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To: savedbygrace
Rosecoe, you don't understand the distinction between narrow and broad.

I can see the difference between a distinction and a distraction. You can't refute the decision, so you're trying to stick a tag on it.

Individuals who would engage in nullification of the law have no "right" to be jurors and may be excluded from service, no matter how you try to avoid addressing that point.

413 posted on 03/13/2003 11:40:24 AM PST by Roscoe
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To: Roscoe; Iron Eagle
Still haven't heard either of you guys address the historic usage of Jury Nullification to --

(1) Defend religious freedom (the William Penn case, which was a hung jury because 4 jurors held out despite being jailed themselves),

(2) Defend freedom of speech (the Peter Zenger sedition case)

Note defense counsel Alexander Hamilton's comments -
"I know, may it please Your Honor, the jury may do so [ie, convict]. But I do likewise know that they may do otherwise. I know that they have the right beyond all dispute to determine both the law and the fact; and where they do not doubt of the law, they ought to do so. Leaving it to judgment of the court whether the words are libelous or not in effect renders juries useless (to say no worse) in many cases...."

(3) OR, Resist slavery (many abolitionists who broke the law by helping slaves escape, were acquitted by anti-slavery juries.)

Well? Are you prepared to say that Penn the Quaker should have been executed, Zenger the honest printer should have been silenced, and the Underground Railroad should have been put out of business? Or, can you admit that Jury Nullification has actually spared the lives and freedoms of some of history's heroes? Which side are you on -- blind application of the process of law, or pursuit of real justice --which, (mankind and the law of mankind being fallible) is sometimes not found in the law? Would you rather be Pharisees or Prophets?

That having been said -- I do agree with you partially. I regard Jury Nullification, a.k.a. Jury Lawlessness, as in the same category as Armed Insurrection: Both of these are necessary remedies that belong in the political medicine chest, but, they ought to be used only rarely, in extreme cases -- when no milder medicine will suffice. Just as the Founders in the Declaration stated that it would be wrong to overthrow the government for "light and transient causes", particularly if less severe remedies were still available, so too I would argue that the right of jury nullification ought to be exercised with great restraint.

But, like insurrection, nullification is a birthright that we must retain... just in case.

430 posted on 03/14/2003 9:51:50 AM PST by Rytwyng
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