Talk:Jury nullification/Archive 2

NPOV

This article is entirely POV. You don't even have to get very far to see it. Let's look at the second paragraph, first line

Jury Nullification was a major factor in overturning alcohol prohibition laws, and can help change the draconian drug laws right now in the US.

(emphasis added).

This sort of attitude is prevalent throughout. Jury nullification is indeed an important topic, but does it really need such language?

This article needs to be rewritten from scratch, by someone not on an advocacy group (on either site). Mmmbeer 02:18, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I just noticed that the second paragraph was an anon's vandalism. I reverted those changes. My mistake. I leave my NPOV nod in place because its still not apparent that this is written from a fairly one-sided perspective. Mmmbeer 02:30, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

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What in the world is left of this article to be contentious about? It's been stripped to the bare bones. There's a description of what the term means, with the statement that some think it's good, some don't. Then a handful of half-formed thoughts, mainly dealing with historical instances. At this point it's silly to argue about "rewriting the article from scratch", when that's essentially where the article stands. I am taking down the NPOV banner, as it seems that all specific objections have been addressed. Feel free to re-write the article, or put the banner back if you can advocate a clear justification. Dachshund 18:41, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

• Well, to start with, every legal opinion which states that nullification is "an aberation", United States v. Anderson, 716 F.2d 446, 450 (7th Cir. 1983), and a "denial of due process", United States v. Washington, 705 F.2d at 494. Moreover, the fact that courts have held that a juror intent on nullification may be excused for cause. United States v. Thomas, 116 F.3d 606 (2d Cir. 1997). Not to mention that, at least in the US, jurors violate the oath they swear to apply the law. A juror not willing to convict, a priori, must thus lie on voir dire--the rationales are similar to those of the Death-qualified jury. The fact that there is little power to review the findings of fact does not mean that such arguments shouldn't raised. Moreover, the article focuses largely on criminal law and does not mention civil law, which is equally susceptible to jury nullification, but a judge has the power there to overturn the verdict on a jnov motion. Finally, the examples listed are the "good" ones, but neglect the fact that there are bad ones--although they may, in fact, be symptoms of societal bias, regardless. That's just to start. Again, I have no problem with jury nullification, but come on. Mmmbeer 19:13, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

• One more thing, it's a bit interesting that the article starts out saying that jury nullification is not a "a clearly-defined right protected by legal statute', but then later goes on to say "Fully Informed Jury Association work to inform potential jurors of their rights". This is a position of an advocacy group not supported by precedent or law. If anything, it is a de facto power. Mmmbeer 19:34, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

• • The second objection is now fixed (see the article), hopefully to your satisfaction. Note that it was under the "Advocacy section", and was probably appended by a FIJA supporter. Regarding the rest of your comment: I read the article as stating that "jury nullification" is a term used to refer to an act (possibly abberant) which is made possible solely due to the fact that "there is little power to review the findings of fact". The remainder of your comments would make excellent additions to the article; I just don't see how they're fundamental rewrites, nor do I see how they contradict what's there.

• • • I started from the top, and I'm just going to work my way down. This might take awhile. Mmmbeer 03:05, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

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Mmmbeer: I agree that even if the arguments for have been presented fairly as the opinion of others, and not fact, that there is a dearth of counterarguments and that this article is not yet NPOV. You also seem to be the most legally knowedgeable person to hit this page in a long time, so please feel free to add any of the items you've mentioned. Having said that, I don't think we should have an article purely about a definition of what JN is, because part of what somebody should know about it is that it is an issue of contention. To that end, I think we should work towards a more balanced presentation of arguments and evidence pro and against. I think the first paragraph is decent as an introduction, but could probably be edited to be less convoluted. I don't think a full rewrite is neccesary or worth it. I think we just need to be better about presenting both sides, and presenting both arguments as opinions. Perhaps we should have three sections: Arguments For, Against, and a brief analysis of the current legal situation. (It is my understanding that some states specifically recognize JN as a valid process, and others officially disapprove and attempt to eliminate it through voir dire proceedures, etc.)

• I don't think that one really needs to remove the pro/con from the article. In fact, I think that that is a very important aspect of this topic. However, you just can't help but read this and say, "huh, that's a pretty one-sided analysis" even if it's not clear what's wrong with it. Frankly, I think that the problem is two fold: 1) the lax use of language 2) the entire incompleteness of the page. I'm going to start from the top and work my way down. Mmmbeer 03:05, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

As an aside, is there any precendent on wikipedia for erasing old discussion text so that it's not so hard to scroll down to the current issues? Birge 02:04, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

• Created an archive... it was getting pretty out of hand. Mmmbeer 03:05, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

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I think there's still some NPOV tension in this article, or at least the introduction. If the article were about a thing which happens, documenting that it happens, it would safely be NPOV (and I think that applies to the historical sections). However, it's more written as an option/right/whatever, which is closer to an advocacy position.

