Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: 11th_VA

An honest newspaper! From their Editorial Staff. Good to know there’s apparently at least one decent paper.


5 posted on 02/05/2013 7:08:03 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: 2nd amendment mama

Ping, in case you missed this thread.


15 posted on 02/05/2013 8:15:43 PM PST by basil (basil)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies ]

To: Cicero
An honest newspaper! From their Editorial Staff. Good to know there’s apparently at least one decent paper.

Though their intentions are honest, there's a couple of problems with the article.

One, jury nullification is a somewhat different creature than the nullification held out by Thomas Jefferson in the Virginia and Kentucky Ordinances and by South Carolina in their famous tiff with Andy Jackson.

Jury nullification is a legitimate power of the people, as is electoral nullification, and as is Militia nullification, a dicier subject which is nevertheless treated as "cartridge-box nullification" and a kind of People's veto over oppressive government policy. See Elaine Scarry's law article on the distribution of power in the Constitution. (Scarry, "War and the Social Contract: Nuclear Policy, Distribution, and The Right to Bear Arms", 139 U. PENN. L. REV. 1257 (1991). Available at http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Scarry1.html [cold link].)

State nullification has a real problem with the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. If you want to see a fine exposition of its doctrinal weaknesses, see Jefferson Davis's inaugural speech as President of the provisional Confederate Government in February, 1861, in which he couched his case for the necessity of secession as a function of the doctrinal failure of nullification.

Lastly, government disobedience of the law is a separate phenomenon completely, and needs to be separated from nullification issues and civil-liberty issues and considered as a problem of its own, of simple misfeasance, nonfeasance, or malfeasance of federal officials in the face of federal law.

24 posted on 02/06/2013 12:37:40 AM PST by lentulusgracchus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson