I’m going to copy WoodScientist’s post. Don’t know how to tag, sorry, but credit goes to him for this.
"I would say that jury nullification isn’t just some accident of the legal system, but the primary reason we have juries in the first place.
Judges will say that juries are meant to just decide the simple facts of the case. But what sane person would ever design a system that assigns 12 random untrained nobodies to do that task? If all that mattered was judging the facts of the case, why not have 12 legal scholars instead? Why isn’t “juror” a profession, just like being a lawyer or judge is? If we want people to just apply the letter of the law to the facts of a case, why not fill juries with professionals, each who had a legal degree, and who have sat as jurors hundreds of times? Judging evidence and reading law is a skill. And it’s one that can be educated on, trained, and practiced. Why do we have amateur juries, when professional juries would clearly do their purported job so much better? Or why not just do what some countries do, and have most or all trials decided solely by judges? What exactly is the point of a jury? Compared to everything else in the courtroom, the jurors, the ones actually deciding guilt or innocence, are a bunch of untrained amateurs. On its face, it makes no damn sense!
No, the true reason, and really the only reason, we have juries at all is so that juries can serve to judge both the accused AND the law. Juries are meant to be the final line of defense against unjust laws and prosecution. It is possible for a law itself to be criminal or corrupt. Legislative systems can easily be taken over by a tiny wealthy or powerful minority of the population, and they can end up passing laws criminalizing behaviors that the vast majority of the population don’t even consider to be crimes.
The entire purpose of having a jury is that it places the final power of guilt and innocence directly in the hands of the people. Juries are meant as a final line of defense against corrupt laws passed by a minority against the wishes of the greater majority. An unaccountable elite can pass whatever ridiculous self-serving laws they want. But if the common people simply refuse to uphold those laws in the jury box, those laws are meaningless.
THAT is the purpose of a jury. It is the only reason juries are worth the trouble. A bunch of rank amateurs will never be able to judge the facts of a case better than actual trained legal scholars with years of experience. But by empowering juries, it places the final authority of the law firmly in the hands of the people. That is the value of having a jury at all.
Jury nullification is not just some strange quirk or odd loophole in our justice system. It’s the entire reason we have juries in the first place."
This is just more words saying the same thing - that jurors should just make up the law based on the vibe of the case. It’s absurd to me that so many people in these threads complain that the legal system is unfair, and in the next breath propose that citizens should be able to set aside the law in specific situations because of the feels.
That is the antithesis of a fair and just system and honestly it’s exasperating rehashing the same concept over and over.
The answer to why guilt is determined by a jury of your peers is that it avoids having a judiciary that can charge, convict, and sentence a defendant. That seems patently obvious to me.
You need to be found guilty of the charges against you by a jury of your peers. The whole point is that the jury is not experienced in law, and interprets the facts and evidence as any reasonable third party would.
Juries are not appropriately positioned to determine a sentence because they are not experienced and have no frame of reference.
It’s telling that in these threads my comments are awash with downvotes but no one can provide an actual rebuttal.
Basically, people just don’t want luigi to be punished for murdering a shitty CEO. Sadly, that doesn’t make jury nullification a legitimate course of action.
You’re missing the point, especially if you think a fair and just system even exists within the US. If you want to take the stance that “murder is illegal”, sure, what he did was illegal. Jury nullification is a way we peons can still hold an iota of power. It’s spitting in the face of unjust systems.
Let me ask you this. Would you prefer a situation in which Luigi was convicted for murder, sentenced to life in prison, and the system never changes? Or would you prefer a situation in which exceptions are given in exceptional circumstances in an attempt to change a fundamentally broken system?
If your answer is the former, you might just want to apply at United and work your way up.
I find it bizarre that anyone could honestly think that a broken system could be improved by allowing 12 random people to make exceptions in exceptional circumstances. Sorry but it’s difficult to say anything charitable about that opinion.
Every case is exceptional, and we have a complex process for weighing the circumstances and determining the least-bad outcome.
You can look at Luigi’s case and say “this victim deserved to die therefore Luigi should not be punished”, but what is the consequence of that? How many people will be murdered that don’t really deserve to die? How many murderers who deserve to be punished will not be?
