j wrote:
> Since we are straying far afield......
>
> I rather like the Jury Nullification concept. I think it is useful.
> There are a lot of stupid laws and there is no way anyone can get them
> changed. Well, unless you are George Soros or have that sort of money.
Exactly. The trouble with representative democracy arises in large part
because while we all can vote for politicians, only a select class can
afford to purchase one outright.
>
>
> Regards
>
>
>
>
> Joseph Sinclair wrote:
>
>> This discussion seems to have gotten a bit far afield, but what the
>> heck...
>>
>> Fair warning, the following is pretty aggressive, as this issue
>> touches on some items I am quite passionate about. If
>> you'd rather stick to Linux topics, feel free to skip this message.
>>
>> First, a little bit about the US government.
>> This country is NOT a democracy. Sorry to burst that bubble, but
>> this nation is a Constitutional Republic. What that
>> means is that the people DO NOT RULE. If you read the works of the
>> founders, you'll find that the idea of popular rule
>> TERRIFIED them. They believe all men to be naturally corrupt, so
>> they wanted NO PERSON to rule; they therefore created
>> a government in which LAW rules the country, and nothing else. They
>> then gave the people the right to make and change
>> laws through the legislative branch, AND NO OTHER. For efficiency
>> they created an executive branch, and gave the,
>> presumably corrupt, chief executive a, LIMITED, role in lawmaking as
>> a check to the, presumably corrupt, legislative
>> branch. For justice they created the judicial branch, and gave it
>> power to INTERPRET law, but DENIED the, presumably
>> corrupt, judiciary from making or changing law, and added the jury to
>> protect the accused from a presumed corrupt
>> government. The system of checks and balances was designed to pit
>> the 3 branches of government against each other so
>> that they would be too busy to act against their citizens. The
>> problem arises in that the Congress has neglected their
>> DUTY to balance the courts. If a justice steps over the line, the
>> Congress has the DUTY to IMPEACH that justice. There
>> are currently 5 justices on the Supreme Court that DEMAND impeachment
>> for VIOLATING their oath of office, and it is
>> Congress duty to DEFEND the Constitution by removing those justices,
>> as they SWORE to do in their own oaths of office.
>> Note also, the Constitution does NOT grant justices a lifetime term,
>> only that they shall serve during "terms of good
>> behaviour", and it only sets the terms for Supreme Court justices,
>> all other federal justices serve according to
>> whatever laws Congress passes. That's another important point, the
>> federal courts do NOT answer to the Supreme Court,
>> they answer to Congress (and the Constitution states that
>> explicitly!). When several of the courts recently ignored the
>> lawful direction of their actions by Congress, to review a highly
>> questioned case, and refused the jurisdiction that
>> Congress, by lawful act, granted them, they violated the
>> Constitution, and those 3 justices should also be impeached.
>>
>> Jury nullification:
>> The Jury is NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, entitled to review, change,
>> nullify, or modify law, NEITHER IS THE JUDGE. This
>> has NEVER been the case in this country, and never should. If the
>> jury finds that a defendant did not reasonably
>> infringe a law, as in your couple of seeds argument, then they
>> declare a defendant not-guilty. If they find a person
>> did infringe, they MUST declare that person guilty. If they feel the
>> infringement was not a very bad thing, they can be
>> lenient during sentencing (where sentencing is up to the jury), but
>> they DO NOT ignore the law, they DON'T HAVE THAT
>> RIGHT. We all, as a condition of living in this country, voluntarily
>> submit ourselves to the rule of the law. If you
>> don't like the law, the right thing to do is change it, through the
>> representative legislature, not through direct
>> action. Even the great leaders of civil disobedience acknowledge
>> that, when engaging in civil disobedience, breaking a
>> law is subject to consequence, and even if the law is unjust, the
>> consequences for breaking it must be accepted. Civil
>> disobedience is about peacefully breaking an unjust law WHEN THERE IS
>> NO OTHER CHOICE, not about simply ignoring a law
>> you don't like, or setting it aside as a jury because you don't approve.
>>
>> Judges in a courtroom are the FINAL authority with regard to matters
>> of law, the jury DOES NOT decide points of law,
>> only matters of fact, guilt, and innocence. If a jury is not sure
>> about any specific point of law, they MUST ask the
>> judge, and the judge will answer. This does not mean that a judge
>> can change, review, modify, etc... law, that's not
>> their role either. Judges interpret law, and NOTHING ELSE. The
>> crisis in justice in this country is because judges
>> have set aside their proper duty and begun to rewrite the law on
>> their own terms, and this is UNACCEPTABLE. Thomas
>> Jefferson foresaw this in 1803 when, via the infamous Marbury v.
>> Madison decision, the Supreme Court granted themselves,
>> via judicial fiat, an immense new power never intended by the
>> Constitution, he became more alarmed over his remaining
>> years, and was, sadly, not heeded. Jury nullification is much the
>> same, the jury ceases to determine fact, guilt, and
>> innocence, and chooses to decide if the law is "fair" or "just", and
>> that is NOT THEIR JOB.
