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Comment by bombcar | Hacker News Reader

If jury nullification doesn’t exist, then juries are pointless

That's just not true, though. I say that without taking a position on the merits of jury nullification.

Juries are generally charged with determining matters of fact; the judge matters of law. Even without jury nullification, a jury still determines whether the person performed a proscribed act, or did so with the requisite intent, etc.

When people talk about jury nullification, they generally mean the act of a jury actually believing that the person committed the act, but let them off because they don't think they should be punished for some other reason.

> Juries are generally charged with determining matters of fact

If that is axiomatic, it's not the constitution of the US. I don't know about other jurisdictions, but it's silent on the exact duties of a jury.

I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the idea that juries are for matters of fact comes from English common law. The constitution is a rather barebones framework. There is a lot that it doesn't cover.

It is true.

The only way to preclude jury nullification is to infringe on the rights of the jury as the sole determiners of fact, as you put it.

Without adding another non-jury body that can overrule the jury on what actually happened, how can you ever get rid of the possibility of jury nullification?

In the US, judges can overturn jury verdicts. That will be appealed to a higher court (which means they need a REALLY good reason to do it).

The most common place for this to happen is in civil court. A jury can come back with "11ty billion dollars" and the judge can decide "Ok, they got a little overzealous with that, $100".

juries don't determine damages, only that damages occurred as evidenced. Similarly, jurors don't determine guilt or innocence, but determines whether the presented evidence from both parties are convincing. Judges determine innocence or guilt, and also hands down sentences.

In civil cases, juries often are in charge of determining damages.

So all those movies where juries find the defendant guilty or not guilty are wrong?

Is there a case in the US where a jury found the defendant not guilty in criminal court and the judge overturned that?

The judge can effectively overturn a "guilty" verdict but cannot overturn a "not guilty" because of double-jeopardy (though I suppose a judge could force/rule a mistrial).

> Juries are generally charged with determining matters of fact; the judge matters of law.

I've always found this deeply troubling. If the law isn't clear enough for 12 jurors to determine if an act was legal, then how is it possibly just to hold the accused liable transgressing it?

I don't see much practical difference between this and ex-post facto laws. In both cases, a person can be convicted for an act that wasn't obviously illegal at the time.

It's not a matter of determining the law; more often than not it's determining who is lying.

Sometimes this is relatively easy ("you left blood with your DNA at the scene") and sometimes hard (you have 3 eyewitnesses, they have 7 people claiming an alibi).

> Sometimes this is relatively easy ("you left blood with your DNA at the scene")

Not so easy when you realize that DNA labs are shockingly prone to making type II errors.

And other problems with sampling: There’s the famous case of the “Phantom von Heilbronn”, where the same DNA was found on 40 unrelated crime scenes in multiple countries. In the end, it was found to belong to a worker in the factory that made the swabs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_of_Heilbronn

There was hopeless alcoholic in San Hoser who was arrested for murdering a businessman in Palo Alto. Turned out the same paramedic that helped take him to the hospital earlier in the day also was called to the scene of the murder. Some how DNA from hopeless drunk guy ended up under the fingernails of the victim.

I think the point is that if you're just trying to determine if the letter of a law was violated (and are not concerning yourself with justice), there isn't much reason to believe that a jury of your (untrained) peers is going to better at that job than one (trained) judge (or even a panel of say 3 judges).

I agree with the OP, but also you to some extent. I think juries are a paradox. It doesn't make sense to use them as they're intended. The only way it makes sense is with nullification, in my opinion.

Jury nullification is ignoring the law for any reason. In fact, it seems like the normal, "classical" interpretation is to find not guilty to laws you don't agree with. It's also used for people that did it, but the jury sympathizes with them. Otherwise, it could be they think the penalties are just unfair.

All of these things are jury nullification.

The vast majority of juries in the US do not know about nullification nor do they discover it on their own. Unless you are claiming that juries are pointless in almost all cases in the current system, observation suggests that nullification is not a prerequisite to non-pointless juries.

The existence of nullification is the prerequisite (because if it doesn't exist, it means there is a mechanism for overriding/punishing the jury if they "get it wrong" which would undermine the purpose of the jury).

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