said. A couple said the case presented to them by prosecutors was a mess because the lawyers had to avoid talking about the shooting. In fact, the jurors I spoke with never even knew the missing charge involved a shooting. Two of them said “second chances” also played heavily into their verdict. Lizzie Mae Davis said, “He was believable. He wasn’t trying to make money. He had it to ease his health.” Davis said she really has no problem with people using pot — “as long as they’re not around me.” Juror Brian Loyd said of the verdict, “Sometimes good things happen to good people.” Kenneth Thompson, who works in construction, said jurors liked that McCoy was “forthright.” Ultimately, they decided, the man didn’t deserve to get tossed into the slammer. “If he’s disrupting the peace and dignity of the state, well, a lot of us said he wasn’t bothering anybody,” Thompson said.
Poster Comment: Libertarians are winning in Georgia. A waste of taxpayer dollars paying cops to bust people for victimless crimes. Fire them, give out tax rebates, and a tax cut too.
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#1. To: hondo68 (#0)
Good verdict.
They should have kept both.
Bernard said the judge chided her for bringing that up, but it seems the words sank in. So his lawyer told them about jury nullification and got away with it. She's lucky I'm not that judge.
Jury-nullification notices should be required in jury instructions. I've been on a jury twice (I've also been a plaintiff, a defendent and a witness) and know all about FIJA; we voted guilty in one and not guilty in the other, but I was prepared to inform fellow jurors about our power and duty to judge the law as well as the facts, had that been an issue. WE judge in a jury trial; the guy in the black robe is just a referee.
I would listen very closely to closing arguments from her.
Yes, the jury wouldn't have a clue what the law is, with you as judge.
Yes, the jury wouldn't have a clue what the law is, with you as judge. whitey would dispense some of that Philippine justice - Rodrigo Duterte style.
Actually she just read the state Constitution to the jury. I guess you'd ban that constitution from your courtroom. You wouldn't be the first, believe it or not.
She looks like a real cutie of a lawyer, too!
And, she is beautiful.
Yeah America is lucky you aren't in charge of anything. John Jay said it is the jurors duty to judge law and fact. Since you don't know much about the constitution. I'm pretty sure you never heard of John Jay.
In Georgia, jury nullification in Georgia dates back to the 18th Century. What Justice Jay was saying is that citizens, not the judge or the police, have the right to say that a law is either prima facie unjust, or unjust in the application of the case at hand. 2) The requirement that indictments specify that the alleged crime was "against the good order, peace, and dignity" of the state of Georgia—and that jurors don't necessarily see all illegal acts as anything of the sort. 3) Georgia jury instructions specifying that, if jurors have no doubt as to guilt, they are "authorized" to convict, but if doubt exists, jurors have a "duty to acquit." “Jury nullification” is a term used to describe the phenomenon of a seated petit jury deliberately refusing to convict a criminal defendant, following a trial, despite evidence and legal instructions adequate to support a conviction. “Nullification” connotes the jurors’ decision to disregard the factual evidence of guilt, the applicable law, or both, to set an accused criminal free even though the law has technically been broken. Is jury nullification good or bad? The topic has long provoked controversy, with strong feelings on both sides. Modern-day proponents of nullification have devised a more palatable moniker for the practice, dubbing it “jury veto,” or “jury independence,” or the exercise of a “fully informed jury.” (In fact, a national organization based in Montana, the Fully Informed Jury Association, promotes the cause of nullification.) The terminology used, however, does not resolve the underlying philosophical dispute over the proper role of the jury. Most courts actively discourage the circulation of pro-nullification pamphlets in front of courthouses by FIJA activists, believing that it encourages jurors to violate their oath—taken at the beginning of the case—to consider only the evidence presented and the instructions of the trial judge. In the courts’ view, jurors play an important but limited function: to sift through the evidence (especially conflicting testimony) and apply their factual findings to the relevant legal rules, which are determined elsewhere. Jurors are not lawmakers. When juries step out of that limited role—and instead act as the ersatz “conscience of the community”—bad things can happen. In the Jim Crow South, all- white juries frequently acquitted defendants accused of lynching blacks and other heinous crimes—not because the evidence was weak, but out of sympathy for (or in solidarity with) the defendant. Conversely, in the O.J. Simpson case, the predominately African American jury arguably engaged in nullification in 1995 when it acquitted Simpson of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ron Goldman, despite what most observers felt was overwhelming evidence of Simpson’s guilt. More recently, many Americans were outraged when a San Francisco jury—possibly motivated by nullification—acquitted Kate Steinle’s killer. There are many other examples. On the other hand, nullification is celebrated by many