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.
The people have spoken. Case dismissed.
Sounds like Jury Nullification
I wonder how long until our political “Betters” decide that jury trials are no longer in their best interests, and substitute tribunals in their place?
“Seems like the West is returning more to its cowboy-like libertarian ways lately.”
“Because the case never went to trial, members of the jury pool didn’t know that Cornell’s neighbors had complained to police that he was dealing from his South 10th Street West four-plex, according to an affidavit in the case. After one neighbor reported witnessing an alleged transaction between Cornell and two people in a vehicle, marijuana was found in the vehicle in question.
The driver and passenger said they’d bought it from Cornell, the affidavit said. A subsequent search of his home turned up some burnt marijuana cigarettes, a pipe and some residue, as well as a shoulder holster for a handgun and 9mm ammunition. As a convicted felon, Cornell was prohibited from having firearms, the affidavit noted.
Cornell admitted distributing small amounts of marijuana and “referred to himself as a person who connected other dealers with customers,” it said. “He claimed his payment for arranging deals was usually a small amount of marijuana for himself.”
Potential jurors also couldn’t know about Cornell’s criminal history, which included eight felonies, most of them in and around Chicago several years ago. According to papers filed in connection with the plea agreement, Cornell said he moved to Missoula to “escape the criminal lifestyle he was leading,” but he’s had a number of brushes with the law here.
Those include misdemeanor convictions for driving while under the influence and driving with a suspended license, and a felony conviction in August of conspiracy to commit theft, involving an alleged plot last year to stage a theft at a business where a friend worked, the papers said. He was out on bail in that case when the drug charges were filed.
In sentencing him Friday, Deschamps referred to him as “an eight-time loser” and said, “I’m not convinced in any way that you don’t present an ongoing threat to the community.”
Deschamps also pronounced himself “appalled” at Cornell’s personal life, saying: “You’ve got no education, you’ve got no skills. Your life’s work seems to be going out and impregnating women and not supporting your children.”
The mother of one of those children, a 3-month-old named Joy who slept through Friday’s sentencing, was in the courtroom for Friday’s sentencing. Cornell sought and received permission to hug his daughter before heading back to jail.
Deschamps sentenced Cornell to 20 years, with 19 suspended, under Department of Corrections supervision, to run concurrently with his sentence in the theft case. He’ll get credit for the 200 days he’s already served. The judge also ordered Cornell to get a GED degree upon his release.
“Instead of being a lazy bum, you need to get an education so you can get a decent law-abiding job and start supporting your family,” he said.
Normally, Paul said after the sentencing, a case involving such a small amount of marijuana wouldn’t have gone this far through the court system except for the felony charge involved.”
As a rule of thumb, if you are ever given jury duty, never admit to familiarity with jury nullification. Under typical circumstances, attorneys and judges will exclude you from a jury if you so much as mention it.
If, and it’s a big if, you wish to use your authority and responsibility of jury nullification, by voting “not guilty”, and are asked by other jurors why you did so, you should still *not* use the phrase “jury nullification”, or it may be used to relieve you of jury duty and replace you with an alternate juror. (The excuse will be that you have instructed other jurors about a matter of law, which is forbidden, as you are not an officer of the court.)
Instead, while being honest, you can state that you believe the law is inappropriate, or that it is being applied incorrectly or injudiciously. Which, in effect, are the *rationales* of jury nullification. And, importantly, as such, they are not adequate from dismissing you from the jury.
That is, you can practice but you cannot preach.
Ironically, even among the firmest of believers in the principal of jury nullification, the vast majority of the time it will never be an issue, because not only is the defendant guilty as blue blazes, but guilty of violating a real and important law, and you truly believe that they should spend a long, long time in prison.
And if one other person on the jury wants to find them “not guilty”, you will think they have lost their mind.
Interesting but none of that was was what he was on trial for (from what I can glean from this article).
Not too long I expect.
With a 16th of an ounce of pot, he may as well of had 22 tons of meth, a hundred pounds of Plutonium and a dozen dead bodies in his trunk!
Don’t you understand, the we are in a Drug War and we are just about to win the Drug War! /satire
He's a "drug dealer" and all they could find was 1/16th of an ounce?
Is it just me or is there something wrong with that picture?
I call it Jury Nullification. It has a long, and mostly proud history, in overturning unjust laws. It is saying to the state "No, I will not enforce a bad law."
Yeah.. can't be all 'acting white' an all...
Get rid of the ‘jury slection’ process
You have a pool of them and you get your first 12 in line
Lawyers should be forced to serve, for free.
This could be a full time job, as long as you are not thrown off the pool for being a dumbass (and not doing your job)
Too much is spent picking your jur
Get rid of the ‘jury slection’ process
You have a pool of them and you get your first 12 in line
Lawyers should be forced to serve, for free.
This could be a full time job, as long as you are not thrown off the pool for being a dumbass (and not doing your job)
Too much is spent picking your jury
Yes it did, he went to prison for the other charges, but since this one was about the drug of choice for liberals, the California style jurors were too hip to bother a wholesome brother over it, and help ‘the man’ harass a drug dealer.
Soon they too can become like California.
He’s in prison. What’s the big deal?
That was my first thought too. If he had all that stuff going on, why wasn't he charged with any of it? An "illegal search" exclusion of evidence is the thing that comes to mind.
In the words of Paul Newman’s character speaking to the jury, in “The Verdict”: Today you’re the law.
Words to live by.
I was in a jury pool a few years ago. The judge had interviewed a number of folk and called for juror number xxx. The prosecuting attorney immediately asked to approach the bench. He and the defense lawyer went and discussed something with the judge.
They returned to their seats and the judge informed the lady she was dismissed and should return to the waiting room for perspective jurors.
He then turned to the rest of us awaiting selection and asked, “Now, are any more of you jurors sleeping with one of these lawyers?”
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