• Stovetop@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      You mean that very legal and factually-suppprted facet of the American justice system that every juror should be informed about before making a decision in court?

      • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        Technically, it is not legal. However, there’s no way to either prove it, nor is there any recourse against it.

        • Codex@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          Please point me to the statute or code which states a juror is legally obliged to render an accurate and truthful verdict, and explain how you would enforce such a thing.

          • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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            13 days ago

            I guess you’ve never done jury duty, but when I have, they make you swear an oath more or less to that effect. I’m pretty sure it can be prosecuted, but if you want to the specific laws, you’re welcome to find that for yourself.

            • 3ntranced@lemmy.world
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              13 days ago

              If you have also done jury duty, you will recall that the duration of the deliberation is done in a sealed room with no officials present.

              You can absolutely conspire to nullify in complete discretion because your conversations legally cannot leave the room until the case has shut.

              • Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                13 days ago

                I hung and nullified a jury myself. It was very uncomfortable. At two points I requested the judge to come in and explain to the rest of the jurors I didn’t owe them any explanation for my not guilty verdict. It took the trial out an additional two days and everyone was pissed at me but I was not going to sit in my privilege and give a guy a felony conviction after months of obvious police harassment.

                • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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                  12 days ago

                  Can you go into more detail on the procedure side of things? So everyone says if the suspect is guilty or not, and if there’s no consensus the jury is hung? How does that lead to nullification?

                  • Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    12 days ago

                    In my case I made it apparent I wasn’t going to change my position. They spent two days re-debating everything going around the room and whenever they got to me I said I have nothing to add. They would initiate a vote and I would vote not guilty. It went on and on. Sometimes the debates would last for hours, sometimes as quick as thirty minutes. At first it was general thorough discussion and acting flabbergasted that I held the position I held. The next morning they started acting hostile so I asked for the judge to come in and explain to the jury members if I owed them any explanation for my position. Things settled down a little bit but started getting hostile again until we were released for the day fairly late. On the third day (second full day of deliberation) it was very tense. After lunch I asked for the judge to come back in (I was starting to feel a bit unsafe with how hostile some of the jury was getting) and explain again whether I owed them an explanation for my position which he confirmed I did not. Once the judge finished stating that I do not owe anyone an explanation I said something to the effect of “thank you, I have started to feel unsafe for having a different interpretation of events”. I can only assume, since I couldn’t have a conversation with any of the other jurors by this point, but I believe me stating to the judge that I was starting to feel unsafe along with my refusal to waver or engage in any debate beyond “I have nothing to add” and stating I found him not guilty made them realize I was willing to carry deliberation for as many days/weeks required and the judge was having us come in at 9 and releasing us at 7. Everyone in the room signed not guilty around 6-6:30 in the evening that third day of deliberation which was a Friday night. They probably also didn’t want to continue into the next week. I’m not sure though, one of the court security police officers said he would hang out with me so I hung out in front of the courtroom for an hour before going to my car and going home and he said he would watch my path and exit. Some of the jurors were frustrated and pleading. A couple tough guys started teaming up and implying I wasn’t going to get out safely for screwing with their lives in increasingly less subtle undertones. It was very stressful but I just kept reminding myself that nothing that I was going to be dealing with would be anywhere nearly as bad as a BS felony conviction. I hated it, it became a real mob mentality in the jury room fast and got progressively worse.

        • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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          13 days ago

          It is actually legal. It’s built directly from the laws and kind of a necessary component if you want jury trials to actually work and not just be a kangaroo court. People just don’t like it.

        • Tyfud@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          It is very much legal. It just gets used by jurors to try and get out of jury duty, and then, judges will try and hold you in contempt if you attempt to use it for that purpose.

        • takeda@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          Technically we have jury exactly for that reason.

          Otherwise we only would need a judge.

          The whole idea behind jury is meant to prevent judge from convicting someone if peers don’t believe the crime should be punished.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          The hivemind didn’t like that but it’s true, in most states just uttering the words anywhere near the courthouse can cause mistrials and a misdemeanor charge.

    • plz1@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      They revised mod policy to only hand out bans/deletions if jury nullification was referenced as a cause to vilence, not a reaction o past events. I’m paraphrasing, of course.

      • cm0002@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        Yeah, basically

        “Go do [Violence] and we’ll do jury nullification afterwards” is bad, bur

        “[Violence happened], but it was justified in the eyes of the majority of people so jury Nullification should happen”

        Is OK

        • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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          13 days ago

          I think that message was a sort of sarcastic way of getting around a “dont talk about jury nullification” rule, in that saying “we cant talk about x”, while making it very clear what x is, prompts people unfamiliar with x to go look it up

        • Monkey With A Shell@lemmy.socdojo.com
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          13 days ago

          Because the refusal to convict someone based on laws and circumstances you feel are unjust is wrong and goes against everything the ruling class have fought for.

          • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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            13 days ago

            But if also a cornerstone. (For better and worse–it got and still gets used to excuse people who commit hate crimes, for example.)

            • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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              12 days ago

              The “good ol’ boy” excuse.

              • “He’s got a promising life ahead of him!”

              • “It’s just how things are done, that ain’t his fault!”

              • “He just didn’t know any better!”

              • “We’ve all done stupid things before, who are we to judge?”

              • “He’s a pillar of the community, think of all the good he’s done!”

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        The policy was cleared up, basically EU/Dutch/Finnish law doesn’t like Jury Nullification in regards to future crimes/calls to violence. But in regards to crimes already committed it’s fine. And being as that’s where .world is hosted, that’s the law they go by.

        • flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          13 days ago

          Switched to dbzer0 straight after seeing a mod try and justify the censorship of this topic by saying something along the lines of “only God can judge.”

          Now I get to enjoy aaaall the content world has defederated from.

    • jeffw@lemmy.worldM
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      13 days ago

      To clarify, the admins have updated their views in reaction to this week and user feedback:

      Following a discussion in our team we want to clarify that we are no longer requesting moderators to remove content relating to jury nullification in the context of violent crimes when the crime in question already happened. We will still consider suggestions of jury nullification for crimes that have not (yet) happened as advocation for violence, which is violating our terms of service.