libertarians, including Ron Paul, who view it as a laudable “p opulist” check on the enforcement of unjust or excessive laws (sometimes referred to as “overcriminalization”), prosecutorial overreaching, and even overly- aggressive police officers. Proponents include Radley Balko, the Cato Institute (which has published a pro-nullification book), certain elements of the militia movement, the Tenth Amendment Center, and law professors such as Glenn Reynolds and Ilya Somin. Proponents argue that the practice dates to the refusal of an English jury to convict William Penn for unlawful assembly, a charge that was a transparent pretext for restricting his freedom of religion. Proponents also cite later examples of Americans refusing to convict defendants charged with violating unjust laws such as the Alien and Sedition Act and the Fugitive Slave Act. In recent times, proponents advocate nullification in cases involving “victimless” crimes, such as possession of medicinal marijuana. Some proponents assert that the Founding Fathers contemplated a broad role for juries, entitling them to judge both the facts and the law in any particular case. There is an element of truth to this claim. In the early American republic, the legal system—at least in some states—reflected what legal historian John Phillip Reid calls “a laical jurisprudence” controlled by laymen, not lawyers or judges. During the 19th century, however, virtually all jurisdictions abandoned this practice in favor of the current system of judge-led trials. Accordingly, modern trial practice sharply restricts jurors’ discretion, requiring them to swear under oath that they will follow the courts’ instructions. It is difficult, therefore, now to argue that jurors act nobly by violating that oath and defying the law. Critics of jury nullification include Orin Kerr, who contends that it “is a recipe for arbitrariness instead of informed judgment.” Robert Bork deemed jury nullification a “pernicious practice,” and saw it as a manifestation of a larger trend: “individualism in the law,” or “the substitution of private morality for public law and duty.” I agree with both criticisms. Objections to unjust laws (or overcriminalization) should be taken up with the legislature, to effect change, or raised in legal challenges to the constitutionality of the objectionable laws. I wrote an essay on jury nullification over 20 years ago, in The Freeman, entitled “Nullifying the Rule of Law,” opposing nullification, and my position hasn’t changed. My primary objection to nullification is that it leads to the disparate application of laws, which is antithetical to the rule of law. As I argued in 1996: And what is a jury acting outside of the law but a 12-person mob, like modern-day vigilantes? Although the jury-power activists point to historical events where juries refused to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, there is no assurance that a jury operating outside the law would only acquit in a criminal case; it could just as easily “nullify” the instructions by convicting a person who was technically innocent. . . . Furthermore, nullifying the law strips the individuals who comprise society of their right to have the laws enforced. Nothing could be more tyrannical or despotic than the arbitrary decision of a jury that has rejected the law. I continued: The rule of law is essential to the preservation of liberty. Friedrich Hayek, perhaps this century’s pre-eminent theorist of classical liberalism—the political philosophy of freedom—believed that the defining characteristic of a free society is the rule of law, meaning legal rules stated in advance, uniformly applied, without excessive discretion. In Hayek’s words: “[W]hen we obey laws, in the sense of general abstract rules laid down irrespective of their application to us, we are not subject to another man’s will and are therefore free.” Thus, it is the universal, non- selective nature of law that allows us to be free. In Hayek’s view, it is precisely because judges and juries cannot pick and choose what laws to enforce in a particular case “that it can be said that laws and not men rule.” I am surprised that those who support jury nullification are not more sensitive to the Hayekian principle being compromised, and the potential for abuse. In our system, laws are democratically enacted and apply to everyone. No one is above the law. As I argued in The Freeman, renegade jurors who ignore their instructions are scofflaws, “no more heroic than a rogue policeman violating the law or a politician accepting a bribe. If a juror (or any other member of the political community) feels that a particular law is unjust—and in a society as large and diverse as ours, we can assume that someone, somewhere, feels that every law on the books is unjust—the remedy is to petition the legislature for reform, not to infiltrate the jury and then ignore the law.” The debate over jury nullification highlights the differences between libertarians, some of whom are “minarchists” uneasy with the constraints on individual autonomy inherent in the state, and classical liberals, who view civil society as indispensable to secure their liberty. Fundamentally, laws are necessary to preserve a free society, not—as libertarians suppose—inherently symbols of abject coercion. Freedom is not possible without the rule of law. Conceptually, jury nullification— selectively suspending the law—is “anarchy in a microcosm.” As a classical liberal, I view it as brazen lawlessness and a prescription for arbitrariness. Mark Pullman.