>>
>> Aside: You claim that the jury has had the right, "upheld since the
>> 1700s" to "pass judgment not only on the facts of
>> the case but on the law(s) under which the case was brought". This
>> is false. The Jury has never had the "right" to
>> anything. Their DUTY is to decide matters of fact and determine
>> guilt or innocence. The jury does not, in fact, pass
>> judgment at all, the Judge passes judgment based on the determination
>> of the jury as to the guilt or innocence
>> (culpability in civil cases) of the defendant(s) (BTW a Judge has the
>> authority to judge a defendant not-guilty, or not
>> culpable, if he/she determines that the jury misapplied a point of
>> law in reaching the guilty/culpable verdict). The
>> Supreme Court ADDED the power to the APPELLATE courts to review (pass
>> judgment on) laws, thus granting JUDGES the power
>> to nullify or modify law. This was NEVER intended in our
>> Constitution, BYPASSED the proper legal channel of
>> Constitutional Amendment, and has threatened this nation ever since.
>> Adding this same IMPERIAL power to a jury of 6-12
>> average people, to make a decision for a nation of over 300 million,
>> is the height of recklessness, and tantamount to
>> insanity.
>>
>> I'll repeat myself, if you don't like a law, TELL YOUR
>> REPRESENTATIVE; if they don't change it, ELECT A NEW ONE. That
>> is the extent of your right to change things, and YOU choose to
>> VOLUNTARILY ACCEPT that limitation by choosing to live
>> in this nation. If you find that the laws under which we live are
>> unacceptable, you can work to have them CHANGED,
>> properly, you can decide to ACCEPT them, or you can LEAVE. You have
>> no other ETHICAL choice. Civil disobedience is
>> part of working to have a law changed, you disobey, IF THERE IS NO
>> OTHER OPTION, while working to have the LEGISLATURE
>> change the law. You do NOT seek out an opportunity to disobey, you
>> do NOT nullify a law while on a jury, you do NOT
>> simply ignore the law. You OBEY to the limits of your CONSCIENCE,
>> while you work, through your legal and natural
>> rights, to change the law. This structure properly limits the
>> tyranny of the majority, while recognizing the dictates
>> of conscience, and is the only truly ETHICAL course of action.
>>
>> There is much more to say on this, but suffice it to state that, it
>> is my firm belief that Jurist and Judicial activism
>> is the worst form of corrupt power-grabbing political crime extant,
>> and it's growing acceptance in this nation is a
>> threat to the fabric of society as grave, and destructive, as open,
>> armed, rebellion.
>>
>> ==Joseph++
>>
>> Lee Einer wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>> Kevin Brown wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> I have sat through jury selection where they have screened for
>>>>>> potential jury nullifiers by summarizing the law allegedly violated
>>>>>> and the infraction allegedly committed and asking each juror if they
>>>>>> had a problem convicting if the evidence established that the
>>>>>> defendant committed the alleged act.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Needless to say, if you are honest and state that you disagree with
>>>>>> the law allegedly violated, you will not be selected.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> This sounds like they are doing the right thing. It is for the
>>>>> legislature to make laws, and the courts to enforce the laws. If the
>>>>> law is unjust, then the defendant can appeal to a higher court,
>>>>> but it
>>>>> is not the place of the jury to not convict simply because they don't
>>>>> like the law or agree with it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It is true that it is for the legislature to make the laws. It is for
>>>> law enforcement and prosecutors to enforce them, and for the courts to
>>>> interpret them.
>>>>
>>>> What is the jury's role? Historically, the right to a jury of one's
>>>> peers has protected the accused both from the malicious and arbitrary
>>>> actions of law enforcement and from prosecution under laws deemed
>>>> by the
>>>> community to be unjust, either in general or in application to a
>>>> particular case. The authority of a jury to pass judgement not only on
>>>> the facts of the case but on the law(s) under which the case was
>>>> brought
>>>> has been upheld since the 1700s in this country. Critics of jury
>>>> nullification say that it brings anarchy to the courtroom, and that it
>>>> is a two-edged sword, having acquitted white supremacists of hate
>>>> crimes
>>>> in the south. That may be true, but it is also a protection of the
>>>> individual from a unjust laws and arbitrary prosecution.
>>>>
>>>> The "letter of the law" can be unjust in the extreme. I can remember
>>>> back in days of yore, cops vacuuming out the shag carpets of vehicles,
>>>> and picking out the seams of levis, finding a couple of marijuana
>>>> seeds,
>>>> and bringing charges for felony cultivation of the herb. A young adult
>>>> whose crime was to let a couple of seeds fall from a doobie was thus
>>>> prosecuted under the same law as a major drug dealer, and faced a
>>>> felony
>>>> sentence nearly as severe as would be handed down for murder. Was this
>>>> just? Would it be appropriate for a jury to nullify in such
>>>> circumstances rather than allowing the a teenager to face a decade
>>>> behind bars with murderers, rapists, etc, for the crime of dropping
>>>> two
>>>> seeds in his shag carpet?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> If you don't agree with the laws the legislature is passing, then
>>>>> either convince others to vote for someone else at the next election
>>>>> and/or write your current representative and let them know what you
>>>>> think. They can't/won't change what they are doing if they don't
>>>>> hear
>>>>> from people who disagree with them.
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>>>>>
>>>>
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--
Lee Einer
Dos Manos Jewelry
http://www.dosmanosjewelry.com
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