In The United States, Jury Nullification Is A Just Check On Government

Many thanks to Con for challenging me to this debate. =Aff case=I agree to Pros criterion of justice. If I can show that jury nullification provides more justice, I win the round. I. Jury Nullification deals immediately with unjust laws There are a lot of ridiculous, unfair, and discriminatory laws on the books in the United States today. A good example of this would be what are known as three strikes laws, where offenders who commit a third offense are given a mandatory life sentence. This sounds fair in certain circumstances--someone who habitually violates women, for example, should be locked away or executed for the public good. But because the law is necessarily broad and automatic, some completely ridiculous results occur. A man named Curtis Wilkerson in California was sentenced to life imprisonment for stealing a pair of socks worth $2.50. In Texas, William Rummel was sentenced to life imprisonment for failing to return the cost of a repair job worth $120.75 the customer deemed unsatisfactory. As Matt Taibbi explains[1]: "...thousands of people – the overwhelming majority of them poor and nonwhite – remain imprisoned for a variety of offenses so absurd that any list of the unluckiest offenders reads like a macabre joke, a surrealistic comedy routine. Have you heard the one about the guy who got life for stealing a slice of pizza? Or the guy who went away forever for lifting a pair of baby shoes? Or the one who got 50 to life for helping himself to five children's videotapes from Kmart? How about the guy who got life for possessing 0.14 grams of meth? That last offender was a criminal mastermind by Three Strikes standards, as many others have been sentenced to life for holding even smaller amounts of drugs, including one poor sap who got the max for 0.09 grams of black-tar heroin."These kinds of laws are incredibly unfair to the peoples lives who they ruin, and the society who has to pay for their imprisonment. California's law was enacted after an outrageous incident where a repeat offender murdered a teenage girl because the justice system had failed to keep a dangerous man behind bars. Unfortunately, the law passed was hasty, unfair and led to dire consequences that have ruined thousands of lives. It took California 18 years to repeal its three strikes law, and even as it did these people are still behind bars. Many states still have them on the books. Were jurors aware of their right to nullify, they could reject the injustice of forever ruining a mans life over a pair of socks or a faulty air conditioner, while still being able to ensure that violent and dangerous monsters never see the light of day. These impacts should be preferred because they are real and tangible, compared to my opponents vague, theoretical postulations. Perhaps nullification would be a bad idea if we had a legal system that didn't have such severe punishments but there's a reason the US has, by far, the worlds largest incarceration rate[2]. Examples of ridiculous sentences abound due to minimum sentencing laws of any kind abound. A great article from Business Insider[3] lists a myriad of examples, including a man who was given 15 years for trying to overdose on Vicodin before being stopped by police for carrying an open bottle of alcohol. In many of these cases, the judges themselves said that the penalty was ridiculously unfair.My opponent might object that not all of these were the result of a jury trial and that's just the point--these laws are so blatantly unjust that juries will often return a not guilty verdict as a result. The system has had to resort to backhanded methods to get juries to convict under three strikes laws, as Gail Cox explained less than a year after California passed its three strikes law[4]:"...a San Francisco jury revolted after it returned a guilty verdict on assault and attempted carjacking charges, only to learn that it had just decided the first half of a bifurcated trial; next they were to decide the validity of two prior burglary convictions. The three-strikes law requires prosecutors to "plead" and "prove" prior convictions if they intend to use them to enhance a sentence. So as not to color the initial deliberations, the jurors had not been told that the defendant, Eugene Jones, was a repeat offender. When they got to the second stage -- when they learned that as a three-time loser, Mr. Jones faced a 25-years-to-life sentence -- it was irrelevant that the state's standard jury instruction orders jurors not to take penalty or punishment into consideration. Bailiffs reported that one man announced he felt "violated." In one account, a woman juror began sobbing. When they refused to return to their deliberations, Superior Court Judge Anne E. Bouliane declared a mistrial."The punishment is so disproportionate to the crime that the prosecution was forced to hide the fact that they were seeking 25 to life until after the jury returned a guilty verdict because they knew jurors would be reluctant to ruin a mans life over such minor charges. Even though juries are not informed of their right to nullify, the defense is not allowed to make the argument that they should nullify, and if the judge knows that a juror is aware of the right to nullify they can be struck from the jury, nullification still happens due to the fact that jurors override laws that so conflict with their conscience. It would be ideal if we could simply appeal these kinds of unjust laws, but that takes time and political capital that simply does not exist in many cases. It took liberal California until 2012 to abolish its three strikes law, but only 9 hours to claim its first victim[1]. Jury nullification has to be preferred in the status quo because it gives the people at least some means of defense against this outrageous governmental overreach.It's also worth noting that due to the vast quantities of "paper laws" created by federal agencies on a daily basis, there are many "crimes" that are anything but, a citizen can commit a crime even when they act in good faith with no criminal intent. As The Huffington Post explains[5]: "If a prosecutor wants to ruin your life, he or she can. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, there isn’t a whole lot you can do about it." This is due to the vast amount of felonies the average American commits on accident. The article goes on to explain "There has also been a trend over the last 20 years or so toward laws that don't require prosecutors to show criminal intent. This means you can be prosecuted for crimes you had no idea you were breaking -- even laws you actively tried not to break. A 2010 study co-authored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Heritage Foundation found that in its rush to criminalize more and more behavior, Congress has been passing poorly-drafted laws that increasingly lack any requirement at all to show intent."Essentially, allowing juries to nullify ensures that the only "crimes" that will be punished are those that are malum in se, or crimes that are crimes *because* they are wrong, as opposed to crimes that are crimes only because the state says so, malum prohibitum. And I contend that that's the way it should be. There are too many laws being passed today that are so broad that even understanding them would require the aid of a paid attorney, and many of us violate laws while acting in good faith. Harvey Silverglate famously estimated that the average American commits three felonies a day. This kind of overreach is ridiculous and the citizenry needs every tool in its arsenal to resist this kind of overreach. II. The purpose of a jury trial Why is it so essential that a person is judged by a jury of their peers? The reason is a subtle nod to the idea that what constitutes a "crime" is not objective and cannot formulaically be applied to all situations but rather law and justice are a set of preexisting and immutable principles, the full complexities of which humans can only grasp begin to understand. Is it really just to punish someone for a crime they committed in good faith, for an offence they were not aware existed? Every situation is different, and human error ensures that no law can be crafted perfectly. As Lysander Spooner once 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."The purpose of a jury trial is thus twofold: it isn't just to truth seek. Having laymen truth seek is a bad idea anyway as they aren't experts in the field. It's to provide a fair enough sampling of a persons peers to make sure a fair verdict is rendered--essentially, the right of a man to be judged by his peers is there to ensure that a just penalty is wrought, one in line with local customs and standards and not at the whim of a distant central authority. Only an individuals peers can really understand the kinds of behaviors expected of the defendant and how he acted in violation of these community norms. There are many things that may be considered wrong in New York City, for example, and may be viewed entirely differently in a rural town in Iowa. Moreover, laws may be written sloppily and allow for grave injustices as the Huffington Post explained. Jury nullification is the only thing that solves for this by giving juries the power to avoid egregious violations of justice when a well intentioned law is written poorly. The resolution is negated. Nullification is just. Sources:1. http://tinyurl.com...2. http://tinyurl.com...3. http://tinyurl.com...4. http://tinyurl.com...5. http://tinyurl.com...