If you can’t even meet the low bar of an indictment, you are unprepared for a trial.
In other news, a Federal grand jury also failed to indict a “Whole Hog Special” from a local deli.
every single federal trial - no matter how small - should nullify until republicans are out of power.
3rd time isn’t apparently not the charm
How many times was it with the sandwich guy? They downgraded to a misdemeanor and they still lost at trial. These people are wildly incompetent.
Three no-bills.
I dunno.
what’s fun about MrHamSandwhich was that it was jury nullification. They didn’t even argue he didn’t do it.
The “victim” lying about it and joking with his buddies didn’t really help.
no. no it did not.
also the “victim” being a broken-dick fuckwit didn’t really help either.
It wasn’t nullification. It was good to lawyering to have the instructions be specific about requiring the act to be forceable which requires a risk of harm. The argument was entirely a wrapped sandwich isn’t a threat to an armored officer.
That’s incredible, I didn’t hear that. Isn’t it super rare that it gets used?
technically defense attorneys aren’t even allowed to tell people about jury nullification and if you mention it during jury selection, as a potential juror the prosecutor is going to yeet you so fast. the judge might, even, too.
Is that true? Why on earth would it be a thing that juries are not supposed to know?
Is that what all that intimidating talk from judges is about “taking direction from” judges about? Because the language the judge was using in the court during jury selection seemed to indicate they were trying to put the notion of jury nullification right out of anyone’s head…
Jury nullification is a byproduct of a couple other rules.
- jury verdicts can’t be appealed based on outcomes
- double jeopardy isn’t allowed
- jurors can’t be held responsible for verdicts
This means that if a jury returns not guilty, it’s over, which is what allows jury nullification. It’s not brought up because it’s technically a subversion of the process. It also has historically been problematic, and got people guilty of lynching off. The preferred alternative is an affirmative defense.
Juries are given very detailed instructions that are agreed upon by both sides and the judge. How these are worded is generally as critical as any testimony during the trial. These instructions generally a sort of flowchart of questions that determines the verdict. Jury nullification requires explicitly ignoring those instructions.
Juries really aren’t there to decide whether or not it was appropriate to do a crime. They’re there to decide if a crime happened or not.
I don’t know that it’s a good thing, but it would make it hard to to get convictions for people that are likeable or who have good excuses, or are some sort of “pillar of the community” type. A judge would probably tell you that those things are meant for sentencing.
Didn’t the founding fathers rebel to strip exactly this kind of thing?
At what point can this just be thrown out with prejudice, is that not a thing?
Didn’t the founding fathers rebel because they didn’t want to pay taxes and not have any representation? Which is funny because the US is doing the same thing today with DC and Puerto Rico. Maybe DC should revolt and throw Trump in the Potomac. You could call it the orange tea party.
I’d argue the cap on reps in the house is an even bigger issue. What kind of representation can you possibly have with the crazy ratios of elected official to citizen we have? Once you’ve gerrymandered your district to pick your voters you can easily ignore the minority, they are just warm bodies no matter how they vote, it doesn’t matter.
That would be a Superfund site
