• RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Nullification is not a law. It’s a hole in the law of 2 other laws

      • juries can’t get in trouble for making the wrong choice
      • can’t be tried twice for the same crime.
      • elephantium@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        the wrong choice

        Some subtleties there…what is the “wrong” choice?

        If it’s “the verdict doesn’t match what the defendant did” - well, we don’t always know for sure. If it’s “the verdict isn’t what I would have said” - hey, everybody likes to armchair quarterback. It’s still up to the jury, though.

        • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          There’s no subtlety. If it was later found out he was actually guilty but the jurors cut him loose, he cant be tried again and the jurors can’t get in trouble for not finding him guilty when he was (and they would have found him guilty had they known). They couldn’t have known, it’s just common sense to not prosecute them.

          There’s also no armchair quarterback, thats not what that means. In none of my comments am i specifying what I would have done in either persons position from my armchair. I’m just stating facts about the law. (Not giving advice either).

          Theres subtlety in jury nullification, but not in the jurors immunity. It comes from multiple laws and has precedence.

          1. Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107 (1987) – The Supreme Court reaffirmed that juror deliberations are generally protected from inquiry, ensuring that jurors cannot be punished for their reasoning or decisions.
          1. United States v. Dougherty, 473 F.2d 1113 (D.C. Cir. 1972) – This case discusses jury nullification, reinforcing that jurors have the right to acquit regardless of the evidence and cannot be penalized for doing so.
          1. Rule 606(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence – This rule limits the ability to challenge a verdict based on jurors’ thought processes during deliberation, further shielding them from liability.
          • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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            5 days ago

            Do you agree that jury nullification is a part of the law? Why would they only uphold specific laws and not all of it? I might be misunderstanding you.

            • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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              5 days ago

              It’s “part of the law” we say a hole because it sits between 2 actually written laws. Jury nullification is not arcticle 5.x.2.y of Z legislation.

              The law says if you shoot someone else while not in imminent danger for life (self-defense), you break that written law (and no other supercedes it). The jurors can find that while he killed someone and wasn’t in immediate danger, this law doesn’t apply to him because <reasons>. That’s jury nullification, they nullified the law for reasons not already exempt in the law while agreeing he did the thing we normally call murder beyond a reasonable doubt.

              You can swear to uphold the law and nullify it, thats why jury nullification works and why they aren’t found to have purgured themselves. But if you try to nullify the law, knowing he is guilty by the rules of the law for other motives, that’s not upholding the law and could be a crime. Luigi would have to be found not guilty because “murder” is not what he did (which is totally plausible and needs to be argued)