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Can the Jury nulify Law and fact?
sovereignman
Member Posts: 544 ✭✭✭
The courts are not the end to legislation it is people that make the determination. The JURY will decide, the people are sovereign.
A jury can nullify any law or any judge!
JUSTICE HUGO BLACK, (Assoc. Justice U.S. Supreme Court, 1937-1971) a great believer in the Jury system, used to tell this story:
Years ago, in the foot-hills of Alabama, a tenant-farmer was charged criminally with stealing a cow from his landlord, and was brought to trial. As was frequently the case in rural America, the Jurors selected for the trial were acquainted with everyone, including the accused and his victim. Each juror knew that the farm's landlord was a nasty buzzard who tormented his neighbors, while frequently treating the town's orphans and widows with derision. By the same token, the tenant-farmer was the salt of the earth, beloved by everyone. But still, the evidence of his guilt was indisputable.
After the evidence was in and the jury retired to deliberate, it quickly returned to the courtroom to announce its verdict: "If the accused returns the cow, we find him not guilty."
The judge was infuriated. His anger heightening, he commanded the jury to return to the jury room to deliberate --shrilly chastising them for their flagrantly "arrogant" and "illegal" verdict.
Not a moment passed when they re-appeared in the tense courtroom to trumpet their new verdict: "We find the accused not guilty -- and he can keep the cow."
The American Jury, Justice Black reminds his listeners, is effectively omnipotent in rendering an acquittal. What hits home in Justice Black's story is the deeply-held American notion that juries often perform an independent role in a system in which the people - not prosecutors, judges or lawyers - have the last word. In the end, if the jury wishes to let the defendant keep the cow, that is what will happen.
"We all know that permanent judges acquire an esprit de corps; that, being known, they are liable to be tempted by bribery; that they are misled by favor, by relationship, by a spirit of party, by a devotion to the executive or legislative; that it is better to leave a cause to the decision of cross and pile* than to that of a judge biased to one side; and that the opinion of twelve honest jurymen gives still a better hope of right than cross and pile does."
- Thomas Jefferson to Abbe Arnoux; 1789. ME 7:423, Papers 15:283
Note: "Cross and Pile" meant "heads or tails" or a coin toss
A jury is necessary to a free nation.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163877,00.html
Anyone disagree? Why?
A jury can nullify any law or any judge!
JUSTICE HUGO BLACK, (Assoc. Justice U.S. Supreme Court, 1937-1971) a great believer in the Jury system, used to tell this story:
Years ago, in the foot-hills of Alabama, a tenant-farmer was charged criminally with stealing a cow from his landlord, and was brought to trial. As was frequently the case in rural America, the Jurors selected for the trial were acquainted with everyone, including the accused and his victim. Each juror knew that the farm's landlord was a nasty buzzard who tormented his neighbors, while frequently treating the town's orphans and widows with derision. By the same token, the tenant-farmer was the salt of the earth, beloved by everyone. But still, the evidence of his guilt was indisputable.
After the evidence was in and the jury retired to deliberate, it quickly returned to the courtroom to announce its verdict: "If the accused returns the cow, we find him not guilty."
The judge was infuriated. His anger heightening, he commanded the jury to return to the jury room to deliberate --shrilly chastising them for their flagrantly "arrogant" and "illegal" verdict.
Not a moment passed when they re-appeared in the tense courtroom to trumpet their new verdict: "We find the accused not guilty -- and he can keep the cow."
The American Jury, Justice Black reminds his listeners, is effectively omnipotent in rendering an acquittal. What hits home in Justice Black's story is the deeply-held American notion that juries often perform an independent role in a system in which the people - not prosecutors, judges or lawyers - have the last word. In the end, if the jury wishes to let the defendant keep the cow, that is what will happen.
"We all know that permanent judges acquire an esprit de corps; that, being known, they are liable to be tempted by bribery; that they are misled by favor, by relationship, by a spirit of party, by a devotion to the executive or legislative; that it is better to leave a cause to the decision of cross and pile* than to that of a judge biased to one side; and that the opinion of twelve honest jurymen gives still a better hope of right than cross and pile does."
- Thomas Jefferson to Abbe Arnoux; 1789. ME 7:423, Papers 15:283
Note: "Cross and Pile" meant "heads or tails" or a coin toss
A jury is necessary to a free nation.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163877,00.html
Anyone disagree? Why?
Comments
Yep, that works for me.
Rather than a bulwark against "hasty, malicious and oppressive prosecution," today's federal grand jury is a rubber stamp, leading many to agree that "a good prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich." Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), former Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, noted that the federal grand jury, originally established by the Founding Fathers as a means of protecting American citizens against government excess, is today a captive of federal prosecutors.The prosecutor exercises enormous power, unrestrained by law or judicial supervision. The grand jury process itself is largely devoid of legal rules. The process has become one that wholly fails to protect ordinary American citizens.
if it doesn't change citizens will be nothing more than stepping stone
under the feet of the elite in government.JMO
http://www.nacdl.org/grandjury