John,
I have not seen any of those shows, so I can not comment. Do you have anything else to support your statement that "most jurors today already know" the FIJA-type nullification information? When I explain it, hardly anyone already "knew". Besides, if that's true, then isn't FIJA obsolete? I agree that the jury's default prejudice is against the defendant, but I don't think jury nullification is their intent when they vote with their pro-prosecution bias to convict. I think many jurors are intimidated by gov/prosecution power largely because they are ignorant of their power to thwart it. Therefore, they are afraid of repercussions if they vote their conscience to acquit, especially if they vote un-unanimous, and super-especially if they vote to ignore the facts and refute the law. I suppose technically, "jury nullification" would mean voting any way that is not perfectly aligned with the facts and the law (just like "drug-law reform" would technically mean any change in drug laws). But usually, it means a verdict that is not aligned with the prosecution's evidence. Unless you are talking about an extremely rare VIP case, I don't think many jurors are afraid of repercussions coming from the defense if they vote guilty. The message that desperately needs publicity is that it is ok to vote "not guilty" without fearing repercussions from the state (and other members of the "guilty"-voting jury), no matter the amount of hard evidence. And that only needs to reach one out of every 12 jurors. Is that not the message of FIJA? Obviously, jury-nullification information does not need to include advice that it's ok to convict based on little evidence. As you imply, there is no shortage of that or need for more of it. Unless I am wrong, the whole message of FIJA is the opposite. Are you truly worried that promoting FIJA-type nullification information will increase convictions? That is surely not its intent, and I don't believe its effect - any more than "drug-law reform" increases harsher drug laws. And you didn't address my point that even were law to be argued in front of the jury, and the law found to be unconstitutional, it would still be law. And a not-guilty nullification would still be warranted. I believe you are still arguing FOR FIJA-type jury nullification; you just want to educate constitutionally-ignorant jurors first. (But haven't constitutional issues also been aired on plenty of TV shows?) I'm all for education, but not at the exclusion of nullification. -Mark _____ Mark, you are somewhat confused, based on your comments below. The fact is that most jurors today already know about "jury nullification". They already know they can "vote their conscience" in defiance of the instructions of the bench concerning what the law is. The idea has been abundantly presented in the media for more than a decade. Anyone who has caught episodes of /Ally McBeal/, /The Practice/, /Boston Legal/, /Law & Order/, or a host of other such programs that have discussed the idea during the episode, have already been "informed" to the extent that an instruction to the jury or a general public education campaign could do it. That isn't enough. Most jurors come to court with a pro-prosecution bias. "If he isn't guilty they wouldn't be prosecuting him." Most prosecutions succeed by presenting the accused as a "bad guy", often on the basis of actions that have nothing to do with the charge, and the jury becomes willing to convict him of the crime of "wreaking", which sounds like something bad, and since he's a bad guy, he must be guilty of it, whatever it is. I know a lot of people who have been convicted of non-existent crimes. (Ed Heimlich was convicted of stealing his own money, for example.) Why do most tax protesters get convicted? Some of them do manage to get across to the jury that they sincerely believe there is no law that requires them to file or pay taxes. But that isn't enough. Most of the jurors just reason, "I don't care if the income tax is unconstitutional. They can put you in jail if you don't pay it, and I paid to stay out of jail, so if I had to, I'm not going to let him get away with not doing it." Why do most federal drug prosecutions succeed? Even if the accused somehow gets it across to the jury that the U.S. statute under which he is charged is unconstitutional, they just reason, "He's a bad guy. What difference does it make whether the feds or the state locks him up? The important thing is to get him off the streets." These cases are examples of what I mean by "voting one's conscience" operating to produce an unjust verdict, as a matter of constitutional law, as originally understood. The kind of lesson in law the jurors need is much, much deeper and more detailed than any simple notion of "conscience" can handle. The jury has to be made to understand, against their prejudices, not only that a charge is unlawful, but why that is important. That is typically a matter of days of legal argument, extensive briefs, and hours studying in a law library. There is no way a single, simple instruction or public information. Ideally, our public schools would give everyone the equivalent of at least one year of law school, but that isn't going to happen. The fact is, if jurors don't learn the law of the case while they are empaneled, they never will. And, for that matter, neither will judges, or the attorneys, or the press, or public observers, or anyone else. _____ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! 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