Jury’s have kind of always been vibes. There’s plenty of black kids that got the guilty verdict and hung and later it was revealed to be the womans father or friend of the family that raped.
It is important to be more than a clockwork orange, understand the law but don’t apply it with such rigidity as to be devoid of morals or humanity.
Obviously in a vacuum laws should be consistently applied, but we are so so far from laws being consistently applied in the US where bad guys get away with literal murder, why be so upset with a loophole that let’s a good guy off for murder for once?
Cops and rich people murder every day and get away with it due to our legal system being broken. The time to put your foot down starts with them.
I can’t believe I have to say this but, you can’t expect consistent application of the law while arguing that exceptions should be made when you like the perp.
And how do you propose we ensure they are applied to the rich and those in power? Because until that happens they are being forced on the common man much more, as a weapon for those in power.
I suppose wealthy murderers are probably less likely to get convicted due to better representation. I would’ve thought Luigi had pretty good representation given his gofundme.
I do believe that the perception of the action of which Luigi got accused weighes orders of magnitude more than the perception of his appearance or his popularity.
It’s not him who was popular in the first place.
It was what was done.
Accusing him of it in turn made him popular. That would’ve worked for other people too.
That’s not the type of popularity I’m talking about.
Luigi is young, approachable, affable, and not unattractive. I don’t believe for a moment that someone without those qualities would enjoy any sympathy from a jury.
Full hearted agreement. Pretty privilege is an observable phenomenon and Luigi is a cutie.
Heck, you could even argue that sharing a name with one of the Mario Bros from Nintendo makes Luigi seem family-friendly, silly, and meme-able.
Either of which could explain a future where Luigi would be found innocent by jury nullification where an amorphous blob that represents every other possibility would be found guilty.
However, the only way to be sure is to test the hypothesis. So to all you scientists out there, go forth and collect more data points!
Because that’s how lynch mobs got off without penalties too. It’s very much a case of being careful what you wish for in this case. If he gets off because the jury says it’s OK to gun someone down without direct provocation, you can bet that others will too. You shot a gay man for no reason? No problem, the jury says that’s fine. You shot someone you suspect of having sympathies for Democrats? Head home, the jury was packed with MAGAs.
Rich people and people in government already get away with this stuff. Our president is a felon. If people in power aren’t bound by the law then citizens will act. Only holding the people who act accountable is ensuring that the people in power never have consequences.
I agree with what you are saying, but this is not a precident you want to set. Jurys are supposed to consider whether the defendant broke the law, not whether they agree with the ethics of the action. Too many miscarriages of justice have occured for ‘vibes’ to be an acceptable way to judge these things.
I would rather see his defence mount a case around self-defence or something of that nature (the CEO was harming Luigi or his family for instance) so that the jury have a reason to say he was within the law.
Well, given that jury nullification is a thing and considering how rarely it happens, I’d rather risk the scenarios outlined by you than having no way of giving a not guilty verdict to people this way who do something illegal but legitimate.
The difficulty comes with defining shooting someone, who isn’t an obvious immediate threat, as legitimate. If there’s a plausible way to do that, it should be the core of his defense, if there isn’t you’re asking the jury to let him off just because you don’t like the guy who was killed.
I hope his defense team can find a way to show that he acted in self defense against the harm the company were doing to him. That would be a plausible reason for the jury to find him not guilty, not set a precedent for letting murderers go free, and send a suitable warning to other CEOs.
I agree with your second paragraph.
I want Luigi to go free even if he did pull the trigger, because the jury comes to the conclusion that killing Brian Thompson was done, because ultimately CEOs need to be (hold) responsible or they aren’t needed in the first place.
If holding them responsible due to a rigged system, alternatives need to be tolerated.
People (especially CEOs) need to consider the consequences of their actions.
Until very recently people in power could do as they please without fear of consequences. That needs to change one way or the other. I’d prefer them changing coursefor the better of all. If they won’t, well…
Yes, pardons get used like that, but are applied but one, theoretically accountable (I know, I know…) office. Having jurys just decide someone is not guilty because the dont like the victim seems far more likely to lead to a complete breakdown of what remains of law and order. Given what’s coming, maybe that’s inevitable, but I don’t think encouraging it is a good idea.
