On balance, jury nullification in the United States is just

I had a great day yesterday. I woke up early to kayak with some friends, went shopping and grabbed some lunch at a nice hole in the wall restaurant before heading off to the great state of California that evening. I also committed a felony. I'm not sure what it was, but were we ruled by an omnipotent computer-god with the sole imperative to identify law breakers I'd be being processed for booking right now, along with the nearly all of you. Such is the state of our hyper-regulated society and its gargantuan 175,000 page[1] Code of Federal Regulations that we all unknowingly commit innumerable crimes over our otherwise uninteresting lives--behind every straitlaced CPA lies an unwitting criminal mastermind. But have no fear! For the ambitious legal scholar potential offenses can easily be identified in the Code's 1,170 page index. If brevity is the soul of wit, Polonius's jurist equivalent is weeping. Luckily for us, most of the laws that directly impact us are crafted by our state. Rest easy citizens, because states are always more competent than the feds. That's why changing a lock in a New York public school is a six month, ten step process overseen by a "supervising supervisor"[2]. Any deviation from this process is a punishable offense, making it impossible for decent people to do their jobs or live their lives--should a prosecutor decide that your life ought to be ruined, it will be. Tough-on-crime politicians have created an environment where it's considered perfectly normal for men to be sentenced to life imprisonment for such crimes as stealing a slice of pizza or a $2.50 pair of socks[3]. Sock merchants rejoice! Enough jest--"An unjust law is no law at all." Because I agree with St. Augustine, I affirm. I. The purpose of a Jury If one had to describe, in a single word, the progression of western government since the fall of the Roman Empire, that word would be "centralization". Despite the fact that our primate brains are only evolved to personally care about 150 people[4], we are now the proud citizens of polities consisting of hundreds of millions of bodies all governed under the same laws--local nuances be damned. In contrast to the vast majority of human history where local authorities predominated, today the vast majority of our laws are crafted by unelected, distant, and anonymous bureaucrats and rare is the man who has even *met* his so called representatives. In all this absurdity, we seem to have forgotten why the *peer* part of a jury of ones peers is so important. With modern technology we can easily impanel a jury from all over the United States or, for that matter, the world. If they are nothing more than layman fact finders, why don't we? The answer lies in an assessment of the purpose of a jury. It's a subtle nod to the idea that what constitutes a "crime" is not always objective and cannot formulaically be applied to all situations--only an individuals peers can really understand the kinds of behaviors expected of him and if he acted in violation of these community norms and, thus, his own conscience. There are many things considered wrong in Chicago, for example, that would be viewed entirely differently in a rural town in Iowa. Scholar Mark Edwards calls this concept "parameters of acceptable deviance"[5]. People will accept a certain amount of deviance from the letter of the law to do justice to what their conscience demands. To do away with nullification is to defeat the entire purpose of a jury trial and to erase the ancient principle that in order for a crime to be a crime the individual had to act with criminal intent. This makes mockeries of the ideas of law and justice. Discretion is *good* and blind legalism is the cowards way out of having to take responsibility for ruining someones life even when every just bone in your body is screaming at you to stop. Nullification is an essential tool to deliver fair outcomes. Each situation differs, and human error ensures that no law can be crafted perfectly. As Lysander Spooner said, "Those who deny the right of a jury to protect an individual in resisting an unjust law of the government, deny him all defence whatsoever against oppression." If juries have no discretion, they have no purpose. II. Nullification is necessary Nullification is as American as Apple Pie. In 1733, John Zenger of New York spoke out about the corruption of newly appointed governor William Cosby. His trial for sedition, in which his lawyer appealed to the jury directly to nullify[6], became one of the most famous in legal history and helped establish the rights to freedom of the press we still enjoy. Justice Goodloe explains how throughout history juries have nullified unjust laws from Northern juries nullifying the Fugitive Slave Law to the absurdity that was prohibition. Very little has changed--our politicians still regularly pass laws that could best described as draconian, except even Draco would say "whoa..." Let's