Mark Pull man said:
I agree with the first supreme Court Justice. We are to judge law and fact. That is what aI will do on any jury. If the law is unconstitutional in my view not guilty 100 percent of the time.
I also know that statement is pure bullshit.
I also know that statement is pure bullshit. Maybe it’s bullshit….and then maybe it’s not We must remember that the Constitution is definitely a LAW and it is considered the SUPREME LAW of the land, according to which our country will work. If jury nullification is okay and it acts like a “kangaroo court, to NULLIFY a LAW in that the jury ignores recognized standards of law or justice granted under the Constitution, while intentionally disregarding LEGITIMATE LAWS and judicial authority established by the Constitution, then the a jury can NULLIFY the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution which is of course known as the Bill of Rights. A jury can do this by acting under the guise of JURY NULLIFICATION. A jury can’t nullify the Constitution? The Constitution is a LAW and under jury nullification a jury can nullify a law….any LAW. Right? Think about it … And while you are thinking about it…reflect on the old proverb: “There is no such thing as being half pregnant”. Back to this: Can’t it?
Stone ~ I also know that statement is pure bullshit. I must agree with Gatlin on that. IMHO, there can be no situation for 100% freedom unless you live alone on an uncharted island. Just face the facts... with laws, regulations and ordinances does come with limitations of freedoms. Without them, your peers will remove a portion of your freedoms by victimizing you. So... as I’ve tried to say (a million times in the past, on two forums)... either your government reduces your freedoms a small percentage to create a system that holds your peers accountable for removing your freedoms through victimization, or you live freedomless in an anarchy. You could look for that uncharted island... no laws. No victimization. Stone, we are a nation of laws. Your forefathers intended it to be that way. What you should fight against are laws, regulations or ordnance’s that are crafted for anything else but reducing victimization or creating a system to hold people accountable for victimizing others. Like seatbelt laws, helmet laws... and so on. The effects of illegal narcotic drug addiction victimizes everyone. When we get to a point where we don’t NARCAN, when we don’t treat any ailment caused by illegal drug use... when we stop giving addicts welfare and we spend zero dollars on incarceration of drug addicts via executions... then I’ll support legal meth vending machines on every corner. I’m not talking weed, for that’s no worse than booze... but until weed laws are changed, the populace needs to obey those laws OR MOVE where it’s legal.
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
You would agree with tater even if he asked you to become a member of al qaeda. BFD.
Except, I know there are some bad laws and bad arrests are made under good laws. But in my opinion jury nullification is not the solution to those problems. Bad laws must be changed and prosecutors must not bring someone to trial when a bad arrest is made under a good law. I rest my case….and say to you: Have a great day.
The problem with those you debate with here (including Stone to a certain degree)... is they feel they are the ones that deem what’s constitutional or not. Now, obviously we all are allowed our OPINIONS in a free society... but we ain’t the only mother fuckers that exist in this country. Our PEERS (the other AMERICANS, for the dumb shit Paultards) have as much a right to THEIR OPINIONS TO WHAT IS CONSTITUTIONAL. So, we must have a system that is fair to all. That’s called the USSC decisions. Break a law you deem constitutional, when it’s not by case law, then fuck you, rot in prison.
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Not true. There are many things I’m closer to your OPINION on than Gatlin... but Gatlin isn’t an asshole, like you. lol
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
You would get on your knees and suck his dick, just as he sucked yukon off in the early days of LP if he asked you.
I have to go now … Cue Bucky to post that he knows I agree with you. lol …
by Eugene Volokh on February 2, 2010 3:17 pm From United States v. Polouizzi, decided two weeks ago Perhaps the issue is as well summed up as it need be by quoting briefly from Professor Roscoe Pound and Judge Learned Hand. Pound referred to jury nullification as “the great corrective of law in its actual administration.” And Learned Hand declared that nullification introduces the necessary “slack into the enforcement of law.” It allows the jury to temper the law’s rigor “by the mollifying influence of current ethical conventions.” See, e.g., Andrew J. Parmenter, Nullifying the Jury: “The Judicial Oligarchy” Declares War on Jury Nullification, 46 Washburn L.J. 379, 426 (2007) (providing other supporting citations). See Polouizzi I, 549 F.Supp.2d at 450-54 (providing selected bibliography on powers of jurors when Sixth Amendment was adopted). In Harry Kalven, Jr.’s and Hans Zeisel’s comprehensive and still valid study, The American Jury (1966), the authors concluded that in the relatively rare cases where the jury reaches a “different conclusion from the judge on the same evidence, it does so not because it is a sloppy or inaccurate finder of the facts, but because it gives recognition to values which fall outside the official rules.” “It … will move where the equities are. And where the equities are at any given time will depend on both the state of the law and the climate of public opinion.” See also, e.g., Valerie P. Hans, Judges, Juries, and Scientific Evidence, 16 J.L. & Pol’y 19, 23 (2007) (“[M]any disagreements [between judges and juries] are explained by the fact that compared to judges, juries appear to require a stronger case by the prosecution to convict the defendant; or by the fact that juries infuse community notions of justice into their verdicts Nuff said...
