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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

>>Quite the contrary. His first execution was halted and he was granted review under a Texas law commonly called the "junk science law." He quite literally got this exact review.

Ok, I didn't know that - should have read up more on this case before I commented.

>>or is it good that the jury can declare someone not guilty anyways?

Maybe. I find it much more troublesome that the jury can be presented with literally undeniable evidence that someone is innocent and still vote guilty anyway. Not that a judge couldn't do that of course - but like I said in my other comment, such a conviction would be a lot easier to appeal against, compared to a conviction made by a jury.

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> I find it much more troublesome that the jury can be presented with literally undeniable evidence that someone is innocent and still vote guilty anyway.

Usually that's not really what happens. It's often woefully inadequate defence (either due to incompetence or because the public defender is juggling 19 other cases), misconstrued evidence, bad evidence (which is more or less what happened here), and things like that.

My understanding is that, on paper, to be prosecuted, a few things need to happen:

- Law enforcement needs to raise the issue to a prosecutor

- A prosecutor needs to pick up the case

- A grand jury needs to indite you

- A petite jury needs to find you guilty

- A judge needs to sentence you with a penalty (as opposed to stern talking to)

Each of those is intended as a check-and-balance in the system. All of those have been steamrolled with misaligned incentives, mandatory minimum sentencing, etc., but that's how it's supposed to work.

Many states no longer use grand juries, and maybe some never did (I’m unsure on this detail). That particular federal constitutional protection has never been held by the courts to bind the states. But yes, Texas does have grand juries for felonies and a few misdemeanors (not most).

Tangent: it’s spelled indict, not indite (but it is pronounced as if it were indite)

Unless something has changed dramatically since I graduated from law school (2010), 96% of states use grand juries…

While nearly all states do have some form of grand jury, only about half make a grand jury indictment a requirement for a criminal prosecution, and some of those requirements only apply to felonies.

I believe that in many cases judges have discretion to reverse a guilty verdict returned by a jury if there are problems with evidence. They can't do this later though - once the verdict is handed down they can't revise their verdict and sentence, as far as I understand. They also cannot do the reverse and unilaterally find the accused guilty over a jury that has voted to acquit.

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