I have two arguments to defend jury nullification. First of all, in our system “jury nullification” is NOT a policy. It is the name for the inevitable fact to that members of a jury can decide to vote “innocent” without being subject to some kind of interrogation.
My second argument is this: I think jury nullification is actually a good policy, because the only thing it produces are delays unless fully 12 out of 12 randomly selected citizens think this application of the law is completely unfair. If the citizenry believes a law is unfair with that much unanimity it probably IS unfair.
Well, to your first point, jurors cannot be held accountable for their verdict. Obviously if they could the whole system breaks down. Jurors can exploit this protection to return a false verdict with impunity, but it is exactly that - false testament. Others will try to say that jury nullification is an intended feature of the legal system but IMO it’s just exploiting a limitation.
Secondly, you’re not talking about an unfair law, you’re talking about an unjust outcome. All laws will produce unjust outcomes in some specific circumstances. However a law against murder reduces more harm than it causes, so it’s worth upholding.
To me, the idea of having juries decide to set aside the law in cases they feel are unjust is an absurdity. Imagine if Trump were on trial and the jury unanimously returned not-guilty despite obvious guilt.
To be fair, both Biden and Trump set aside the law by not actually banning TikTok, so it makes sense that at least in some specific instances, normal people are allowed to as well.
The jury nullification thing pisses me off.
I get that people don’t want Luigi to go to jail but wishing for juries to just make up the law based on the vibe of the case is just bonkers.
The court system is a joke already.
I’m going to copy WoodScientist’s post. Don’t know how to tag, sorry, but credit goes to him for this.
"I would say that jury nullification isn’t just some accident of the legal system, but the primary reason we have juries in the first place.
Judges will say that juries are meant to just decide the simple facts of the case. But what sane person would ever design a system that assigns 12 random untrained nobodies to do that task? If all that mattered was judging the facts of the case, why not have 12 legal scholars instead? Why isn’t “juror” a profession, just like being a lawyer or judge is? If we want people to just apply the letter of the law to the facts of a case, why not fill juries with professionals, each who had a legal degree, and who have sat as jurors hundreds of times? Judging evidence and reading law is a skill. And it’s one that can be educated on, trained, and practiced. Why do we have amateur juries, when professional juries would clearly do their purported job so much better? Or why not just do what some countries do, and have most or all trials decided solely by judges? What exactly is the point of a jury? Compared to everything else in the courtroom, the jurors, the ones actually deciding guilt or innocence, are a bunch of untrained amateurs. On its face, it makes no damn sense!
No, the true reason, and really the only reason, we have juries at all is so that juries can serve to judge both the accused AND the law. Juries are meant to be the final line of defense against unjust laws and prosecution. It is possible for a law itself to be criminal or corrupt. Legislative systems can easily be taken over by a tiny wealthy or powerful minority of the population, and they can end up passing laws criminalizing behaviors that the vast majority of the population don’t even consider to be crimes.
The entire purpose of having a jury is that it places the final power of guilt and innocence directly in the hands of the people. Juries are meant as a final line of defense against corrupt laws passed by a minority against the wishes of the greater majority. An unaccountable elite can pass whatever ridiculous self-serving laws they want. But if the common people simply refuse to uphold those laws in the jury box, those laws are meaningless.
THAT is the purpose of a jury. It is the only reason juries are worth the trouble. A bunch of rank amateurs will never be able to judge the facts of a case better than actual trained legal scholars with years of experience. But by empowering juries, it places the final authority of the law firmly in the hands of the people. That is the value of having a jury at all.
Jury nullification is not just some strange quirk or odd loophole in our justice system. It’s the entire reason we have juries in the first place."
This is just more words saying the same thing - that jurors should just make up the law based on the vibe of the case. It’s absurd to me that so many people in these threads complain that the legal system is unfair, and in the next breath propose that citizens should be able to set aside the law in specific situations because of the feels.
That is the antithesis of a fair and just system and honestly it’s exasperating rehashing the same concept over and over.
The answer to why guilt is determined by a jury of your peers is that it avoids having a judiciary that can charge, convict, and sentence a defendant. That seems patently obvious to me.
You need to be found guilty of the charges against you by a jury of your peers. The whole point is that the jury is not experienced in law, and interprets the facts and evidence as any reasonable third party would.