So 12 random citizens should write the law based on the sob story and circumstances of one defendant. Obviously the prosecutor who brought the case didn't think an exception was warranted. Jury nullification bothers me because we're resorting to the rule of man over the rule of law -- different laws for different people depending on their ability to emotionally, not factually, sway the jury. If the law is bad or unfair, re-write the law. Sway the citizens with your arguments and have them put pressure on their legislators. But that's too hard, isn't it? And you might fail. So you prefer going in the back door on a case by case basis, letting the some of the guilty go free while incarcerating others under the exact same law. How about when all- white juries in the southern states refused to convict whites of crimes against blacks? That OK with you? How about today when black juries refuse to convict black men of crimes against whites (OJ comes to mind)? That OK with you? How about if the jury decided that the individual did not break the law as written, but the individual violated the spirit of the law and therefore voted to convict? That OK with you?
Then why did the judge object to something as innocent as that?
Second baseman for the Yankees, 1956-1958?
Funny, that aspect is never brought up.
What if the law doesn't go far enough? What if the defendant didn't violate the law as written, but still violated the spirit and intent of the law as you interpret it? Guilty? 100 percent of the time?
Can’t it? You bet. People like jury nullification because it allow the people they like to "beat the system". But what happens when a jury decides your right to carry a handgun is not protected by the second amendment and votes to convict? Or the jury ignores the instruction "beyond a reasonable doubt" and uses the standard, "He probably did it"?
Jury nullification bothers me because we're resorting to the rule of man over the rule of law -- different laws for different people depending on their ability to emotionally, not factually, sway the jury. I believe that Friedrich Hayek, [do you know who Friedrich Hayek is :)] also had good points in that the rule of law is definitely necessary for the preservation of liberty. He expressed that the defining characteristic of a free society is the rule of law. Which means that those legal rules stated in advance, and are uniformly applied without excessive discretion….are the characteristics of a free society. Hayek said: [John Jay -Second baseman for the Yankees, 1956-1958? lol.]
Yep, you bet. If the law is judged unjust, jurors can make that decision; we have the right to make that decision. How do you think Prohibition collapsed? WE own the country, period. WE provide the checks against judicial and legislative tyranny. As Pinguinite says below, 12 regular people in agreement outweighs a single corrupt or racist judge, every time. And I don't give a shit if you or a judge doesn't like it. I will inform jurors of their right to judge the law as well as the fact, whether I'm one of them or not. File an appeal if you don't get a verdict you like. And there are millions like me who will do the same. As I've told you before, we have in place millions of bullshit laws that bought politicians refuse to revise or eliminate because they were paid off to create them. We will, slowly but surely.
Juries cannot in any circumstance create law. In the case of nullification, they only hold a form of veto power over the implementation of a law in a particular case. Juries are not professional legal analysts or lawyers. They represent the common people who apply a common sense viewpoint of laws that defendants are charged with breaking. The case of William Penn made it obvious that regardless of what you may thing of whether Jury Nullification is something Juries should do, because they cannot be punished for any verdict they reach, it is a de facto power they must be recognized to have. Any complaint you raise about how a jury might rule, even if unfairly guilty in convicting an innocent man because of race, is also something a single robed jurist can do as well. At least with a jury it requires all 12 to agree to reach an unfair racial verdict. If you want a perfect world in a court room, you won't find it. If the views of common people should not be a factor in deciding someone's fate, then you should campaign against having them involved in the courtroom process, and just use a computer to decide guilt and innocence. (I'm sure you'd be fine with that, given your attitude). Yes, the "back door" method may be what it is, but not all back doors are secret passages. Jury nullification allows the common people, represented via random selection of views, to check the power of laws created by the normal political process. There's nothing inherently wrong with that and, in addition, it's again on top of the fact that it's impossible to deprive juries of that power anyway. Robed judges have the power to set aside a conviction of a racist based verdict, but not convict one the jury has acquitted. Improper convictions can also be overturned on appeal if the judge is racist as well.