look at the moral abominations that are three strikes laws, present in 24 states. Leandro Andrade was sentenced to life imprisonment for stealing $153 worth of videotapes[7]. William Rummel refused to refund an A/C repair job worth $120 and was sentenced to life imprisonment[8]. And of course Curtis Wilkerson had the book thrown at him for the ghastly crime of sock theft. The tales go on and on. RollingStone put it best when it wrote that these stories "[read] like a macabre joke, a surrealistic comedy routine." In California alone, over 2800 people languish in life imprisonment for *nonviolent* crimes[3]--Jean Vaijeans 5 years for a loaf of bread looks positively merciful by comparison. These laws are so blatantly unjust that prosecutors use underhand tactics to conceal invoking them until it's too late for the jury to nullify. Gail Cox[9] tells us of a case where prosecutors purposely kept the jury from being informed that the defendant was a repeat offender and faced life imprisonment until the sentencing phase. One of the jurors began openly sobbing when she found out what their guilty verdict had wrought and the jury "revolted", refusing to return to deliberations and forcing the judge to declare a mistrial. Whiteflames position is that the prosecutors were in the right, and the jurors actions were unjust. Three strikes laws are far from alone in absurdity. Juan Matamoros publicly urinated 29 years ago and has been on the sex offender registery ever since. His status forced him and his family to vacate their home in 2007[10]. Diane Huang was sentenced to two years imprisonment for accepting a shipment of lobsters in a clear rather than opaque packaging[11]. Phillip Russell destroyed a hard drive containing child pornography, since child pornography is illegal to possess in any circumstance, and was hit by an obstruction of justice charge[12]. According to civil rights lawyer Harvey Silverglate: "Virtually any professional, engaging in seemingly legitimate practices, can find himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare where effective defense is nearly impossible, as the various federal anti-fraud and obstruction-of-justice statutes have neither clear definition nor logical bounds." Forty years into the drug war, around half of federal inmates are imprisoned for drug crimes[13], mostly nonviolent and often with unfair and frankly racist penalties. Telisha Watkins got 20 years in prison for setting up a single sale of crack cocaine. Atiba Parker was hit with 42 years for selling below 3 grams of crack[14]. Drug laws, disproportionately levied against minority offenders, have destroyed communities and contribute heavily to Americas ballooning prison population--by far the highest in the world. Moreover due to our system of criminal records, when you strap someone with a felony conviction it makes it almost impossible for them to find a job or live like a normal person ever again, which is why around 75% of former felons are still unemployed a year out of prison[15]. This costs society enormous amounts of money in lost output ($65 billion[16] annually) and forces many back into a life of crime, creating more victims. Each and every time a jury fails to nullify an unjust law it victimizes us all. Welcome to whiteflames world. Mass incarceration is unfair to the individuals imprisoned and for the society that has to pay for it--it costs more to imprison someone for a year than to send a kid to Princeton[17]. All of these laws need to be modified, but no change is on the horizon. Hyper-liberal California eventually modified its three strikes law, but only after 20 years of tyranny and via referendum--a system most states don't have. Forty years of failure and the drug war continues. Nullification deals with the here and now, it doesn't wait several decades to take action. Politicians, who have every incentive to appear "tough on crime" and no incentive to free masses of offenders, some of whom will inevitably commit well publicized crimes and cost them reelection, will *never* solve the problem. The political system has failed and the citizenry needs every tool in its arsenal to protect itself from tyranny--nullification is not perfect, but given what I've demonstrated about governmental overreach I'd much prefer to be taken to court by an overzealous prosecutor in a world where nullification exists. Voters, which world would you prefer? An unjust law is no law at all. The task faced by whiteflame is to demonstrate to the voters that were they jurors the moral choice is to imprison a sock thief for life instead of nullifying. Until he does, vote Pro. Sources: 1. https://goo.gl... 2. The Death of Common Sense. Pp. 75 3. http://goo.gl... 4. http://goo.gl... 5. http://goo.gl... 6. http://goo.gl... 7. http://goo.gl... 8. http://goo.gl... 9. http://goo.gl... 10. http://goo.gl... 11. http://goo.gl... 12. http://goo.gl... 13. http://goo.gl... 14. http://goo.gl... 15. http://goo.gl... 16. https://goo.gl... 17. http://goo.gl...