Juries are not appropriately positioned to determine a sentence because they are not experienced and have no frame of reference.
It’s telling that in these threads my comments are awash with downvotes but no one can provide an actual rebuttal.
Basically, people just don’t want luigi to be punished for murdering a shitty CEO. Sadly, that doesn’t make jury nullification a legitimate course of action.
You’re missing the point, especially if you think a fair and just system even exists within the US. If you want to take the stance that “murder is illegal”, sure, what he did was illegal. Jury nullification is a way we peons can still hold an iota of power. It’s spitting in the face of unjust systems.
Let me ask you this. Would you prefer a situation in which Luigi was convicted for murder, sentenced to life in prison, and the system never changes? Or would you prefer a situation in which exceptions are given in exceptional circumstances in an attempt to change a fundamentally broken system?
If your answer is the former, you might just want to apply at United and work your way up.
I guess this is the core of the issue.
I find it bizarre that anyone could honestly think that a broken system could be improved by allowing 12 random people to make exceptions in exceptional circumstances. Sorry but it’s difficult to say anything charitable about that opinion.
Every case is exceptional, and we have a complex process for weighing the circumstances and determining the least-bad outcome.
You can look at Luigi’s case and say “this victim deserved to die therefore Luigi should not be punished”, but what is the consequence of that? How many people will be murdered that don’t really deserve to die? How many murderers who deserve to be punished will not be?
I can provide no further information that is going to help you see the point.
God speed.
I could say the same to everyone who has replied to me in this thread.
Please continue believing that things would be better with a vibe-based legal process.
Also godspeed is one word.
Jury’s have kind of always been vibes. There’s plenty of black kids that got the guilty verdict and hung and later it was revealed to be the womans father or friend of the family that raped.
It is important to be more than a clockwork orange, understand the law but don’t apply it with such rigidity as to be devoid of morals or humanity.
I strongly disagree. Laws must be consistently applied.
To set aside the law prohibiting murder in a specific case just because you don’t like the victim is the antithesis of a fair and just legal system.
Obviously in a vacuum laws should be consistently applied, but we are so so far from laws being consistently applied in the US where bad guys get away with literal murder, why be so upset with a loophole that let’s a good guy off for murder for once?
Cops and rich people murder every day and get away with it due to our legal system being broken. The time to put your foot down starts with them.
I can’t believe I have to say this but, you can’t expect consistent application of the law while arguing that exceptions should be made when you like the perp.
Laws consistently and rigidly applied out of context is how you get to fascist governments.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_rise_to_power
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Franco
Nonsense. Laws may be consistently applied by racist governments but it’s the nature of those laws (luke ethnic cleansing) that makes them fascist.
And how do you propose we ensure they are applied to the rich and those in power? Because until that happens they are being forced on the common man much more, as a weapon for those in power.
I don’t really follow you sorry.
I suppose wealthy murderers are probably less likely to get convicted due to better representation. I would’ve thought Luigi had pretty good representation given his gofundme.
Why let only judges make the jokes then and not the people in the jury too?
Imho that’s a fairness in a sometimes unfair system.
It’s really not a “fairness” because every case will be heard by different jurors with no legal experience.
The “fairness” you’re talking about will depend on the popularity of the accused.
Do you honestly believe Luigi would enjoy the support he has of he were an aging overweight bald guy?
At its core, jury nullification is about deciding cases based on the vibe.
I do believe that the perception of the action of which Luigi got accused weighes orders of magnitude more than the perception of his appearance or his popularity.
It’s not him who was popular in the first place.
It was what was done.
Accusing him of it in turn made him popular. That would’ve worked for other people too.
That’s not the type of popularity I’m talking about.
Luigi is young, approachable, affable, and not unattractive. I don’t believe for a moment that someone without those qualities would enjoy any sympathy from a jury.
Full hearted agreement. Pretty privilege is an observable phenomenon and Luigi is a cutie.
Heck, you could even argue that sharing a name with one of the Mario Bros from Nintendo makes Luigi seem family-friendly, silly, and meme-able.
Either of which could explain a future where Luigi would be found innocent by jury nullification where an amorphous blob that represents every other possibility would be found guilty.
However, the only way to be sure is to test the hypothesis. So to all you scientists out there, go forth and collect more data points!