Consider these two quotes from the first few paragraphs:

jury nullification can only be used to acquit and not to convict

and

Jury nullification is a de facto power of the jury, and is not ordinarily described as a right. The power of jury nullification derives from an inherent quality of most modern common law systems—a general unwillingness to inquire into jurors' motivations during or after deliberations.

If it is a de facto power, then surely there's a de facto power to convict in the face of evidence against. Does that have a name? Maybe nobody's advocating for that "power", but does that matter given that juries can do it, and presumably even have over the years (e.g. due to racism)? And if you accept that such a thing can and might exist, but that it's not called "jury nullification", then where is the reference to it in this article? And then the current first sentence defining jury nullification is totally wrong, since it applies to that case as well: Jury nullification is a jury's refusal to render a verdict according to the law, as instructed by the court, regardless of the weight of evidence presented.

Some of these specific complaints can be addressed straightforwardly (change it to "render a guilty verdict" in the first sentence) but I think this perspective dominates the introduction, and the entire presentation should be rethought. I suspect the issue is because the origin of the term is from the advocacy groups; was it ever called "jury nullification" before? (Note that I'm just guessing, though.) Nothings 04:47, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

• Generally, it is thought that there is no "de facto power to convict" because erroneous convictions can be appealled (unlike acquittals) in the criminal context. Of course, juries and and do return verdicts that are near the border of reasonableness. That however, is not jury nullification. Nevertheless, your point addresses the issue of when an entire system might be abused. That is evidenced by any number of historical, coercive techniques used against juries in the past (threatening them with jail time, publishing their names in papers during the trial, etc).
• Second, the defintion in the first sentence is the ordinary one. That is, they just don't do what the evidence suggests they do. This is often one of acquittal since they, in fact, have nullified the effects of the law. mmmbeer^{T / C / ?} 12:33, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

History

The section on "United States' Constitution Framers" (besides being poorly titled) needs content: It asserts that "The use of the jury to act as a protection of last-resort was espoused by many of the framers of the U.S. Constitution." However, the only person cited in the section is John Adams, who of course was not a framer of the U.S. Constitution, albeit he was highly influential among the framers. --Russ Blau (talk) 18:47, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

External link restored

I reverted the deletion of the external link to Eduard_Bernstein's work. That work is quoted substantially (in translation) in the article, and may therefore be of use/interest to a reader.

uFu 21:22, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

flushed out the common law history

I've taken some time and flushed out the common law history of nullification. I think that it's in a bit better shape, or, at the very least, more informative. I might take up the US history in a bit, but I've got lots of things on my plate--not the least of which is a comparative institutional analysis of the jury system, of all things. Mmmbeer 23:26, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I was worried when I saw your edit comment "flushed out", but I see that you actually meant *fleshed* out. Wonderful! Sdedeo 01:02, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Ha! Yes, "fleshed". Mmmbeer 11:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Corrections

I went ahead and fixed a couple of items in this article relating to seventeenth-century England. The ability of courts to punish jurors for their verdicts was removed judically (by the precident of Bushnell's Case), rather than legistlatively (though there had been some talk of this in Parliament in 1667/8).— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.240.142 (talk • contribs) 08:36, 14 March 2006

Copyvio material removed

A large amount of material copied directly from various other webpages - some of it with copyright notices included in the material - without evidence of license or permission has been removed from this page. Posters are certainly free to post links to these pages, but please do not post copyrighted content to Wikipedia. This policy applies to talk pages as well, as the law certainly makes no distinction of where infringing material is used. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:18, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Misleading Link

The link to "Lord Halifax" in the William Penn case leads to a wikipedia article on an entirely different Lord Halifax who wasn't alive at the time.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.58.72.20 (talk • contribs) 03:23, 3 May 2006

Jury Nullification: definition, origin, history, purpuse, right, duty, etc.

After reading the article, other wikipedia related articles and links I realized that people who wrote the article do not fully understand the true purpuse, importance and righteousness of the jury nullification. Jury nullification is a tool of justice, an integral part of the "rule of law" and the final check against government 's oppression. Here I provide some important articles to review:

http://www.friesian.com/nullif.htm

http://www.jurorsrule.com/Historical_Quotations.html

http://www.crfc.org/americanjury/lessons/nullification/definitions.html

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/zenger/zengeraccount.html

http://www.lysanderspooner.org/bib_new.htm

P.S. In cases where UN resolutions, rulings or instructions according to the international laws are in conflict with US interests or benefits, the country invokes its veto power and doesn't comply with the ruling. When judges deny jurors' right to consider the law and state that the proper way to change the law is to address the issue to legislature, they should be reminded that the government reraly does the same with international legislature and just vetoes the ruling instead. Seems a double standard to me. --SPavel 20:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• What is it that the article's authors don't understand again? Whether nullification is righteous or abhorrent is really a POV issue. Moreover, nullification is far broader than simply a "final check against government oppression." Arguably, it can also be used to impose cultural norms and biases (juries convicting black men in the South, for example). Finally, I'm not entirely sure how much your sources add to the article. That said, someone (maybe me) should go back through add footnote/reference this article. mmmbeer^{T / C / ?} 14:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