You're saying it much better than I. I just don't waste much time anymore trying to explain to people that in the USA the people are sovereign - we need to start acting like it again.
It CAN happen and most probably WILL at some time, under jury nullification. If California cities CAN be sanctuary cities and California CAN be a sanctuary state….then a jury CAN take away your Second Amendment rights. Most libertarians love jury nullification, occasionally there is a smart one among them that does not. A while back, at our local libertarian discussion group, we spent an evening discussing centralization vs. decentralization of government, and whether one or the other better protects individual liberties. Many libertarians argue for decentralization. The anarchists in the room will argue for the ultimate decentralization, all the way to the individual level, essentially voiding the concept of government altogether. Others who are more amenable to some government argue for decentralization because it tends to allow for competition, with citizens voting with their feet and wallets for more favorable tax and regulatory regimes. On the other hand, the US provides historical examples of the benefits of federalism in protecting individual rights. Certainly the abolition of slavery and later of Jim Crow laws were a positive outcome from the feds, as are the enforcement of Bill of Rights protections on the states. I would personally love to see a federal system like our own with all legislative power held as locally as possible, but with a federal government whose main purpose domestically was not taxation/regulation/legislation but instead enforcement of a more robust Bill of Rights and nullification of state and local law that violated protected individual freedoms. Anyway, one topic related to decentralized authority was j ury nullification. Jury nullification is the ability for juries to rule on the law, rather than guilt or innocence. An example might be "the jury thinks Joe is guilty of smoking pot, but we don't think smoking pot should be illegal, so we are going to let Joe go." Most state law technically does not allow juries to rule on the law itself, but as a practical matter there is no way juries can be prevented from doing so (Prosecutors really go non-linear over jury nullification -- I remember Patterico had a long series inveighing against it.) Anyway, as you might imagine, the libertarians in the room mostly love jury nullification. Despite being a good anarcho-capitalist, I disagreed. I understood that most of the examples people brought up did indeed demonstrate that jury nullification could be a tool for protecting individual rights. However, I believe that nullification could equally be a tool of oppression. For example, in criminal law, take the Enron-Skilling trial. I am not saying this happened, but one could certainly imagine a properly inflamed jury saying "well, we don't think he is technically guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on the charges based on the evidence here in court, but he's rich and Enron failed and people lost money and we're pissed off, so we will find him guilty. They would be saying "what he did was not a violation of the law, but it should be, so we are sending him to jail." This is just as much jury nullification as my previous example. I don't think this kind of anti-individual-rights jury nullificatin happens often in criminal court, but I do think it is happening a lot in civil court. In fact, I think one way you could summarize what is wrong with torts and litigation in this country is that we are seeing rampant jury nullification in favor of wealth redistribution. Juries are ignoring the law, the facts of the case, and all reason for one and only one consideration: "One guy in the room is rich, one guy is not, and I have a chance to take money from the rich guy and give it to the poor guy." For while it may be hard in America to get 51% of the voters to support substantial increases in wealth distribution, smart lawyers like Peter Angelos and Jon Edwards have figured out that it is not that hard through voi dire to get at least seven or eight such votes in a room of twelve people. Particularly if you are good at venue-shopping: In Race, Poverty and American Tort Awards (and here), Eric Helland and I show that tort awards increase strongly with county poverty rates especially with minority poverty. A 1% increase in black poverty rates, for example, can increase tort awards by 3-10 percent with a similar increase in Hispanic poverty rates. Careful forum shopping can easily raise awards by 50- 100%. Anthony Buzbee, a famed plaintiff's attorney, inadvertently let the That venue probably adds about seventy-five percent to the value of he case," he said. "You've got an injured Hispanic client, you've got a completely Hispanic jury, and you've got an Hispanic judge. All right. That's how it is." In other parts of Texas, Buzbee went on, a plaintiff may have the burden of showing "here's what the company did wrong, all right? But when you're in Starr County, traditionally, you need to just show that the guy was working, and he was hurt. And that's the hurdle: Just prove that he wasn't hurt at Wal-Mart, buying something on his off time, and traditionally, you win those cases." The problem with letting juries write law in the jury room is that there are no Constitutional protections at all. If they want to make the law, at least for that day, read that homeowners are liable for inj uries suffered by burglars trying to break into their house, then that is what the law becomes, fair or not. If they want to make the law read that drug companies sh ouldn't sell painkillers that have any risk at all, then that is what the law is, and the rest of us 300 million minus twelve people have to live with fewer choices for managing our migraines.
