Jon,
More "power" to you. I hope you get it done.
Now back to the beginning. Is my signature not in line with the
FIJA literature? I hate to be a pest, but could you further
explain your disagreement with it by directly rebutting/editing
the parts you don't like? It's important that it's accurate.
-Mark
{American jurors have complete Constitutional authority to vote
"not guilty" based on nothing more than a disagreement with the
law the defendant allegedly violated, no matter the evidence.
There is absolutely no obligation to vote "guilty" to arrive at a
unanimous verdict. Get on a jury and help fulfill its other
original purpose: to counteract unconstitutional / oppressive
government legislation. See www.fija.org . [Please adopt this as
your own signature.]}
_____
Actually, I am promoting both, with the intention of using each
to leverage the other.
What I seek is a precedent that it is okay to argue the law in
the presence of the
jury. Once that precedent is set, anywhere, suddenly defense
lawyers everywhere
are going to be demanding to expand on it, and get a few more
precedents. At the
same time, if the word gets out to enough of the public that when
they serve on a
jury and when they do they should expect legal argument, when
they don't get it at
least one will say, "Hey! There hasn't been any legal argument,
and when I saw
this case presented on TV there was legal argument. What's going
on here?
Something wrong with this case. I think I better vote to acquit,
because I have
some real doubts now."
Now at no point in all this does any significant part of the
public actually learn
much about the law, even during trial. All that happens is they
learn to expect
legal argument, and get suspicious if they don't get it. They
might not understand
it when they do get it, but they can at least get a sense of what
the lawyers are
arguing about, and sense when there is real doubt about whether
the charge is
lawful or not. All the defense has to do is plant doubt in the
jurors' minds. They
don't have to really understand the legal issues argued before
them the way
lawyers do. They just have to get a sense that the judge or
prosecutor (or even
the defense counsel) is trying to put something over on them.
They can sense that
without legal understanding. All it takes is for them to develop
reasonable doubt.
Now of course when you propose this to prosecutors or judges
(most of whom are
former prosecutors), they strongly oppose it, precisely because
they know such
legal argument will create doubts in the jury. They will argue
that it would
"confuse" the jury, and, of course, it might. But it would also
force the lawyers
to bring the law down to the level of the jury, and in the course
of doing that, a
lot of the sophistry lawyers are fond of using to confuse one
another and the
judge are likely to fall away. It is not only juries that are
susceptible to being
confused.
I would expect the transitional period after we adopt legal
argument to juries
would be a bit chaotic until the legal system and the public
readjust to the new
order, and the popular culture assimilates legal training the way
it now
assimilates computer training. (Ever notice that when you go to a
restaurant
today, the changes are good the people on one of the nearest
tables are discussing
computer subjects. Who woulda thot?)
You see, I'm old enough to remember growing up in a small town in
Texas when one
of the most popular topics of conversation in the barber shop was
the latest
trial. People would spend hours picking apart every argument and
piece of
evidence. That doesn't happen anymore, but there is no reason we
can't get back to
that.
Compared to the millions or billions that would have to be spent
on educating the
public directly, the cost of getting a critical precedent that
could get the
snowball rolling is within reach, provided enough of us focus on
getting that
snowball started.
-- Jon
_____
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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