
Man charged with felony for passing out jury rights flier in front of courthouse - awqrre
http://fox17online.com/2015/12/01/man-charged-with-felony-for-passing-out-fliers-in-front-of-courthouse/
======
gradschool
The money quote from the comments: "He should take it to trial. Lets see how
that judge likes this jury nullification flyer being entered into evidence and
presented to a jury."

------
tzs
> Jury nullification occurs when a jury acquits a defendant, despite evidence,
> because they either believe the law is immoral or wrongfully applied.

Historically, "wrongfully applied" meant "victim was an uppity negro who
deserved what that nice white defendant did to him".

Also, there is nothing in the nullification power that limits its use to
acquitting. That same power can also be used for anti-nullification, to
convict when the jury thinks the defendant should be punished despite the
evidence and law saying not guilty. Historically, this too has tended to be
used for racist reasons.

The typical counter to this from nullification advocates is that the judge or
an appeals court can overturn a conviction when a jury uses anti-nullification
to convict.

The problem with that is simple: the judge or appeals court generally has no
way of knowing that it happened. In most cases, the prosecution does present
witnesses and evidence and a somewhat plausible case. The judge cannot tell
that the conviction was from anti-nullification rather than from the jury
believing the prosecution's case.

An important aspect of a good justice system is that similarly situated
defendants are treated equally. Routine nullification instructions would
severely undermine that. If we require a unanimous jury of 12 to convict, then
it only takes about 5% of the jury pool to believe that a given law should be
nullified to result in 50% of juries having a member who will nullify.

Nullification should only be a last resort, for use after the normal political
process for changing bad laws has failed. It needs checks and balances to
prevent its massive misuse--and the only method anyone has been able to come
up with is the hack of not telling people about it. The theory is that in the
kind of breakdown of the system where it is appropriate the jury will discover
it on their own.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
While all of what you said might be true... it shouldn't be a felony to hand
out flyers telling people what others had decided not to tell them. If the
jury has a set of rights then they should be made aware of those rights, even
the unpopular ones. If people feel strongly enough that a particular jury
right should be revoked, then they should pursue steps to revoke it. But they
really shouldn't be arresting people for passing out that information.

~~~
tzs
> If people feel strongly enough that a particular jury right should be
> revoked, then they should pursue steps to revoke it.

It's hard to see how the nullification and anti-nullification powers could be
revoked without massively changing the role of the jury. Nullification follows
from the double jeopardy rule and the jury not being liable for a "wrong"
decision (except in special cases, like a juror selling their vote). Anti-
nullification follows from the latter and from judges and appeals courts not
having a way to detect anti-nullification.

