Then lobby to have them rescinded. Or to have the prosecutor who brings cases for violations defeated. Or tell the judge during voir dire that you think that law is stupid and you could never convict anyone of violating it.

But don’t swear to follow the law as given you by the court, and then disregard that oath.

i’ve read much of your legal analyses and am greatful for having achieved a greater understanding of many things. and i understand what you are saying above; it is dangerous because people pick and choose the laws they agree with.
still, i can’t help thinking some of them are just dumb and shouldn’t be prosecuted.

By way of further illustration:

Assume you Know Party A, and see him go into a building, where a crime then occurs. Party A is charged, and the police know that you know Party A by sight and have evidence that you were in a position to have witnessed him going into the building at the relevant time.

For whatever reason, however, you don’t think Party A should be prosecuted (e.g., because he’s black and the cops are white and systemic racism is to blame; because you believe the law he charged with violating is unconstitutional; etc.).

Do you think that because *you* don’t think Party A should be prosecuted, it’s acceptable conduct to lie under oath and say, “no, I didn’t see him go into the building”?

Jury nullification is no different. Both cases involve false oaths, and a rationalization that because you don’t like the law, you’re not bound by the oath.

Again, if a juror feels that way, in the voir dire (jury selection) process, he has the opportunity to say so and be excused. To believe that and not say so in response to the court’s inquiry is another oath broken, as your initial oath is that you will give complete and truthful answers to the court’s questions. That’s why it is called voir dire — Law French for “to speak the truth.”

Once you endorse jurors ignoring the law as given to them by the court, violating oaths that they have taken, and just doing what they believe is “right,” where does it end?

Look at the OJ Simpson criminal trial. Yes, the prosecution was a bad joke, and the Judge Ito provided the paradigm example of how NOT to conduct a high profile trial. But at the end of the day, you had a case of jury nullification because they just didn’t want to send OJ to jail, the facts or law be damned.

The rule of law requires that the LAW be applied — not just when you happen to agree with it. It also requires people to be bound by oaths taken. Once you depart from that path — imperfect as it may be — you are inviting chaos and extrajudicial activities. That is why jury nullification cannot be raised, and why advocating for it is a VERY bad idea.

LKB,

I believe that what you say is true and accurate–and it is a travesty.

A legal system, which demands that jurors find a defendant guilty, is fine and dandy if governments always create just laws. However, governments are notorious for creating unjust laws. That being the case, juries should be the very last stopgap measure to negate such laws and therefore tyranny.

Here is an example. A government can create a law which says that an individual with no criminal record and no malicious intent, peaceably keeping a rifle in a locked safe, is an illegal (felony) act. That is clearly an unjust law which also happens to violate the plain language of the U.S. Constitution. And yet, if there is simple and irrefutable evidence of that happening and government puts that individual on trial, jurors are supposed to convict that defendant and send him/her to prison for years/decades? Needless to say, that is gross and obscene. And I would argue that the current legal landscape (which condemns jury nullification) is counter to the intent of our nations Founders.

After all, what is the intent of the criminal justice system? Is it to rubber-stamp government prosecutions? Or is it to serve justice? And if the intent is to serve justice, why are juries forbidden to serve justice?

When you serve on a jury, you take an oath to follow the law as given to you by the judge. (If you can’t agree to do this, you will be excused from jury service, as you should.) If you decide not to apply the law as given to you because you don’t agree with the law, then you are violating your oath. (This is why the mention of jury nullification is verbotten: it is encouraging jurors to violate their oath.)

Now, unless you open your trap and brag about doing so, the chances of being prosecuted for exercising jury nullification are essentially nil. But some of us view abiding by an oath we have sworn as important.

I think you mean the last decade plus. It was one month shy of eleven years and unprecedented. What’s that thing the Dems are always pretending to freak out about, yet they’re always doing themselves? Oh yeah, breaking norms!

The fairness of it doesn’t really matter. It’s a presidential power. Informed people knew that was inevitable the moment the Puppet was elected. Those are the people that didn’t vote for Biden.

Either way, the imperative of choosing a good president to wield the pardon power — among others — is obvious.

Exactly! Elections have consequences. America had extreme buyers remorse with Biden. Suddenly, the other didn’t look so bad.

I never thought much about jury nullification until I kept hearing a few guys, like Chris T, mentioning it at that other site.

Thank George Soros and the 100s of millions of dollars he invested in getting prosecutors like Bragg, Kim Foxx, George Gascon and Fani Willis elected. Just to name a few of the worst abusers of the rule of law.

Because you get the trial…you deserve.

?

Wrong choice of words there. It was more than ‘unfair’ and there is nothing ‘perceived’ about it.

It was flat out wrong, an insult, a degradation, a continuation of the four years of crime spree and constitutional rights violations that was the Biden-Harris regeim of tyranny and rubbing their crap in the face of America with “we are elite, so f*$k you America”