Yeah, I saw your earlier post on that. I would tend to concur that the circumstances surrounding it are weird, especially in terms of the way the Supreme Court works today. However, The initial Supreme Courts understood the precarious position upon which they stood. There were some proceedings that occurred in the very early years that have not been repeated since. I think this is mainly because they saw (wisely IMO) that certain basic principles needed to be set down initially. For instance, the decision to incorporate the English Common Law into our jurisprudence was brilliant. There was much snickering about Arlen Spector referring to Scottish law in his vote on Clinton's impeachment, but the fact is, the precidents that exist in Scottish common law extend to our own. (Arlen's vote was nonetheless idiotic.) I think the case in question is exactly one of those incidents. Unfortunately, I don't have access at the moment to resources that would pin it down further.
Regardless of its accuracy, I still feel very strongly that the principles behind jury nullification are very important to the continued health of our Republic. That's not to say that I agree with what apparently happened in the OJ trial, where it appeared (to me anyway) that the fact that he was a black celebrity let him get away with murder. I think all rational folk can agree that murder a crime and should be dealt with strongly. Other crimes, primarily victimless ones are more grey than black and white, and I feel are fair game to a concerned citizenry to make sure they aren't injudiciously (no pun intended) employed against the people. Someone earlier on the thread said he could not vote to convict in the context of a "gun crime". I'd have to wholeheartedly agree with him, as I think all anti-gun laws are an anathema to a free Republic of free men.
We can disagree one way or the other, but nonetheless, I've enjoyed reading this thread immensely.
Well, it made sense to use English Common Law because we were used to using it. Hell, up until the Revolution, we still considered ourselves Englishmen. And in fact, the whole "no taxation without representation" thing referred to the Crown denying us our rights as Englishmen. The Revolution wasn't a rejection of all things British; it was an attempt to make us what we were supposed to be all along. Britain 2.0, if you will.
Regardless of its accuracy, I still feel very strongly that the principles behind jury nullification are very important to the continued health of our Republic. That's not to say that I agree with what apparently happened in the OJ trial, where it appeared (to me anyway) that the fact that he was a black celebrity let him get away with murder.
My studies of that case reveal that nothing actually went wrong. The prosecution was sloppy and Johnny Cochrane was a good lawyer. He ran a textbook case-in-chief defense: he prodded the prosecution's case with his shucking knife, poke poke poke, looking for a weak point. When he found one, he jammed his knife in as hard as he could and twisted. The proverbial oyster popped right open.
I think all rational folk can agree that murder a crime and should be dealt with strongly. Other crimes, primarily victimless ones are more grey than black and white, and I feel are fair game to a concerned citizenry to make sure they aren't injudiciously (no pun intended) employed against the people. Someone earlier on the thread said he could not vote to convict in the context of a "gun crime". I'd have to wholeheartedly agree with him, as I think all anti-gun laws are an anathema to a free Republic of free men.
If a jury disagrees with a law on principle, they can simply find the defendant not guilty of committing it. Enabling them to annihilate a law altogether subverts the principle of representative government. Making and eliminating laws is the legislature's job, with some tinkering by the judiciary, thanks to the whole "Constitutional government" thing.
We can disagree one way or the other, but nonetheless, I've enjoyed reading this thread immensely.
Hooray! This is how political speech is supposed to be.