Juries do not create law. They merely judge it. Many judges abhor the idea (as do you)that mere citizens are competent to judge whether a law meets the definition of ‘good’ law. But history is replete with laws passed by those “large, elected legislative bodies” that do not pass muster. Zengler was the first on this continent, but not the last.
What you are telling me is that you would have sent a slave back to be flogged to death for running away. That was the ‘law’ at the time. You would vote to send members of this site to prison if Napolitano and Obama manage to pass a law stating that members of this site are extremist criminals by dint of belief alone. And ‘judges’ like Sotomayor decided that it was a good law and upheld it.
Yeah. Law. Made by political lawyers, for political lawyers. Upheld by lawyers who golf with politicians.
Not when they decide to nullify the law. That's exactly the point! At that point, they DO effectively create--or destroy--law, by rendering judgment in opposition to the law and the evidence in order to sidestep a law they don't like.
It's exactly what activist judges do: effectively alter the law to fit their own ideas.
Many judges abhor the idea (as do you)that mere citizens are competent to judge whether a law meets the definition of ‘good’ law.
It has nothing to do with what the judges think! Do you believe the Constitution or not? The Constitution establishes how and by whom laws are created. It has nothing to do with whether or not a judge likes it; it's the supreme law of the land!
Does the Constitution come with an asterisk at the end, referring to a footnote that reads, "Except when you don't like the result" ?
Changes to the law should be made in the legislature. Period.
Bad laws? Plenty of them. Fix them in congress!
What ever failures have been made using the legislative process, there is NO evidence that a group of twelve random people will make up something better.
But history is replete with laws passed by those “large, elected legislative bodies” that do not pass muster. Zengler was the first on this continent, but not the last.
But, you seem to miss the point.
Once you accept the principle of jury nullification, you can't pick and choose when and how it will be used.
What if your jury finds private ownership of guns morally reprehensible? What happens when the jury nullifies self-defense laws and convicts you of murder for killing that home intruder?
It all sounds quite noble when the examples you cite deal with historical slavery, but those cases are history. Discussion of them is academic. What matters today is how a jury which could easily be made up entirely of liberal Democrats would use such power.
THAT is something that happens today.
I think the very fabric of our nation depends on the rule of law. Once you open the Pandora's box of ignoring the duly legislated law, for what ever reason and by what ever means, then you erode and attack the very principles that made our country what it is.
It's naked hypocrisy to condemn judges for creating law out of whole cloth, rightly demanding that the will of the people as enacted by elected legislators be held supreme, then applauding juries who accomplish essentially the same evil through different means.