Not just that. He likely lowered their insurance premium as well.
Because judges have experience in law, and they have to stand by their decisions.
The judges in the USSC want to have a word with you.
Because that’s how lynch mobs got off without penalties too. It’s very much a case of being careful what you wish for in this case. If he gets off because the jury says it’s OK to gun someone down without direct provocation, you can bet that others will too. You shot a gay man for no reason? No problem, the jury says that’s fine. You shot someone you suspect of having sympathies for Democrats? Head home, the jury was packed with MAGAs.
Rich people and people in government already get away with this stuff. Our president is a felon. If people in power aren’t bound by the law then citizens will act. Only holding the people who act accountable is ensuring that the people in power never have consequences.
I agree with what you are saying, but this is not a precident you want to set. Jurys are supposed to consider whether the defendant broke the law, not whether they agree with the ethics of the action. Too many miscarriages of justice have occured for ‘vibes’ to be an acceptable way to judge these things.
I would rather see his defence mount a case around self-defence or something of that nature (the CEO was harming Luigi or his family for instance) so that the jury have a reason to say he was within the law.
Well, given that jury nullification is a thing and considering how rarely it happens, I’d rather risk the scenarios outlined by you than having no way of giving a not guilty verdict to people this way who do something illegal but legitimate.
The difficulty comes with defining shooting someone, who isn’t an obvious immediate threat, as legitimate. If there’s a plausible way to do that, it should be the core of his defense, if there isn’t you’re asking the jury to let him off just because you don’t like the guy who was killed.
I hope his defense team can find a way to show that he acted in self defense against the harm the company were doing to him. That would be a plausible reason for the jury to find him not guilty, not set a precedent for letting murderers go free, and send a suitable warning to other CEOs.
I agree with your second paragraph.
I want Luigi to go free even if he did pull the trigger, because the jury comes to the conclusion that killing Brian Thompson was done, because ultimately CEOs need to be (hold) responsible or they aren’t needed in the first place.
If holding them responsible due to a rigged system, alternatives need to be tolerated.
People (especially CEOs) need to consider the consequences of their actions.
Until very recently people in power could do as they please without fear of consequences. That needs to change one way or the other. I’d prefer them changing coursefor the better of all. If they won’t, well…
That’s already a thing with pardons.
Yes, pardons get used like that, but are applied but one, theoretically accountable (I know, I know…) office. Having jurys just decide someone is not guilty because the dont like the victim seems far more likely to lead to a complete breakdown of what remains of law and order. Given what’s coming, maybe that’s inevitable, but I don’t think encouraging it is a good idea.
I have two arguments to defend jury nullification. First of all, in our system “jury nullification” is NOT a policy. It is the name for the inevitable fact to that members of a jury can decide to vote “innocent” without being subject to some kind of interrogation.
My second argument is this: I think jury nullification is actually a good policy, because the only thing it produces are delays unless fully 12 out of 12 randomly selected citizens think this application of the law is completely unfair. If the citizenry believes a law is unfair with that much unanimity it probably IS unfair.
Well, to your first point, jurors cannot be held accountable for their verdict. Obviously if they could the whole system breaks down. Jurors can exploit this protection to return a false verdict with impunity, but it is exactly that - false testament. Others will try to say that jury nullification is an intended feature of the legal system but IMO it’s just exploiting a limitation.
Secondly, you’re not talking about an unfair law, you’re talking about an unjust outcome. All laws will produce unjust outcomes in some specific circumstances. However a law against murder reduces more harm than it causes, so it’s worth upholding.
To me, the idea of having juries decide to set aside the law in cases they feel are unjust is an absurdity. Imagine if Trump were on trial and the jury unanimously returned not-guilty despite obvious guilt.
To be fair, both Biden and Trump set aside the law by not actually banning TikTok, so it makes sense that at least in some specific instances, normal people are allowed to as well.
No, that doesn’t make any sense at all.
Presidents are elected to weird ultimate power, and are intended to do so with the support of the best advice available.
A President is not a king. We fought a couple wars about it. We might fight another soon.
… and yet …
I’ll see you out there friend.
He isn’t a threat to the public. No need to lock him up. Odds are good he won’t reoffend either.
You could say that about most murderers. Why not just abolish the prohibition on murder?
It always was