  I don't follow. Jury nullification refers to refusal to convict, not refusal to acquit. How can Jury nullification be used to wrongfully convict, ie a black man during Jim Crow times? All that is needed is one juror voting to acquit. I don't dispute that a great many people were improperly tried during that period, but that doesn't seem to be an example of Jury Nullification, but of simple malfeasance, bigotry, and contempt for justice. Jury nullification is more an example of a person feeling that a law is unjust and refusing to convict; the bigots who improperly convicted innocent black men of, for instance, rape or murder, would never have claimed that the rape or murder laws were unjust. They were simply unable to see past their prejudices to the fact that a black person could be wrongly accused by a white person. Jury nullification doesn't seem to have anything to do with it. Kasreyn 12:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

  Hmm, I see one such situation described in the article, that of juries refusing to convict white men who murdered black men. Jury nullification would certainly come into play there. My mistake. Kasreyn 12:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

  (This is an error by the author of this particulr "Talk. If one juror or any number of jurors less than the full jury votes to acquit, the result is not an acquittal, The result is a "Hung Jury" which is a whole different subject! - Wrmattison) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrmattison (talk • contribs) 21:59, 16 March 2012

• I recall but sadly cannot find a reference to an old English (Icelandic, perhaps) case in which the jury returned a verdict of "Not guilty, but he has to return the sheep". J1o1h1n 02:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
• I may be wrong on this, but isn't jury nullification specifically the striking down of laws? In other words, isn't the only time that a jury can truly be said to be "nullifying" be when they return a "not guilty" verdict? That seems to be the semantic, historical and legal sense of the term. This would mean of course, that those who struck down slavery laws were practicing true "jury nullification", while those who convicted people wrongly were doing only that, and nothing more.

  The verdict is contrary to law, and the law both prohibits and permits. The jury may also decide to intentionally disregard a legally valid argument which would acquit the defendant, for instance self defence, and return with a guilty verdict for homicide. This would be a valid instance of jury nullification (of self defence). This is different from a guilty verdict that simply has no basis in fact or law, but there is no reliable way to tell them apart if juries don't motivate their decisions. The idea that jury nullification is limited to a refusal to convict disregards the distinction between weak permission (simply absence of obligations) and strong permission (explicit exception to an obligation based in law), just like the widespread confusion between having a `right' to do something (which should be based in law) and the de facto power to do it (because of the absence of obligations). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.18.192.124 (talk) 12:39, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Nullification in Canada

I just read an article in my local paper that the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously voted to overturn Grant Krieger's drug trafficking conviction because the trial judge ordered the jury to return a guilty verdict. Two of the jurors asked to be dismissed because they didn't want to follow the judges instructions to convict but he ordered them to do so and the jury eventually gave a guilty verdict.

Justice Morris Fish wrote "The trial judge unfortunately deprived the jurors of the responsibility that was by law theirs alone". And he quoted from an old English case "It is the duty of the judge, in all cases of general justice, to tell the jury how to do right, though they have it in their power to do wrong".

Someone who has more direct info about the case should write up a section for the article. The above is just a summary of a small article on page 9 of the October 27th, 2006 issue of the Toronto Sun.

Avernar 05:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

US-centricism

The entire article is far too biased towards US practices today with only a smattering of British issues a number of centuries ago.

Either this article is in dire need of expanding on jury nullification in other countries or it shuld be made clear that this is a practice of very limited scope. US population is 300 millions, the world population is about 6000 millions.

While Norwegian constitution is based on British common law and US consitution I have never heard of jury nullification in Norway, to the contrary I know of cases where the jury's verdict was overrruled by the judge, which sure makes me wonder. Interestingly there are forces that want the jury system abolished in Norway.

Putting this article in a proper context would be welcome. --15:06, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree far too US centric, this article should be more generalised with either a section or new article of US law -- Hartror 04:51, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

/me shrugs. The English Wikipedia is hosted in America, started by Americans, and a sizable majority of the users and contributors are American. While of course we all look forward to the day when each topic is covered in complete depth for all cultures, languages, and countries, I'm not bothered by the fact that for now, "we" are starting on the home front. I think I could be safe in saying that the current state of the english-language wikipedia represents its userbase: english speakers getting together, and beginning the long process of bringing together what we know of our world. I'm sure that if I spoke/read Russian, I could get much higher resolution detail on many topics by reading the Russian Wikipedia. But as I don't, I'll go with what we together have accumulated here. Dxco 15:34, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

It should be made clear what is about US law and what not. demus wiesbaden (talk) 16:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Kudos

I just happened upon this article, and read it for the first time. Kudos to all the writers and contributors - this is a great article! Nicely balanced, great tone, accessibly technical. Hats off to everyone involved in the making of this article. Dxco 15:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Peter Wright?

What is the relevance of the link to Peter Wright on this page? I've read the article on Peter Wright and see nothing about jury nullification there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by LeslieCharlesworth (talk • contribs) 12:13, 1 January 2007 (UTC).