Especially to people like MisterWhite who holds an Orwellian philosophy that would be better suited for China or the USSR.
Juries cannot in any circumstance create law. In jury nullification….juries do legislate from the jury box. The same as in some instances judges legislate from the bench. This was brought home to be a few years ago when my brother was arrested for domestic violence. Despite testimony that showed his accuser too drunk to know who was in the room with her and further testimony that put my brother in the next county at the time of the attack, he came very close to being convicted and spending a significant amount of time in prison. As it was he spent several months locked in a county jail awaiting trial. I’m thankful that at least some of the jurors put aside their feelings and judged the case according to the facts. The result was a hung jury – which is only slightly better than a guilty verdict. The district attorney, who had actually paid his attacker to come to court, was set to re-try the case. My brother did what too many poor men are forced to do when they can’t come up with the ten thousand dollars necessary to hire an attorney – he let the public defender cut a plea bargain for him. Despite all of this, my brother is fortunate. He will soon be off of probation and can go about his life as a free man – albeit one with a hell of a bad memory never far from the front of his mind. Some men are not so lucky. The rhetoric used to describe anyone who has been accused of a crime makes sure that there is a permanent stigma attached to them regardless of what the jury says. Ten thousand dollars is a high price to pay for a shot at clearing your name. The problem is that some people simply insist on bringing other experiences and knowledge into the jurors’ deliberation room. That is a violation of the entire principal of trial by jury and justice before the law. Such a problem was taken up by the Colorado Supreme Court recently when it overturned the death penalty handed down in the case of Robert Harlan. It seems that some of the jurors had written Bible verses down and snuck them into the deliberation room to influence the rest of the jury to come back with the penalty they preferred. It worked. Reading “an eye for an eye” endlessly and locking up the jury until they all agreed ensured that Robert Harlan was sentenced to death. Fortunately, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that introducing non-legal matter into the deliberations invalidated the verdict. Harlan will now spend his life in prison rather than be put to death because a minority believed they knew better than the law what to do with his case. I do support the death penalty – in theory. However, if it is to be used, it should never be because a juror was browbeaten into submission. I also support using Christian principals for helping you in all decisions you face. However, I do not support using only part of the Bible to justify an action. The Bible must be taken hermeneutically – which is a big way of saying that every part of it must be in perfect agreement with every other part. Sneaking in a few verses that back up your pre- determined verdict is not the way a Christian should behave. I’ll even go further and say that those jurors who went around the legal system should be charged with abuse of power. It would be one thing if they had sent a note to the judge and asked if they could use the Bible. They didn’t because they knew they’d be turned down. Instead, they betrayed their public trust and put themselves above the rule of law. I’m sure they are now screaming to high Heaven about “judges legislating from the bench”. Of course, this isn’t what happened. The judges merely prevented them from subverting democracy by legislating from the jury room. For too many people today, simply enforcing the law fairly is now considered to be an infringement of their rights. This sprouts from the irresponsible ideology of selfishness known as Objectivism that holds any action that restrains an individual as being wrong. It is a godless theory and one that is responsible for destroying the moral fabric of the country. At least for now, we can find some comfort in judges that believe in equality and the rule of law. God help us if we lose them, too.
Just because a judge can legally set aside a verdict in no way means that a jury can set aside a law and disregard evidence in jury nullification. Your False Equivalency Fallacy will not work. You are attempting to describe a situation of logical and apparent equivalence, when in fact there is none. While a judge has the power in CERTAIN SITUATIONS to overturn a guilty verdict by the jury, this power is not completely discretionary on the part of the judge. This control will prevent a judge from overturning a verdict simply based off of emotions or feelings. A fair trial is to be given and the judges must take all things into consideration and come to a conclusion BASED ON EVIDENCE, not feelings. Only in CERTAIN SITUATIONS can a judge can overrule or change the guilty verdict that the jury has decided on. Typically, this is called one of two things: When a jury disregards a law and ignores evidence with jury nullification, they are following their feeling. There is a big difference …
In this case, the lawyer appears to have carefully argued what the Georgia constitution says (which is an anomaly). Georgia Constitution, Article I, Section I Paragraph XI In the cited case quoting John Jay, it should be noted that Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 Dall. 1 (1794) did not involve an Opinion of the Court, but the announcement of the verdict of a unique select special jury of experts in a unique trial case at SCOTUS. https://www.scribd.com/document/384898227/Georgia-v-Brailsford-Powell-Hopton-3-Dallas-1-3-US-1-1794 A Georgia lawyer invoking the Georgia constitution is on solid ground. A lawyer invoking a comment of John Jay about the Brailsford trial case might get bonked on the head. The Georgia constitution is solid authority for Georgia.
