Posted on 02/18/2006 1:46:55 PM PST by freepatriot32
If you think that the idea of nine appointed judges being able to thwart the will of the majority is bad, think about the idea of twelve randomly selected citizens being able to do the exact same thing.>>>>>>>>>
I understand the point but I would rather trust twelve randomly selected citizens, and no jury is ever truly "randomly" selected, than to trust nine appointed judges if five of them have been appointed by someone who selected the judges for their known inclination to legislate from the bench rather than following the constitution. Some of the scotus decisions are frightening and I hope that recent appointments by President Bush will change the trend.
Maybe it's time we selected jurors based on the ability to reason, not the ability to be led around.>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sounds great but the pool would be limited, you might be one of those called for jury duty every month!
OMG that is ridiculous. It looks like these municipalities are trying to make money the easiest way possible.>>>>>>>
Hit don't jist look that there way lady, I done told Doc that there is the way hit is, dang it!
Well said. Too Long for a tagline, but with some editing...
ping
ping
If a judge decides to drop a juror, there is absolutely nothing that either side can do about it. They don't get to know why the juror dropped, either. If the judge decides not to dismiss the juror, then there still won't be a contradictory hearing on the matter. The judge has already decided that the juror is staying.
As for being able to write or not write stuff, it depends on the court. Some judges allow it, some don't, some even provide pen and paper to the jurors.
Heh. You just described how jury selection works now, almost exactly. Only the numbers are different. The no-questions-asked strikes are called "peremptory challenges." You can also get a juror stricken if there's a compelling reason: this is called "challenge for cause."
Yeah, Penn was exactly the case I was thinking about. Thanks for joining in!
Yeah, I saw your earlier post on that. I would tend to concur that the circumstances surrounding it are weird, especially in terms of the way the Supreme Court works today. However, The initial Supreme Courts understood the precarious position upon which they stood. There were some proceedings that occurred in the very early years that have not been repeated since. I think this is mainly because they saw (wisely IMO) that certain basic principles needed to be set down initially. For instance, the decision to incorporate the English Common Law into our jurisprudence was brilliant. There was much snickering about Arlen Spector referring to Scottish law in his vote on Clinton's impeachment, but the fact is, the precidents that exist in Scottish common law extend to our own. (Arlen's vote was nonetheless idiotic.) I think the case in question is exactly one of those incidents. Unfortunately, I don't have access at the moment to resources that would pin it down further.
Regardless of its accuracy, I still feel very strongly that the principles behind jury nullification are very important to the continued health of our Republic. That's not to say that I agree with what apparently happened in the OJ trial, where it appeared (to me anyway) that the fact that he was a black celebrity let him get away with murder. I think all rational folk can agree that murder a crime and should be dealt with strongly. Other crimes, primarily victimless ones are more grey than black and white, and I feel are fair game to a concerned citizenry to make sure they aren't injudiciously (no pun intended) employed against the people. Someone earlier on the thread said he could not vote to convict in the context of a "gun crime". I'd have to wholeheartedly agree with him, as I think all anti-gun laws are an anathema to a free Republic of free men.
We can disagree one way or the other, but nonetheless, I've enjoyed reading this thread immensely.
Well, it made sense to use English Common Law because we were used to using it. Hell, up until the Revolution, we still considered ourselves Englishmen. And in fact, the whole "no taxation without representation" thing referred to the Crown denying us our rights as Englishmen. The Revolution wasn't a rejection of all things British; it was an attempt to make us what we were supposed to be all along. Britain 2.0, if you will.
Regardless of its accuracy, I still feel very strongly that the principles behind jury nullification are very important to the continued health of our Republic. That's not to say that I agree with what apparently happened in the OJ trial, where it appeared (to me anyway) that the fact that he was a black celebrity let him get away with murder.
My studies of that case reveal that nothing actually went wrong. The prosecution was sloppy and Johnny Cochrane was a good lawyer. He ran a textbook case-in-chief defense: he prodded the prosecution's case with his shucking knife, poke poke poke, looking for a weak point. When he found one, he jammed his knife in as hard as he could and twisted. The proverbial oyster popped right open.
I think all rational folk can agree that murder a crime and should be dealt with strongly. Other crimes, primarily victimless ones are more grey than black and white, and I feel are fair game to a concerned citizenry to make sure they aren't injudiciously (no pun intended) employed against the people. Someone earlier on the thread said he could not vote to convict in the context of a "gun crime". I'd have to wholeheartedly agree with him, as I think all anti-gun laws are an anathema to a free Republic of free men.
If a jury disagrees with a law on principle, they can simply find the defendant not guilty of committing it. Enabling them to annihilate a law altogether subverts the principle of representative government. Making and eliminating laws is the legislature's job, with some tinkering by the judiciary, thanks to the whole "Constitutional government" thing.
We can disagree one way or the other, but nonetheless, I've enjoyed reading this thread immensely.
Hooray! This is how political speech is supposed to be.
I thought under the current system people were allowed to use their peremptory challenges on individual jurors, rather than on groups.
If one starts with a pool of 18 jurors and gives three peremptory challenges to each counsel, I would suggest the composition of the jury will look less like the community at large than if there are eight half-juries and each counsel strikes three of them. Even though in the latter case, counsel would be striking a larger percentage of the jury pool, the composition of each half-juries would likely be closer to the norm than the stance of any individual juror.
For example, suppose that the jury pool was 15% black. In a pool of 18 jurors, there's a 72% chance that there would be three or fewer blacks in the pool, thus allowing their complete elimination. By contrast, because 62% of the 6-person half-juries would have at least one black, there would be about a 64% chance that at least four of the them would have at least one black; three peremptory challenges would not suffice for eliminating all of them.
Even though in the former case each lawyer strikes 1/6 of the pool is eliminated while in the latter case each lawyer strikes 3/8, the latter approach would allow much less alteration of jury composition.
I agree. My belief is simple. No Victim No Crime.
Have we reached that point?
Yes. We have.
The author completely ignores the plethora of nanny-state federal regulations we are violating every day. Ever read the fine print on the labels of cleaning products?
It is a violation of federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling.
Wanna bet you haven't broken that one recently?
Other examples are plentiful.
But you are the man!
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