• surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Those are cases of attempting to encourage specific juries to nullify. You’re not gonna be held in contempt for revealing you support jury nullification during selection.

      • Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
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        16 days ago

        held in contempt for revealing you support jury nullification during selection.

        Yes, you will. If you flat out say “I support Jury Nullification” during voir dire the judge will consider it flagrant contempt for the courts and deal with you accordingly.

        What will actually happen is you will be asked a vague question that skirts the issue like “do you have any beliefs which would render you unable to convict or acquit based on the evidence alone?”. If you answer in the affirmative an explanation will be demanded at which point what will your answer be? “I support jury nullification”, same deal. If you have an actual belief that gets in the way like say you abhor the death penalty they will say things like ‘case is regarding a traffic ticket, your concerns do not apply. any other reasons?’. Their goal being to show that any of your reasons either do not apply, or are insufficient in the judge’s eyes for you not to do your duty. At that point you’d still be a juror and if you do nullify for whatever reason there’s nothing they can do afaik.

        You’re dreaming if you think you wouldn’t be punished for praising jury nullification in front of a judge and an entire slew of potential jurors during voir dire, when someone was handing out fliers outside the court building was convicted despite no court being in session, no actual juror receiving the pamphlet, and it held on appeals.

        TBH you want evidence, the evidence is the court system still functioning because if what you said was true it would collapse in on itself.

        • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          16 days ago

          This is pure bullshit. And that’s not just my opinion, Cornell Law School explains jury nullification on their website, and lists multiple examples of it. Juries in the United States are protected, and you cannot be held responsible for refusing to convict. You will not be punished for it, and if you are, then your rights have been violated and you have a case to sue the government.

          • Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
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            16 days ago

            I did not say you would get punished for exercising JN during deliberations. We’re talking about getting OUT of jury duty, which means during the voir dire process.