Posted on 02/18/2006 1:46:55 PM PST by freepatriot32
Here's a question for you: Can you get through 24 hours without breaking a law? Before you answer, consider:
In January, an Atlanta man was arrested and handcuffed for selling a subway token at face value. Donald Pirone observed another passenger having difficulty with a token vending machine, so he gave him a $1.75 token. After the man insisted on paying him, Pirone was cited by a transit officer for a misdemeanor, since state law prohibits selling tokens -- even at face value. A MARTA spokesperson denied that handcuffing a customer for helping another customer was excessive. "There are customer service phones for people who are having trouble getting tokens out of the machine," she said.
Meanwhile, in late 2005, an Ohio man spent three days in jail because he didn't put identification tags on his family's pet turtles and snakes. Terry Wilkins broke a state law requiring owners of native reptiles to tag them with a PIT (personal-integrated transponder). The tags, which are the size of a grain of rice and can be inserted under the animal's skin, contain a bar code readable by a scanner. Wilkins refused to tag the animals because he said PIT tags cause health problems in small reptiles.
It goes on. In Kentucky, Larry Casteel was arrested for not attending a parenting class for divorcing parents, as mandated by state law. He spent the night in jail. In New Jersey, police are giving tickets to people who leave their cars running for more than three minutes in store parking lots. Stopwatch-wielding police hit the offenders with a $200 fine for violating the state's anti-idling law. In northwest Georgia, 49 convenience store owners were arrested for selling legal products to customers. The owners -- mostly of Indian background -- sold cold medicine, baking soda, table salt, matches, and lantern fuel. Police said the ingredients could be used to make methamphetamine. In Burlington, Vermont, police are ticketing people for not removing keys from the ignition and locking their cars. Police said the state law prevents car thefts. Violators are fined $79.
So -- are you still sure you can get through a day without violating a law? If so, don't worry. Legislators are making more things illegal. In New York City, a city council member wants to make it a crime to ride a bike without a registration number tag. Violators would face up to 15 days imprisonment. In Illinois, a state senator wants to make it a crime not to have a carbon monoxide detector installed in your home. In Pennsylvania, a state senator filed a bill to allow police to fine drivers $75 if they don't clean snow off their car. In Virginia, a state legislator wants to make it illegal to show your underwear in public. Girls (or boys) with low-rider pants would get hit with a $50 fine if their thongs show.
Novelist Ayn Rand once wrote: "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws."
Have we reached that point? Is it impossible to live without breaking laws? Before you answer, better check to make sure that your pets have transponder tags, that you didn't leave the keys in your car, and that your underwear is not showing.
Sources:
MARTA token: http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=1390140 Pet TIPs: http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/13309603.htm Parenting class: http://www.reason.com/brickbats/bb-2005.shtml NJ anti-idling law: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060108/LIVING/601080331/1004/LIVING&theme=
VT locked cars: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060108/LIVING/601080331/1004/LIVING&theme= Convenience store: http://www.iacfpa.org/p_news/nit/iacpa-archieve/2005/08/19/civil2-19082995.html NY bikes: http://ridl.us/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=4889&sid=7bad222acdd8dc2f133555e0e62b5f34 CO2 detector: http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/localnews/current/ba/01-19-06-807026.html PA snow: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/08/874.asp VA underwear: http://www.timesdispatch.com/
This sounds like Soviet Russia.
this entire thing is academic anyway since we both seem to admit that jury nullification can't be prevented.
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Nullification could be prevented by allowing judicial review of jury verdicts. It could also be specifically banned by law. Of course, that would fly in the face of the expressed intent of the Founding Fathers.
Jurors can't be charged with this because there is no way to prove it. And the jurors themselves wouldn't be prosecuted, by the way; it's been common-law doctrine for centuries that jurors are not to be prosecuted for anything they do in the rightful capacity as jurors. If a jury were found to have engaged in nullification, the result would be the overturning of their verdict as null. And even that would carry its own slew of double jeopardy issues.
Jurors are called upon to make decisions. Trying to prove that they made a given decision by using a certain rationale is tantamount to attempting to prove a thoughtcrime. This isn't your average state-of-mind issue, either: the result that a jury reached is one that they can legitimately reach. Juries are not held to their results. This isn't like negligence or premeditation. You actually have an objectively viewable red flag in criminal or tort cases that use those concepts.
A prohibition on jury nullification would be impossible to enforce and so can't really be made illegal. It is therefore recognized as a power, albeit one to be exercised under the radar. But it has no legal sanction whatsoever, and therefore cannot be recognized as a right.
Heh. Thanks. I could do this all day.
Ummmm, I thought the whole point of jury nullification was at that point when the Foreman stood up and said, "Your Honor, we of the jury find that this law is unconstitutional and is hereby declared null and void."
Thereby freeing society from the burden of an unfair law, not merely releasing one victim of that law, and leaving the rest of us exposed the the whims of our local 'betters"...
Certainly the perception of jury nullification went downhill after the establishment of the Constitution, and especially after the Civil War. Opposition of laws imposed by an overseas monarch was seen rather more favorably than opposition of laws passed locally. At the time the Constitution was ratified, however, the ability of juries to act as a check on government was viewed as a good thing.
To be sure, jury nullification has some severe problems:
And the standard for rendering a JNOV is high enough that it pretty much never happens, and when it does, it happens in civil suits. Basically, if the jury came to a decision, based on the evidence, that a reasonable person could come to in the capacity of a trier of fact, their verdict will not be disturbed. When you factor in the reasonable doubt standard that the prosecution already has to overcome, it becomes clear that a reasonable jury could find someone not guilty in pretty much any criminal case.
Even in civil suits, where the standard of proof is a mere preponderance, JNOV is used very sparingly, and is usually accompanied by a new trial, not a simple reversal. The odds of a JNOV being granted in that second trial, if a second jury comes to the same conclusion, is so small as to be negligible.
If the foreman did that, the verdict would be tossed out. This is why jury nullification happens under the radar. That's the only way it can happen. And when it happens like that, it can't be proven.
That's a laugh.
No one's life liberty or property are safe as long as court is in session.
If a jury finds a law unjust and wishes to acquit anyone charged under it, there is really no way to stop them as long as they don't tell anyone what they're doing. But a judge declaring a law void is a pretty serious matter already, and explicitly throwing this power into the nigh-uncheckable province of the jury is just asking for trouble.
And putting additional checks on juries to counter the above problem is asking for even more trouble.
A prohibition on jury nullification would be impossible to enforce and so can't really be made illegal.
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As stated above, nullification could be stopped by allowing judicial review. The courts have ruled jury nullification is legal. The congress has not tried to stop it by law or Constitutional amendment.
By the way, is a lawyer somehow better able to get elected to public office than anyone of another profession? If so, you may want to blame The People for electing them.
See #123.
OMG that is ridiculous. It looks like these municipalities are trying to make money the easiest way possible.
Durr, make that 124.
I'm on a mistake-making rampage, aren't I? Make that 129.
In criminal cases in the U.S., only the defendant (and not the prosecution) may move for a J.N.O.V.
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