DDO OT Semifinals: Jury Nullification

1) "Psychologist Irwin Horowitz of the University of Toledo conducted an experiment and determined juries that receive nullification instructions, however, are “more likely to acquit a sympathetic defendant and judge a dangerous defendant more harshly than when such information is not present or when challenges are made to nullification arguments"I dont necessarily think this is a bad thing because there are several instances where being sympathetic to a defendant in a trial is warranted. Take the case of Roy Brown, who robbed a bank with a gun but when the teller gave him 3 massive stacks of bills, he only took a single $100 dollar bill and gave the rest back. 3 hours later he came back to the same bank to return the same $100 bill that he had stole because he felt bad for taking it. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail. http://rollingout.com... Had the jury known they had the right to nullify, they surely would have done the right thing and let this man at least get a shorter sentence, because there are cases where the people know what the right thing to do is then the law does not. "promoting the introduction of subjective, non-evidentiary factors by increasing jury power violates the right to a fair trial"The thing it though that there are cases in which subjective and non-evidentiary factors actually protect someones right to a fair trial. Take the story of Gulnaz, an Afghanistani girl who was raped by her cousin's husband and became pregnant with her rapists child.... She was found guilty by the Afghani courts of sex outside of marriage -- adultery -- and she was sentenced to twelve years in jail or marry her rapist attacker to justify the sex they had...... Now if Jury nullification were allowed and were a right, then a jury could take into account the fact that she was raped, just 19 years old, that her rapist was already married to her cousin, and other subjective factors to actually protect someones right to a fair trial..... http://en.wikipedia.org...Having the right to a fair trial includes having the right to not be persecuted by absurd laws, which is what jury nullification defends against. Jury nullification is one of those things that can both protect and violate a constitutional right depending on the scenario, similar to many other rights people have and enjoy. "Defendants should expect that they will be evaluated solely on the basis of whether or not they committed the crime, and not on subjective factors such as whether or not the jurors dislike the law and wish to protest it or whether or not they like the defendant."Thats just your opinion though. There are many cases where defendants would plead for jurors to take into account subjective factors in deciding their fate because to do so would actually be fairer then the laws themselves. Jury nullification is almost never used or applied in cases that involve normal laws that carry with them normal punishments, it is only ever used in cases where the law in question is arguably unconstitutional and the sentence that comes with a guilty verdict arguably qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment. 2) "Jury nullification is not a fair check on government because it is undemocratic."So then if jurors were selected randomly and accurately represented the public, then would that make jury nullification justified? Jury nullification doesnt go hand in hand with having unelected jurors, its possible to have jury nullification without unelected jurors in the same society. Since these two are unrelated, this argument is really an entirely different debate and not relevant to the topic at hand. 3) "Jury nullification stifles reform of bad laws. Reformation of bad laws requires pressure on legislative bodies and access to higher courts"Jury nullification doesnt stifle reform, it is the byproduct of when reform fails. For years people have protested against Marijuana illegalization and have gotten nowhere. So since they cant change the law the best thing society can do is show forgiveness or mercy towards those convicted under those laws and do the right thing for them until the laws are repealed or fixed. "Prohibition was repealed by Congress because of the massive influx of nonviolent criminals in the jail system while criminal enterprises on the streets flourished"There were a ton of reasons why Prohibition ended, including inability to enforce the law, widespread public disapproval, it was corrupting government itself, cost a ton of jobs, was phenomenally expensive, etc. http://www.patheos.com... Letting an unjust law slowly put innocent people in jail until society finally pushed for it to be repealed is not the only reason why the public rallies against unpopular laws. When laws cant be repealed when they are pretty unjust is where jury nullification comes into play. Jury nullification is Plan B when repealing an unjust law through conventional means takes too long. 4) "Third, just because it can be a check on unjust laws does not mean it is automatically a just check on government. Assassination and terrorism can also be used to check unjust laws, but we do not consider them good because they violate rights"Thats because assassination and terrorism results in people being punished or killed for something they didnt do and didnt deserve, jury nullification is the exact opposite, where people who are being punished and dont deserve to be punished end up being saved. " Deliberations occur behind closed doors, and they only release their verdict, so it is almost impossible to claim with certainty whether or not nullification has occurred"Ok Seriously, I dont even know what youre trying to argue at this point...."It is not the jury’s place to determine what the punishment should be"And where does it say that in the Constitution exactly? The role of the jury isnt set in stone and is open to interpretation. "For example, if the punishment for murder is the death penalty, it is unjust to allow the murderer to escape conviction simply because the jurors all disagree with the death penalty."This scenario is prevented against by jury selection, in a capital punishment case lawyers are allowed to dismiss jurors who have a vendetta against the death penalty and would likely be biased towards letting the defendant be released rather then convicted. Jury nullification has its faults, but those faults are countered by other laws and rights within the Judicial system."If the punishment is truly unjust, the people as a whole, not just the twelve jurors, can collaborate to decide this through the electoral process, or the case can be discussed in higher courts like the Supreme Court. Allowing the jury to decide this is both unfair and undemocratic." But the electoral process is a slow and painfully ineffective way in trying to quickly overturn legislation, and Appealing to the Supreme Court is just as bad since they only accept a hundred out of several thousand cases they recieve every year!http://www.ncjw.org...Ill end this here for now. Jury nullification exists to fight against unfair and unjust laws that cannot when conventional processes for overturning those laws are taking too much time to yield results, causing dozens or even hundreds of people to fall victim to such an unjust law while little progress is being made. Its literally the Plan B the public has to fighting poorly designed laws..... Id continue to respond to the Cons arguments and rebuttals but she crammed so many of them into this round that I literally ran out of space to respond to them... So I tried to pick the most important ones and responded to them. Back to you then.