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I hope it was nullification
the jury found Nunez not guilty of one count of theft of government property
the defense attorneys argued that the law enforcement vehicle was blocking the driveway to the complex and their client had moved it around the corner — just one block away. They said that the car was returned within 13 minutes.
Given what he was charged with, the jury’s conclusion is entirely reasonable. Towing illegally parked cars is standard practice in the industry. I don’t think its reasonable to conclude the result was from nullification.
Oh yeah I wasn’t concluding, I was hoping from a position of ignorance. Your take seems completely reasonable.
For it to be nullification, the prosecutor would have to have brought an otherwise winning case. The feds no longer have comptent attorneys. They couldn’t even get a grand jury to indict a man for throwing a ham sandwich. The administration’s only wins come from the one court with no ethics rules.
Nullification would be nice, but unlikely to come up.
The thing about jury nullification is you don’t just shout “jury nullification” to use it. It’s a quirk of the system in that the jury gets to decide if someone is guilty, or not, of breaking a law, for any reason. The justification they give won’t be “jury nullification.” It’ll be something that argues that it was justified.
Honest question, having never been on a jury, do they really have to give an explanation at all? I thought the foreman just came out and gave the judge a note saying guilty or not guilty for each charge.
I haven’t either, but my understanding is that no, they don’t have to give a reason. They just give the verdict. They’ll be asked a reason by the press though, which would be the actual argument for letting them off, not just that they nullified it.
The not guilty verdict is the latest in a string of trial losses in federal court cases tied to immigration arrests and protests. There have been three recent not guilty verdicts delivered to defendants accused of assaulting federal agents.
A Times investigation in July found that the aggressive pursuit of federal charges against people protesting immigration enforcement in Southern California has led to weak cases being rejected numerous times by grand juries.