Posted on 12/20/2010 11:45:22 AM PST by LonelyCon
A funny thing happened on the way to a trial in Missoula County District Court last week.
Jurors – well, potential jurors – staged a revolt.
They took the law into their own hands, as it were, and made it clear they weren’t about to convict anybody for having a couple of buds of marijuana. Never mind that the defendant in question also faced a felony charge of criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.
The tiny amount of marijuana police found while searching Touray Cornell’s home on April 23 became a huge issue for some members of the jury panel.
No, they said, one after the other. No way would they convict somebody for having a 16th of an ounce.
In fact, one juror wondered why the county was wasting time and money prosecuting the case at all, said a flummoxed Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul.
District Judge Dusty Deschamps took a quick poll as to who might agree. Of the 27 potential jurors before him, maybe five raised their hands. A couple of others had already been excused because of their philosophical objections.
“I thought, ‘Geez, I don’t know if we can seat a jury,’ ” said Deschamps, who called a recess.
And he didn’t.
During the recess, Paul and defense attorney Martin Elison worked out a plea agreement. That was on Thursday.
On Friday, Cornell entered an Alford plea, in which he didn’t admit guilt. He briefly held his infant daughter in his manacled hands, and walked smiling out of the courtroom.
“Public opinion, as revealed by the reaction of a substantial portion of the members of the jury called to try the charges on Dec. 16, 2010, is not supportive of the state’s marijuana law and appeared to prevent any conviction from being obtained simply because an unbiased jury did not appear available under any circumstances,” according to the plea memorandum filed by his attorney.
“A mutiny,” said Paul.
“Bizarre,” the defense attorney called it.
In his nearly 30 years as a prosecutor and judge, Deschamps said he’s never seen anything like it.
Do you remember the thread topic, and the post that I responded to? The armed felon, and confessed drug pusher, from out of state, totally skated on this charge, this is a path to Californiaism.
An Alfred plea is a guilty verdict :)
You have a pool of them and you get your first 12 in line
Jury selection is necessary to ensure a fair trial (or at least some semblance of one).
Say you're white and driving through Detroit and run over a black pedestrian and get charged with manslaughter (maybe even with a hate-crime add-on). Do you still want your jury to be just the first twelve people in the pool at the Detroit courthouse? Who do you think will be in that jury box? Think you'll ever see freedom again?
This is not the case in Tennessee. In Tennessee a criminal court jury is told that they are to judge the “law” and the “facts”. They are entitled to overrule the law. I believe Tennessee is the only state where juries are told it is their duty to nullify the law if required to do justice.
I’m my experience jury nullification has not been a problem in Tennessee. If the government is concerned that the “law” does not reach a just result it should not bring the charges, instead of trying to force a jury to follow the law.
well we hae to keep stupid people off
Jury ‘selection’ would be before they are assigned to any case
you have to be semi-intelligent to mke it into the pool- i.e. not so stupid that you cant decide a case fairly
>>you have to be semi-intelligent to mke it into the pool- i.e. not so stupid that you cant decide a case fairly<<
Oh, you mean like in the democratic voting pool!?
This is not the case in Tennessee. In Tennessee a criminal court jury is told that they are to judge the “law” and the “facts”. They are entitled to overrule the law. I believe Tennessee is the only state where juries are told it is their duty to nullify the law if required to do justice.
I’m my experience jury nullification has not been a problem in Tennessee. If the government is concerned that the “law” does not reach a just result it should not bring the charges, instead of trying to force a jury to follow the law.
The way the early part of the article is written, or how your excerpt lays it out, the casual reader would think that “mere” possession of a tiny amount of marijuana was the only evidence from which prosecutors sought a conviction, for either selling or intent to sell marijuana.
Yet, the full reading of the circumstances shows that the larger body of evidence demonstrates the criminal behavior and the tiny amount of marijuana only acts in support of the larger body of evidence.
Read correctly by a jury that was presented the case properly, a conviction was in order no matter the size of the quantity found in the perp’s possession at the time - the crime - selling or intent to sell - was clear, regardless of that amount.
The prosecutors should seek a new trial.
It never takes long for the Drug Warriors (Armchair Division) to show up.
Twenty-three states currently include jury nullification provisions in their
Constitutions under their sections on freedom of speech, specifically with respect to libel and sedition cases. Of these, Texas, Delaware, Kentucky, North Dakota, and Tennessee say that the jury is the judge of the law in libel and sedition cases, “as in all other cases.”
However, these provisions have usually not been strong enough to withstand decades of hostile judicial interpretation, and have relatively little current impact. Recently, there has been a popular movement to resurrect these provisions, but this is opposed by the legal profession.
It is part of overall, citizen initiated legal reform. Other examples are in those States where prosecutors can and do blatantly manipulate grand juries; the often corrupt practice of “expert testimony”; demanding confessions in exchange for plea bargains and sentence reduction, often involving years; and the ability of judges to exclude virtually all defense evidence and testimony, often that is clearly exculpatory.
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