Posted on 07/27/2018 2:59:37 PM PDT by Drew68
Javonnie McCoy was growing marijuana when the cops came to his Middle Georgia home. He was caught red-handed with it. Almost a pound of it, in fact. He admitted it to police, and later he looked jurors in the eye and said, yep, it was mine. I used it as medicine.
The jurors let him go. He was minding his own business and wasnt hurting anybody, they reasoned. He just doesnt belong in prison.
The jurys decision earlier this month in Dublin, Ga., may have been due to a muddled prosecution of a muddy case. Or it may have been jury nullification, another case of citizens saying prosecutions for pot are not worth law enforcements time and effort or the impact on otherwise law-abiding peoples lives.
It was the second such win in the Laurens County circuit for Atlanta attorney Catherine Bernard, a conservative Republican whos also a staunch civil libertarian. Late last year, another client of hers fessed up to a jury that he had sold a couple of nickel bags to an insistent undercover drug cop. That client was cut loose after just 18 minutes of deliberation.
And this is no liberal soft-on-crime region. Donald Trump won the county 2-1.
Bernard also helped get North Georgia authorities to drop charges against the parents of a 15-year-old whose parents allowed him to smoke pot to help combat severe seizures.
Ultimately, what may have kept McCoy out of an orange jumpsuit was that his lawyer urged the jury to empower themselves. She told them they are not potted plants or an unthinking arm of government. They, in fact, are the government. She read to the jury a section from the Georgia Constitution that says, The jury shall be the judges of the law and the facts.
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Jeff Sessions will be pissed when he wakes up and hears about this next week.
Good. About damned time.
L
What was his illness?
Who cares and what the hell business is it of yours?
L
When juries start judging guilt or innocence based on how they feel, the rule of law is dead.
That is one of the most appallingly ignorant statements ever posted on FR. And after 20 years here, thats saying something.
L
“More like this is how the rule of law ends. When juries start judging guilt or innocence based on how they feel, the rule of law is dead. Next, they will base these decisions on political affiliation.”
Jury nullification is a proud tradition inherited from English Common Law and is a major pillar upholding our American freedoms. A jury of our peers is totally entitled to render a verdict on the law itself at the same time it judges the defendant.
For shame.
Im surprised the lawyer wasnt jailed for even hinting at jury nullification. Its happened.
DWIs are an industry. Huge business for the state.
You mean, obviously innocent defendants. This person did zero harm and punishing him would be manifestly unjust. Even the inconvenience and intimidation of charges and trial is unjust in this case.
A person harming no one should be left alone - period.
> More like this is how the rule of law ends.
The rule of law ends through the making of injust laws, and through the inevitable understanding of the people how manifest the injustice of those laws is.
If you really care about the rule of law, then doing away with unjust laws such as these should be a priority for you.
The rule of law is not the same thing as the rule of laws.
I’ve read what you post before.
Funny, that. James Madison agrees with me.
And he was WAAAAY smarter than you will ever be.
So there.
L
She has likely just made an enemy of the judge in this case.
Judges like to think of themselves as the only person in the room who can educate the jury on the law.
I could see this lawyer never winning another case in front of this judge.
‘Juries, empowered to think for themselves, let obviously guilty defendants walk free.’
are you seriously of the opinion that this has never happened before in the history of this country’s jury history...? and are you personally pissed off that the guy isn’t going to be incarcerated for a ‘crime’ that affected absolutely nobody...?
Why would his illness matter? Id vote not guilty even if he was in perfect health.
You can only get so stoned.
It’s not like alcohol where if you continue to drink, you will get more drunk.
After X amount, you are just wasting pot and smoking to smoke.
They will never stop the War on Drugs.
They will on the other hand just move it over to Pain Meds.
A$$HOLES!!!
I imagine not though it seems in recent years juries have been admonished for exercising the right of jury nullification. Of course, there's O.J. Simpson...
and are you personally pissed off that the guy isnt going to be incarcerated for a crime that affected absolutely nobody...?
Not at all. The war on drugs, and in particular, the war on marijuana has been a travesty. I fully support the legalization of the recreational use of marijuana and until this happens, and it will, I fully support the right of juries to let obviously guilty pot smokers walk free.
Misunderstandings on the part of the left again. If you are for freedom you are probably for Trump and for relaxing anti-marijuana laws. If this is a shock to you, you might have a poor understanding of our Constitution.
Pot smokers vote for socialists.
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