Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Mictlantecuhtli]

The key though is to nullify without letting on that your plan is to nullify, even after the fact. Basically, even knowing about jury nullification is grounds to not add you to the jury.

[Lord Shonus]

The best way to avoid jury is to have a strong opinion, one way or another, when you're questioned about your beliefs. If you give an answer the prosecutor likes, chances are the defense will want you struck from the list. And vicea versa. Being bland and neutral is perhaps the best way to get chosen and sat on the jury.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqH_Y1TupoQ&list=UU2C_jShtL725hvbm1arSV9w

So wait, 12 random dudes from the streets can proclaim a serial murdered with tons of evidence non-guilty, and nobody can overrule that decision?

What the hell.

The purpose of jury nullification is multiple. First, since once a jury acquits someone there's no appeal, someone who was, in fact, innocent doesn't have to worry about being hounded for the rest of his life because the police "know" he was guilty. This is related to the concept of Double Jeopardy, and exists for the same reason. Second, it is an attempt to ensure that, when you're disrupting somebody's life by putting them on trial, you first get all your ducks in a row, cross all your T's, and are ready to do the job properly. After all, the prosecution only has to screw up once, and the show's over. Finally, the people who set up the system recognized that not all laws are just, and even the best laws sometimes aren't appropriate for the situation. Giving the jury the ability to decide that a particular person needed killing, that breaking into your apartment and "stealing" all your stuff after your landlord "evicted" you by simply changing the locks isn't really a crime, or that someone robbed a bank out of pure desperation rather than greed, allows (in theory) a more just legal system without endorsing vigilantism or generally taking the law into your own hands. You can't ask for nullification, or use it as an active defense, but you CAN present the defendant in a very favorable light, and if you manage to come up with an excuse (nebulous, impossible-to-prove-or-disprove mental conditions are an extremely common method) that can be enough.

[Baffler]

Also worth noting is that a jury that declares a person guilty despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary can have their decision overturned by the judge in some cases. A declaration of "not guilty" is unassailable.

[FearfulJesuit]

Mark your calendars...first GOP primary debate is in less than a year.

[Baffler]

No-fly zone over Ferguson during August protests officially confirmed to have been declared in an effort to choke media involvement.

[Sergarr]

No-fly zone over Ferguson during August protests officially confirmed to have been declared in an effort to choke media involvement.

Revolution - when?

[Bauglir]

No-fly zone over Ferguson during August protests officially confirmed to have been declared in an effort to choke media involvement.

Revolution - when?

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Angle]

Sorry, bro, I have to catch my shows and get high first. Maybe next month?

[Frumple]

Yeah, I'm sure revoluting, whatever that is (sounds kinky?), would be a fun way to spend a weekend, but I got mouths to feed and severe allergies to lead, tear gas, prison rape, and homelessness. Maybe once they do something someone cares about more.

[Bauglir]

It's not even bread and circuses. I mean, that's part of it, but raw consumerism isn't quite enough to stifle politics. You've also got patriotism aligning the most energetic and emotional potential reformers with the state itself. You've got an economy that's struck the perfect balance between exhausting the workforce without driving them to resentment - so much so that people still think jobs are an objectively good thing. You've got a glut of cheap addictions to keep people pacified during their downtime, and moreover a lot of them have become interactive enough to satisfy the drive to achieve without risking any real change. The economy's also debt-focused, netting people down with constant obligations to the system.

It's not just that it's comfortable. It's that almost every simple drive humans have has been channeled into maintaining the status quo. The cross section of people who have the motivation, the skill, the wealth, the energy, and the time to do anything is miniscule.

There will not be a forcible American revolution for the foreseeable future. To hope for it is to put your faith in a dramatic phantom. There is no justice here, and there never will be. The best we can hope for is to make it a little more profitable to actually make the world a better place.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, and the whole prisons thing! There's another thing slicing out a segment of society that's not content with the status quo, for whatever reason.

[Fniff]

And if there was another American revolution, it would most likely spiral out of control in a very bad way even if the government didn't immediately crush it.

[Angle]

Yeah, we have way too many guns and crazies.

[SalmonGod]

I really see the current state of America as a perfect dystopia.  Very few people are happy, but as Bauglir described, there is a perfect combination of elements to prevent anything from being done about it.  The only question is at what point the balance is going to be broken.  Things keep getting worse on almost every spectrum, and there has to be a breaking point somewhere.

And if there was another American revolution, it would most likely spiral out of control in a very bad way even if the government didn't immediately crush it.

And yeah... this does scare me.

[FearfulJesuit]

I really see the current state of America as a perfect dystopia.

You say things like this, and then you act shocked when people won't take your ideology seriously?

[SalmonGod]

I don't know a single american who is really happy, and doesn't feel severely limited in what they're able to do with their lives by overwhelming forces that rain shit on them from above.