Elliot,

Why even have a citizen jury? Surely judges can decide facts at least as well as the jury can.

Do you really think they are going to convict him anyway? Nullification at worst would be the status quo in that case.

Are you ACist now? Cos the Jim Crow Laws are a good example of why democracy is terrible too.

Racists will vote in racist laws. Racists on juries will vote to acquit racists. Its why "now imagine she is white" is such a powerful line from A Time to Kill.

While i sympathise with the idea that these shouldnt happen i dont throw the baby out with the bathwater and im not convinced the problems outweighed the benefits in the history of America.

Generally, the answer is because it's in the constitution. There are good reasons to have a jury and good reasons not to have one.

But thanks for your post, because that leads to a more interesting question:

Should judges be free to disregard the law to satisfy their own sense of justice in the same way? If not, and you support jury nullification, why not?

I find this statement confusing - in a world without nullification, they can't not convict him (unless it was for reasons like the case being shaky and not because they're racists who want to let a white person off), because failing to convict would be nullification. So if we're arguing if nullification is good or bad you can't say "well they'd nullify anyway even if we agreed juries shouldn't be able to nullify."

Elliot/Wynton, there are measures in place for a judge to overturn a jury's decision, right (based on what I've seen on TV shows, super accurate I'm sure)? How does that work?

I'm not sure if this has been brought up but the opposite of jury nullification is interesting. Say there is someone who committed a minor crime (or non-crime) but is likely innocent of a serious crime. But you feel the minor crime super serious (say he was cheating on his wife, then she gets murdered, but the evidence points to someone else in the trial). But you feel adultery should be a capital crime so you convict the guy anyway.

As for the judge question, the judge voluntarily takes that position and has chosen to upheld the laws of the land. A juror does not have that luxury since they are forced into that role.

Whether we acknowledge nullification or not, it's going to happen either way. There is no world without it.

There's no way a judge could overturn a not guilty verdict. They certainly can throw out guilty verdicts. Sentencing is a lot of times a recommendation or requires a jury for death (although the judge can do whatever he wants).

no, I am not by any means a cultural relativist. I am against slavery and murder whether the state says so or not, yo.

[Phill] beat me to my favored point on this. people shape their norms around the arbitrary state. representative democracy around an arbitrary flag is a norm, and then when the majority votes in slavery, then that becomes normal too. people are forced to buy slavery laws over an arbitrary land mass (the south) slowing social progress, imo.

this is why I favor the more laissez-faire approach to law and order with HOAs (home owners associations) and private arbitration (courts should be neutral to have legal force) based on reputation and ostracism. if people hate each other and possess social norms that are the antithethis of each other, it becomes that much more important for them to be able to disassociate with each other and form their own communities with norms that work for them.

Even if jury nullification werent "an actual thing" it would be, imo, morally imperative that a juror vote not guilty for anyone who was accused of something that they did not feel was a crime.

"The law is the law" is basically morally identical to "I was just following orders."

Its extremely important...so...does it actually even exist? How predictable are juries? From watching movies and bad TV shows the answer seems to be "not at all." From interacting with other human beings, who presumably make up juries. I'd assume "not at all." So, in your professional experience, how predictable is the law, re: juries?

So each county have different versions of laws or completely different then the other. One county has abortion, one doesn't, one has legal weed, the other doesn't. One county has taxes the other doesn't. I see this as being viable on a state level but not on a local county one. How in the world dose the appellate procedure work then?

I mean....whats the alternative? You've got a white lynch mob. You've got an all white jury who thinks these lynchers are patriots. They say "JURY NULLIFICATION HAHA SUCKIT!" You say "Oh sorry we got rid of that, its not a good idea." They say "Oh ok well in that case...I uhhh...guess that witness testimony just wasnt good enough, reasonable doubt lol"

35% on average acquit of of the three percent of felonies that go to trial.

why on state level but not county level?

If that answers my question I'm a little slow to see why. I guess I meant something more like "If we put this trial in front of 100 random juries, what would be the distribution of results?" Elliot seemed to be saying that it is very important to have a very narrow distribution (like 95 guilty/5 other), and suggesting that jury nullification would increase the variance, with disastrous results. I'm asking if his conditions which he says are very important even exist in the first place. They very well might I dunno.

Predictability keeps costs down since people won't fight as much (for slam dunk guilty cases) or cases won't be brought to trial very much (for slam dunk innocent cases). The cases that actually make it to trial are by nature the most unpredictable or just the ones where someone is stubborn as hell.

I think half this thread is talking about whether nullification is justifiable as a concept/hypothetical and half the thread is like "lol you can't do anything about it in the real world", with neither side realizing that they're not actually addressing what the other is saying

Agree.

The deck is soooo stacked. Overzealous prosecutors, absolute immunity, lying cops.

We need more JN, not less.

Well, thats probably true, but I'm trying to talk about both of these things. I made one post saying that even if it wasnt an actual practical thing it would be morally imperative (your first point). I also made posts in response to Elliot arguing that I dont see how you would practically eliminate it anyway. They are two separate points, true, but they are both relevant to the topic.

How do you have any semblance of a fair appeals process?

That makes sense. I'd imagine that JN would **** with this to some degree.

How do states? All it does is add (or remove) one layer right?

Jury nullification is vital.

The only problem is its an arms race where the more juries refuse to convict people on bad laws the more government will bypass juries.

Its a low issue on the list though compared to the twin evils you have of jury selection and plea bargaining.

How do you explain the 35% acquittal rate? It seems they system gets the correct people with a 90% guilty pleas (it is actually 95% on average, but don't feel like digging up the documentation).

It is hard to get search warrant, indictments, probable cause....etc etc. Its even harder to meet the burden of reasonable doubt.

there already are areas with varying laws, and people don't try to police these other areas. some places in the world abortion is legal. people don't try to spend a lot of money policing places that they aren't really connected to. it'd be very expensive to try to do that. when you look around there truly is no such thing as a homogenous law of the land as each country has different law, each state, each county, and each city... yet people still trade across all of these boundaries.