Food Not Bombs trial rescheduled after too many jurors objected to $500 fine for feeding homeless - eviltoast

Too many of the potential jurors said that even if the defendant, Elisa Meadows, was guilty, they were unwilling to issue the $500 fine a city attorney was seeking, said Ren Rideauxx, Meadows’ attorney.

  • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    It wasn’t originally used that way but it does illustrate the point

    Judges and Lawyers hate nullification not because they’re snooty elitists who hate us uppity commonfolk knowing our options,

    It’s because juries that know about nullification are a lot more likely to go ahead and do it, which basically amounts to a legal form of poisoning the jury.

    Judges and Lawyers are expecting to be able to argue the case based on the law as a given and that becomes pretty challenging when you now also have to explain to the jury why they shouldn’t decide the law being discussed should be thrown out for this case.

    It turns the justice system from hypothetical rule of law to mask off rule of societal biases and that would be MUCH WORSE for the justice system than the present alternative.

    Consider how bad the justice system is at taking rape cases seriously already, and now consider that with the defense being able to hit the jury with every rape culture "you don’t want to ruin his life over this!" rhetorical dungheap imaginable because he knows there’s no consequences for inducing a jury to nullify and the jury knows that even if the rapist is guilty they can decide to just ignore that if they like the cut of his rapist gib enough.