Jury Nullification (full resolution in R1)

Thanks, Con!I. PerceptionA. UniquenessAccording to Con, the ability of a jury to clouded by emotion is an inherent problem with juries. This is an attack on juries in general, and not on jury nullification specifically. If juries make decisions based on their "mood-state," then even if they're not permitted to nullify, emotionally swayed juries may still vote to acquit a sympathetic defendant.Con says, "a jury could nullify a law if one side did a good enough job of lacing their arguments with emotion." But then it must also be true that a jury could acquit a defendant if one side did a good enough job of lacing their arguments with emotion. How is the former unacceptable, while the latter permissible? In both cases, someone who should have been convicted under the letter of the law is set free; the only difference seems to be that in the former case the jury is rejecting an unsympathetic law, and in the latter it is embracing a sympathetic defendant.Moreover, the kinds of cases in which nullification is likely to occur are the same kinds of cases where defendants are likely to be sympathetic. Where juries feel a criminal does not deserve punishment, or that the criminal is being unjustly or unfairly treated, they are likely to empathize with the defendant, putting them in a "mood-state" conducive to acquittal. Therefore, even if juries in these situations did not vote with the intent of rejecting the law or its application, they may be inclined to more easily manufacture doubt within themselves as to the criminal's guilt. We are all less likely to believe someone guilty if we don't want them to be guilty. It is likely then, that in both of our worlds, juries will be equally persuaded by emotion, and act in equally capricious manners. Con has thus failed to illustrate that any of these harms are unique to my world.B. AppealsCon says that it JRNL serves "little purpose" because a "district attorny could easily appeal the case." This is false. In Fong Foo v. United States, the US Supreme Court held that an acquittal cannot be appealed, per the double jeopardy clause of the Constitution. [1] Thus, Con's suggestion that JRNL somehow is useless because it can be overturned on appeal is completely false.C. EmotionCon has yet to prove that emotion in decision-making is always bad. Think, for instance, about the ability of jurors to use their "gut" or their "instincts." These feelings have a surprising capacity to inform us, and to do so accurately. Decisions based on instinct alone have been show in some studies to be right 90% of the time. [2] Other data confirms the utility of instinct. [3] In another example, "101 stock investors rated their feelings on an Internet Web site while making investment decisions each day for 20 consecutive business days. Contrary to the popular belief that feelings are generally bad for decision making, we found that individuals who experienced more intense feelings achieved higher decision-making performance." [4] Importantly, emotion is helpful in determining what is/is not oppressive. Our love of freedom and disgust at its removal, for instance, informs our society's values in this regard.II. IntegrityA. AlternativesChallenges to an unjust law or conviction could take years to work through the legal system to reach resolution, and even then there is no guarantee that the legal system will back the side of justice. Look, for example, at the Dread Scott decision, which held that black people could not be American citizens and which indirectly contributed to the onset of the civil war. [5] Consider also that not all unjust laws (e.g. slavery) were unconstitutional at the time they existed. Moreover, even legislative options are insufficient, as unjust laws are not always unpopular laws, legislators may simply be unwilling to change the laws, and even reversing an unjust law does not free those people convicted under it previously.When an escaped slave was charged under the fugitive slave law, they had little recourse. It was constitutional and there was little hope of successful appeal. Their only hope of not being convicted for seeking their basic right of freedom was to urge the jury to nullify. Sometimes JRNL is the only way to protect people from injustices. Other times, it is the only way to provide immediate relief for victims. Rather than forcing people to stay in jail or live with a conviction on their record as they pursue a lengthy appeals process, JRNL can resolve the issue. Consider that for every year of prison served, one's lifespan decreases 2 years. [6] In other words, unjust convictions are not only denying people basic freedoms, but they're hastening their deaths. This is not acceptable, and merely compounds the injustice defendants face; we should embrace JRNL as a necessary tool among many to combat that injustice.Nullification is also the only one of these avenues that citizens can effect directly. Jurors are everyday citizens, not elected elites, bureaucrats, or appointed judicial officials. In this way, JRNL is a key way for citizens to exercise direct power against the government, particularly in electoral off-years. The Founders saw this citizen participation as essential to guard against the potential for these government elites to take control of the judicial process. [11]B. Rule of LawPer my case, the law is a construct of not only the written statues, but also, importantly, the principles and values which underpin and legitimate those statutes. This is important because upholding the law is just as much about upholding these principles (which are part of the law) as it is about upholding the written text. To suggest that jurors are not upholding the law when they act on these principles is thus misguided and incorrect; in fact, jurors are upholding and protecting the law when they do this. This has several impacts, including that the rule of law is not undermined, that there is no violation of the juror's oath, and that injustice is averted."African Americans were denied the ability to vote and thus denied representation in the governmental bodies that enacted that law and carried out its administration...[W]e might identify such a statute as 'internally compromised' and condemn it as unprincipled and inconsistent with the 'underlying commitment to [a]...more fundamental public conception of justice.'" [7] Such a piece of legislation would lack any internal legitimacy, so it cannot be somehow illegitimate to not enforce it or use it as a basis for conviction. After all, as St. Augustine said, an unjust law is no law at all.In fact, juries, by upholding these core values and principles through nullification, may reinforce their importance in the legal system. By nullifying fugitive slave laws, juries made powerful statements about the importance of personal freedom in American society, making powerful moral condemnations against slavery. In this way, JRNL can actually promote social order and rule of law by reminding lawmakers of the core principles which order and justify our legal system.C. UniquenessI see no reason why the harms Con describes are unique to my advocacy. If juries act emotionally irrespective of the presence of JRNL, and if juries each interpret data different and have different group dynamics which produce different results, then two juries hearing identical cases or similar cases under the same law may still render wildly different verdicts. There seems to be absolutely no reason to believe that my advocacy will produce more unequal applications of the law than his advocacy would.D. Founding PrinciplesJohn Jay, our first Chief Justice, who was far closer to the Founders personally and temporally than John Harlan, who penned the opinion Con cited, wrote in Georgia v. Brailsford, "you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge both [the facts and the law], and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy." [8] Moreover, even the case Con quotes upheld a jury's right to ignore the instructions on the law given to them by a judge. [9] John Adams, himself a Founding Father, wrote: "It is not only [the juror's] right, but his duty...to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." [10] Thomas Jefferson supported JRNL and the concept of JRNL was enshrined in various state constitutions, including my own state's. [10]"To the men writing and contemplating the ratification of the Constitution, the jury was a forum where justice emerged because citizens could decide the meaning of the law (as opposed to having the meaning dictated to them by a judge or some other formalized body such as a legislative or executive branch). In this vision, the law was not a static text but a moving one that depended on citizen interpretation, debate, and even dissention in order to survive. It was a true common law." [11] This kind of view was also upheld by the Supreme Court in Duncan v. Louisiana. [12]It is therefore clear that the Framers of our Constitution clearly did support JRNL and its vital role in our legal system. JRNL is a proper method of redress. Additionally, the fact that the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the legality of JRNL implies that it is not a violation of the juror's legal responsibilities to nullify.III. Sources1 - https://en.wikipedia.org...2 - http://tinyurl.com...3 - http://tinyurl.com...4 - http://tinyurl.com...5 - http://tinyurl.com...6 - http://tinyurl.com...7 - http://tinyurl.com...8 - http://tinyurl.com...9 - http://www.stormy.org...10 - http://www.friesian.com...11 - Source 1, Round 112 - Alan W. Scheflin, "Jury Nullification: The Right to Say No," 45 S. Cal. L. Rev. (1972)Thank you! Please Vote Pro! Over to Con...