Or if the judge believes you are unwilling or incapable of following the law.
I remember being asked questions during the jury screening process, and I found it curious that the language the judge was using about “following the law” seemed to exclude jury nullification. I don’t know if that’s a stock bit of language or something particular to that judge, but it did bother me in the moment and for some time after.
Though - it turns out for the case in question, I don’t think the relevant laws would be something too many would question - AFAIK, the defendant was accused of assaulting a police officer. I don’t think there were things like drug charges. Most people would agree that law(s) against assaulting anyone are just laws. Some laws like drug “laws” have been, and are, highly controversial, however, and I wonder if that judge gives the same spiel to everyone.
In any case, I did not make the cut for whatever reason. But I’m annoyed by the notion that people may be sitting on juries thinking they have to hand down a guilty verdict for laws they don’t even think are just, because “it’s a law”. This was before Amendment 64 passed here in Colorado, by the way.
That’s exactly the reason for those questions. So they can ask ‘would you consider using jury nullification’ without informing people that jury nullification exists.
And also so that if you at some point admit something that sounds like you’re voting not guilty because you disagree with the law, they can kick you off the jury and possibly charge you with perjury.
If you ever find yourself in a jury and intend to nullify, you must not admit it ever: you must maintain simply that you are not convinced by the evidence.
I should stress that IANAL, but the notion that they are trying to prevent jury nullification is what I think really sticks in my craw. Most especially when it comes to all the nonsense around drug policy in this country. Even with Amendment 64 passed in Colorado, and other states following suit, we have a long, long way to go to roll back the Nixon-level bullshit. And jury nullification is often the only tool available to citizens to at least do something about it when they are faced with that choice. And people like this judge are even trying to take that little bit of power away from us.
It’s kind of a difficult issue. Jury nullification has been used for both good and bad, with the simplest and most obvious examples being from Civil War type stuff - people who unambiguously broke the law against helping slaves escape have had their verdicts nullified. Good thing. But also people who lynched black people in the south have had their verdicts nullified. Bad thing.
Making sure that verdicts are determined purely based on the law and whether the law was broken means that people need to work to change the law, they can’t just apply the law unevenly by nullifying against some defendants and not against others. So I can see the case for nullification being a bad thing. Ideally, you deal with that by removing or reworking the law so that it doesn’t come to the point of needing nullification.
But, well, reality isn’t ideal. Still, it’s unavoidable - as long as a jury can’t be forced to explain the reasoning behind their verdict beyond insisting ‘I was not convinced of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt’ and as long as a jury verdict of Not Guilty is final and cannot be retried, jury nullification will de facto exist. That said, it’s the entire system not just ‘this judge’ that is attempting to prevent jury nullification from happening. The judge’s question about following the law is boilerplate standard basically everywhere, and it’s a systematic and intentional attempt to weed out potential jury nullifiers.
I remember being asked questions during the jury screening process, and I found it curious that the language the judge was using about “following the law” seemed to exclude jury nullification. I don’t know if that’s a stock bit of language or something particular to that judge, but it did bother me in the moment and for some time after.
Though - it turns out for the case in question, I don’t think the relevant laws would be something too many would question - AFAIK, the defendant was accused of assaulting a police officer. I don’t think there were things like drug charges. Most people would agree that law(s) against assaulting anyone are just laws. Some laws like drug “laws” have been, and are, highly controversial, however, and I wonder if that judge gives the same spiel to everyone.
In any case, I did not make the cut for whatever reason. But I’m annoyed by the notion that people may be sitting on juries thinking they have to hand down a guilty verdict for laws they don’t even think are just, because “it’s a law”. This was before Amendment 64 passed here in Colorado, by the way.
That’s exactly the reason for those questions. So they can ask ‘would you consider using jury nullification’ without informing people that jury nullification exists.
And also so that if you at some point admit something that sounds like you’re voting not guilty because you disagree with the law, they can kick you off the jury and possibly charge you with perjury.
If you ever find yourself in a jury and intend to nullify, you must not admit it ever: you must maintain simply that you are not convinced by the evidence.
I should stress that IANAL, but the notion that they are trying to prevent jury nullification is what I think really sticks in my craw. Most especially when it comes to all the nonsense around drug policy in this country. Even with Amendment 64 passed in Colorado, and other states following suit, we have a long, long way to go to roll back the Nixon-level bullshit. And jury nullification is often the only tool available to citizens to at least do something about it when they are faced with that choice. And people like this judge are even trying to take that little bit of power away from us.
It’s kind of a difficult issue. Jury nullification has been used for both good and bad, with the simplest and most obvious examples being from Civil War type stuff - people who unambiguously broke the law against helping slaves escape have had their verdicts nullified. Good thing. But also people who lynched black people in the south have had their verdicts nullified. Bad thing.
Making sure that verdicts are determined purely based on the law and whether the law was broken means that people need to work to change the law, they can’t just apply the law unevenly by nullifying against some defendants and not against others. So I can see the case for nullification being a bad thing. Ideally, you deal with that by removing or reworking the law so that it doesn’t come to the point of needing nullification.
But, well, reality isn’t ideal. Still, it’s unavoidable - as long as a jury can’t be forced to explain the reasoning behind their verdict beyond insisting ‘I was not convinced of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt’ and as long as a jury verdict of Not Guilty is final and cannot be retried, jury nullification will de facto exist. That said, it’s the entire system not just ‘this judge’ that is attempting to prevent jury nullification from happening. The judge’s question about following the law is boilerplate standard basically everywhere, and it’s a systematic and intentional attempt to weed out potential jury nullifiers.