Whenever I'm up for jury duty I make it clear that I believe in jury nullification, and that I'm going to vote in accord with how I see things, regardless of the law. Unfortunately many laws are misapplied, interpreted stupidly, or flat-out idiotic in the first place. There's no way I will ever be a part of enforcing such laws. Here's
a prime example.
George Grier said he had to use his rifle on Sunday night to stop what he thought was going to be an invasion of his Uniondale home by a gang he thought might have been the vicious “MS-13.” ... “I went around and went into the house, ran upstairs and told my wife to call the police. I get the gun and I go outside and I come into the doorway and now, by this time, they are in the driveway, back here near the house. I tell them, you know, ‘Can you please leave? ... the five men dared him to use the gun; and that their shouts brought another larger group of gang members in front of his house.
“He starts threatening my family, my life. ‘Oh you’re dead. I’m gonna kill your family and your babies. You’re dead.’ So when he says that, 20 others guys come rushing around the corner. And so I fired four warning shots into the grass,”
Grier shot no one, but was still arrested. No only was he arrested, but he was charged with "A D felony reckless endangerment — requires a depraved indifference to human life, creating a risk that someone’s going to die." In the face of an overwhelming threat, which included threats to the lives of his family, all he did was fire some harmless shots specifically to alert police.
Grier said he knew Nassau County Police employ the hi-tech “ShotSpotter” technology in his area and that the shooting would bring police in minutes. Cops told Guzman he was very cooperative.
Faced by a hostile crowd of 20+ gang members making threats that he took seriously, this man showed incredible restraint. In my opinion he'd have been justified in putting a bullet through the head of the leader, and into anyone else that continued to advance. But he didn't do that. All he did was act to get police to the scene as fast as possible. Charging him with a crime is insane, no matter what the law says. Hopefully a jury will ignore the law and find him not guilty.
Dude, there's two kinds of jury nullification. If you get on a jury like Grier's, what you do is exercise your appropriate role as jurors and determine what the facts of the case are. Here, Grier did not act with a depraved indifference to human life. No crime was committed, the jury fulfills its function as a finder of fact, and justice is done.
ReplyDeleteWhat you don't do is tell the judge "If I don't like a particular law I believe I have to power to nullify it." A jury is not a legislature and should not act like one. The kind of "jury nullification" that judges object to is when a jury purports to hold the law itself invalid rather than making findings of fact that are consistent with the ends of justice.
The risk of the second kind of jury nullification is that you will do more harm than good to the unjustly-prosecuted defendant you are trying to assist. If the judge gets even a whiff of jurors acting like legislators, that's appropriate grounds for a mistrial, and thus a retrial, and thus more legal fees, inconvenience, and worry for the defendant -- or worse, you may wind up seeing a directed verdict from the bench, resulting in a conviction based on a judge overruling a misbehaving jury.
If you want to pick up the banner of justice this way, please be smart about how you do it.
"What you don't do is tell the judge "If I don't like a particular law I believe I have to power to nullify it."
ReplyDeleteBut If I don't do that then I'll be lying.
" A jury is not a legislature and should not act like one. The kind of "jury nullification" that judges object to is when a jury purports to hold the law itself invalid"
I can see why a judge would object, but in my particular case if I feel that a law is invalid, I want no part of enforcing it. Even if I think I can do more good on the jury than off, I don't want to get on a jury under false pretenses.
" you may wind up seeing a directed verdict from the bench"
Can there be a directed verdict of guilty in a criminal trial?