Hacker News Reader

Comment by vidarh | Hacker News Reader

The entire US prison system feels abusive to me. I've said before that if I somehow magically were to find myself on a US jury (can't happen - I'm not resident in or a citizen of the US; this is a pure hypothetical), I'd be hard pressed to be able to justify voting "guilty" on a moral basis even for quite serious crimes.

It feels designed for vengeance and inducing harm rather than for safety for society and rehabilitation.

View on HN

In your scenario, the good news would be that you'd be within you're rights as a juror to vote not guilty on the grounds you did not think the law was just; it's called Jury Nullification. The bad news is, the "justice system" goes out of it's way to hide the existence of this right from U.S. citizens.

And they weed you out of the jury pool if you admit to knowing of its existence. And of course you can't lie when asked, as that's perjury.

You lie, if they accuse you of perjury then you say "I googled it after I was asked".

But that's not how they ask. It's usually something like "would you have a problem convicting the defendant of the crime they are accused of if you were convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that they had, in fact, committed said crime?" They don't say "Do you know what jury nullification is?"

Keyword: would (not will). No perjury.

And if they use "will", it's perfectly normal to wonder why one would ask such a strange question. It would totally read as "we're gonna find a case to test you on that teehee".

I agree on the general indirection they use. However my answer to the specific question you posed is "no, I'd have no problem". But if it were eg a drug charge, then I wouldn't consider the relevant criminal law to be constitutional (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for starters), and thus the defendant is innocent because there is no crime to have been committed. My judgment wouldn't be to save one sympathetic person from being convicted of what is otherwise a legitimate crime, but rather over the validity of the law itself.

In general they will ask you a bunch of questions to trip up anyone who might be too clever, but they can't ask about jury nullification directly (lest they give anyone else ideas). If you answer in the expected common sense way, and don't boast about your reasoning, it's going to be very hard for them to claim perjury.

Then what, for every other jury duty?

> Majority verdicts are not allowed in criminal cases in the United States, and so a hung jury results in a mistrial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hung_jury

But if you don’t know what it is then are you not made aware of it merely by their asking? How exactly do they weed people out without making them aware of it?

See my response to Uberphallus above.

Right, I've actually used this before when I wanted to get out of Jury Duty.

yeah, but when you say guilty or not guilty you don't have to explain why.

What's the reason for allowing judges to remove jurors who admit their intent to acquit a guilty defendant?

If they can't convince other jurors, no "harm" done. If they can, then perhaps the law is overkill. The judge seems to be overpowered here.

I'm of two minds of this. On one hand I do agree with you that it has the potential to be an important safety valve (not least because I think the US prison system is immoral and unjust...). On the other hand, historically it has a history of severe abuse, e.g. to let people go free for lynchings and the like.

The right to bear arms has a history of severe abuse as well, but I'm not one to throw the baby out with the bathwater. A jury that acquits a white murderer, then convicts a black murderer of the same caliber, is the textbook definition of an impartial jury (which is unconstitutional).

> What's the reason for allowing judges to remove jurors who admit their intent to acquit a guilty defendant?

Arguably, the same reason judges should be allowed to remove jurors who admit their intent to convict an innocent defendant: jurors must apply the law impartially. The LII has a pretty decent primer on all this entails[1].

And almost all state laws require a jury to unanimously vote to convict, so empaneling a jury that has someone who will always acquit means that the jury's decision has been set from the beginning.

Personally, I live in a state that requires a unanimous vote to convict or acquit, and prohibits the judge from "poking at" a deadlocked jury[2]. In the few times I've been selected for a jury I haven't gone far enough to be asked if I would be impartial, and I'm glad because I've yet to decide where my personal ethics take me.

[1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/i...

[2]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/allen_charge

To me, an impartial jury is one that would make the same decision when given the same evidence and accusations, regardless of who the defendant is.

In that sense, jury nullification can be impartial.

You're not within your rights as a juror to nullify. You can do so as a matter of practice.

Jury nullification looks great for laws you disagree with. It's not so great when it's used to let people off the hook for lynchings.¹

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till

> I'd be hard pressed to be able to justify voting "guilty" on a moral basis even for quite serious crimes. It feels designed for vengeance and inducing harm rather than for safety for society and rehabilitation.

If you lived your entire life in the US, and everyday felt the "Me or you" and "I'll get mine" mentality, you'd have a different approach.

It is a VERY strong dog eat dog country, and the feeling is palpable for people who live in countries with a lot more equality and sharing.

Maybe, but it's irrational also from a perspective of wanting to maximise your own pie. You don't need to favour equality and sharing to acknowledge that a more humane treatment of prisoners leads to drastically lower re-offending for example.

...Let's not stereotype a country of 380+ million people. C'mon.

There are many Americans who feel the justice system is too punitive, and fails to uphold justice for the average American. Especially for people of color.

The problem is what can one realistically do? Besides voting (both parties adore punitive instead of rehabilitative punishment) and contacting our representatives (yeah, that'll help...).

It's impossible to stereotype a country full of people that have little in common.

Most justice in US is served on state and local levels. You don't need 700k votes to get into your state assembly(in most cases) and try to change laws that affect your day-to-day.

But I must correct myself - most Americans are completely ignorant of their own legal/justice system. How many know what Civil Forefeiture is?

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25629935.

nvm, misread your post

How is that in any way relevant to what I wrote?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com