Correct. And the U.S. Constitution gives us the way to write and change our laws. Using jury nullification to negate the laws written by the majority of the citizens is anarchy and unfair to the majority who expect their laws to be followed.
Can’t it? Only on a case by case basis. The jury cannot set a precedent to be followed. The jury does not have a "right" to nullify a law. They have immunity from prosecution for what they do as jurors. Such nullification remains a legal wrong, but is not prosecutable. Another jury, viewing a case with identical facts, could follow the law and vote to convict.
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#2. To: hondo68 (#0)
Right before the trial, the state dropped the assault accusation but kept the pot felony charge
#3. To: hondo68 (#0)
She read to the jury a section from the Georgia Constitution that says, “The jury shall be the judges of the law and the facts.”
#4. To: misterwhite (#3)
(Edited)
So his lawyer told them about jury nullification and got away with it. She's lucky I'm not that judge.
#5. To: hondo68 (#0)
#6. To: misterwhite (#3)
She's lucky I'm not that judge.
#7. To: hondo68 (#6)
She's lucky I'm not that judge.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Trump: My People Should ‘Sit Up in Attention’ Like Kim Jong-un’s Staff.
#8. To: misterwhite (#3)
So his lawyer told them about jury nullification and got away with it. She's lucky I'm not that judge.
#9. To: hondo68 (#0)
#10. To: hondo68 (#0)
It was the second such win in the Laurens County circuit for Atlanta attorney Catherine Bernard, a conservative Republican who’s also a staunch civil libertarian.
#11. To: misterwhite (#3)
#12. To: buckeroo, Everybody (#10)
(Edited)
It was the second such win in the Laurens County circuit for Atlanta attorney Catherine Bernard, a conservative Republican who’s also a staunch civil libertarian.
It was no-brainer wins for her because the Georgia Constitution made it so easy for her wins since the Georgia Constitution specifically allows for jury nullification. “In criminal cases, the defendant shall have a speedy trial by an impartial jury; and the jury shall be the judges of the law and the facts. Article I, Section 1, Paragraph XI."
So we clearly see that jury nullification is legal in Georgia. In Georgia v. Brailsford 3 U.S. 1 (1794) Chief Justice John Jay stated: “It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision… you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy".
Bernard had three advantages when she defended Mr. McCoy: 1) The actual language in the Georgia constitution, describing juries as judges of the law and the facts.
Is jury nullification: good or bad?
#13. To: A K A Stone (#11)
Is jury nullification good or bad? The debate over jury nullification highlights the differences between libertarians, some of whom are “minarchists” uneasy with the constraints on individual autonomy inherent in the state, and classical liberals, who view civil society as indispensable to secure their liberty. Fundamentally, laws are necessary to preserve a free society, not—as libertarians suppose—inherently symbols of abject coercion. Freedom is not possible without the rule of law. Conceptually, jury nullification— selectively suspending the law—is “anarchy in a microcosm.” As a classical liberal, I view it as brazen lawlessness and a prescription for arbitrariness.
What say you?
#14. To: Gatlin (#13)
#15. To: Gatlin (#13)
Freedom is not possible without the rule of law.
#16. To: A K A Stone (#15)
(Edited)
If the law is unconstitutional in my view not guilty 100 percent of the time.
I agree, if the law is unconstitutional. Freedom is not possible without the rule of law.
Is it now? Freedom is not possible without the rule of law.
If the jury can take away the Bill or Rights by jury nullification, and under jury nullification a jury can declare a law invalid so it can be disregarded….then without the rule of law, a jury can take away our freedom by nullifying the Bill of Rights under jury nullification
#17. To: A K A Stone (#15)
(Edited)
Gatlin~ Freedom is not possible without the rule of law.
#18. To: GrandIsland (#17)
I must agree with Gatlin on that.
#19. To: A K A Stone (#15)
I have to go now, but there is really nothing more I could say on this point.
#20. To: Gatlin (#16)
I agree, if the law is unconstitutional.
#21. To: buckeroo (#18)
#22. To: GrandIsland (#21)
#23. To: GrandIsland (#20)
I agree with you. I didn’t make myself clear. Sorry …
#24. To: Y'all (#0)
Judge Jack Weinstein Again Sings the Praises of the Jury’s Nullification Power
#25. To: Hank Rearden (#4)
(Edited)
Jury-nullification notices should be required in jury instructions.
#26. To: Pinguinite (#8)
Actually she just read the state Constitution to the jury.
#27. To: A K A Stone (#11)
I'm pretty sure you never heard of John Jay.
#28. To: Gatlin (#12)
"... there is no assurance that a jury operating outside the law would only acquit in a criminal case; it could just as easily “nullify” the instructions by convicting a person who was technically innocent. . . ."
#29. To: A K A Stone (#14)
If the law is unconstitutional in my view not guilty 100 percent of the time.
#30. To: Gatlin (#16)
(Edited)
If the jury can take away the Bill or Rights by jury nullification, and under jury nullification a jury can declare a law invalid so it can be disregarded….then without the rule of law, a jury can take away our freedom by nullifying the Bill of Rights under jury nullification
#31. To: misterwhite (#25)
So 12 random citizens should write the law based on the sob story and circumstances of one defendant. Obviously the prosecutor who brought the case didn't think an exception was warranted.
Excellent points. “When we obey laws, in the sense of general abstract rules laid down irrespective of their application to us, we are not subject to another man's will and are therefore free.”
It is therefore the universal and non-selective essence of law that allows us to be a free society. In Hayek's view, it is precisely because judges and juries cannot pick and choose what laws to enforce in a particular case "that it can be said that laws and not men rule. I agree with that view since I find great truth in what Hayek said. Furthermore, I find it is essentially the same sentiment your expressed.
#32. To: misterwhite (#25)
(Edited)
So 12 random citizens should write the law based on the sob story and circumstances of one defendant.
#33. To: misterwhite (#25)
So 12 random citizens should write the law based on the sob story and circumstances of one defendant. Obviously the prosecutor who brought the case didn't think an exception was warranted.
If the law is bad or unfair, re-write the law. Sway the citizens with your arguments and have them put pressure on their legislators. But that's too hard, isn't it? And you might fail. So you prefer going in the back door on a case by case basis, letting the some of the guilty go free while incarcerating others under the exact same law.
How about when all- white juries in the southern states refused to convict whites of crimes against blacks? That OK with you? How about today when black juries refuse to convict black men of crimes against whites (OJ comes to mind)? That OK with you?
#34. To: Pinguinite (#33)
(Edited)
Juries cannot in any circumstance create law. In the case of nullification, they only hold a form of veto power over the implementation of a law in a particular case. Juries are not professional legal analysts or lawyers. They represent the common people who apply a common sense viewpoint of laws that defendants are charged with breaking.
#35. To: misterwhite (#30)
But what happens when a jury decides your right to carry a handgun is not protected by the second amendment ...
This has been constantly on my mind throughout the discussions on this thread.
cat out of the bag recently when talking about Starr county in Texas.
#36. To: Hank Rearden (#34)
I just don't waste much time anymore trying to explain to people that in the USA the people are sovereign.
#37. To: Pinguinite, misterwhite (#33)
So 12 random citizens should write the law based on the sob story and circumstances of one defendant. Obviously the prosecutor who brought the case didn't think an exception was warranted.
Bullshit. If there’s a more serious job a common person can do that sitting on a jury, I can’t think of it. You quite literally hold a person’s life in your hands. Not only are you judging the person on trial, but also the victim, their families, and everyone who knows them.
#38. To: Pinguinite, misterwhite (#33)
Robed judges have the power to set aside a conviction …
You make this sound so whimsical, which it definitely is not. It has controlled procedures. A judgment of acquittal or;
When a judge sets aside a verdict, the judge is following the law.
A judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
#39. To: A K A Stone, misterwhite (#11)
John Jay said it is the jurors duty to judge law and fact.
Paragraph XI. Right to trial by jury; number of jurors; selection and compensation of jurors. (a) The right to trial by jury shall remain inviolate, except that the court shall render judgment without the verdict of a jury in all civil cases where no issuable defense is filed and where a jury is not demanded in writing by either party. In criminal cases, the defendant shall have a public and speedy trial by an impartial jury; and the jury shall be the judges of the law and the facts.
#40. To: Hank Rearden (#32)
WE own the country, period.
#41. To: Gatlin, A K A Stone (#16)
If the jury can take away the Bill or Rights by jury nullification, and under jury nullification a jury can declare a law invalid so it can be disregarded….then without the rule of law, a jury can take away our freedom by nullifying the Bill of Rights under jury nullification
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