for me, the quote from Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is important: 'The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both the law and the facts.'
https://www.jurorsrule.com/quotations-and-comments-on-fully-...
Trials could be set up so that a jury is presented with specific questions of fact, and they must rule on those questions of fact. "The jury finds the defendant, Bob Bobson, did enter the house of Vick Victimson between the hours of 9PM and 11PM. The jury finds the defendant, Bob Bobson, did take Vick Victimson's property. The jury finds the defendant, Bob Bobson, did push Vick Victimson down the stairs, resulting in his death."
... but they do not. Juries decide on whether the entire crime occured. Guilt or innocence. Moreover, they aren't generally required to give reasoning for rendering their verdict, and only in cases where there is no rational train of thought possible to determine a crime was committed may a judge overrule a jury's finding on the issue of guilt. The full power of finding of fact of "Did any crime occur here" is in the hands of the jury.
I know of someone who sat jury on a case involving someone shooting into a home. Jury found the defendant guilty of reckless endangerment, but the interesting thing is that the jury's reasoning on the topic was that any discharge of a firearm in a city, by virtue of the denseness of the city's population, with no backstop and no planning on where the bullet would end up, should by default be reckless endangerment. I think one could easily find folks familiar with firearms who would disagree, but it doesn't matter. The jury has the power, in that case, to decide "common sense" dictates that's what the words "reckless endangerment" mean.
"This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice."
So, from my very limited understanding, the point is kinda like you have to pass the legal steps before you have a chance at getting justice. Rules of evidence, Miranda warnings, whatever.
I think it's sorta like you have to pass the compiler before you get a chance at a working program.
Now, I'm going to strain this analogy, what do you do when there's a bug in the compiler? Me personally I patch the fucking compiler, and then submit a PR. Maybe that PR gets accepted, maybe not. But the problem I have right now is fixed.
I would probably not be a good juror.
I'd say getting your PR accepted is like passing the law. Locally hacking up the compiler to get this one stupid executable to work is like jury nullification.
Argument by analogy sucks, but hopefully this gets the spirit of what I'm trying to say across. I'm going to drop that analogy now.
Back to the original quote, everybody has to follow the laws. If we don't follow the laws, there is no hope for justice. Jurys rarely if ever have to explain what they were thinking, and the best a judge can do is declare a mistrial and start over. Sometimes the law is fucked up, or it shouldn't be applied in a specific circumstance. And a jury can do that. This is of course ripe for abuse, if my buddy is on the jury of my trial, maybe I don't get convicted - but there are a bunch of laws around jury selection so hopefully that doesn't happen to often.
So, while you can work around the compiler issue, you cannot really remedy the legal system for your case, which could be deleterious.
Nullification, however, is the last bulwark against an overzealous State, and a powerful signal of no confidence. It's so destructive to the credibility of the system, it is one of the few things I can honestly say is only spoken of in hushed contexts, and with dread by many because of the unpleasant nature of the circumstances that warrant the existence of such a safeguard.
No one wants to believe a government could get so out of hand it has to get reined in in such a way. It can though. That's why it's important.
It implies that in that court, people care only about laws not justice. That may be so, but if that's the case, that's pretty sad, not something to be proud of.
> This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged “actual innocence” is constitutionally cognizable.
i.e., Actual innocence is constitutionally irrelevant.
[1]https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/08pdf/08-1443Scalia.pd...
I think that’s very easy for some people to hand wave away as just “a cost of doing business” in a system of justice but is shockingly and appallingly costly for the people who are unfairly burdened with shouldering that “cost” for the rest of us.
Other people feel the opposite way, which is how you get the above statements.
There’s a flaw in the system there, but not with the judge. He’s just explaining his duties according to the law. If you want the law changed, reasonably I think in this case, that’s a political matter not a judicial one.
Representative democracy is, in my opinion, a significantly worse form of distilling the will of the people into applied justice.
If the task is deducing justice from the will of the people, I’d sooner pick a tiny random sampling of the population to make isolated decisions, than the votes of party-affiliated politicians on laws which cannot take into account individual circumstance.
e.g. this is party why the death penalty is so unevenly implemented. Not because some or most people genuinely feel no crime is worth killing a criminal over. But because there are many issues over an irreversible sentence like death when the evidence isn't 100% ironclad.
That rarely happens because nearly everyone votes based on what politicians say rather than the substance of their policies.
The people always get the government they deserve.
It was always a court of men, justice Holmes, not law.
But judges get to stretch and squeeze laws all the time, all the way from nullification to the most unhinged overreach. And unlike juries, they get to pretend they didn't. And in an SC judge's case, it takes a constitutional crisis to overrule them.
It's personal power on an unbelievable level, yet this guy pretends it's not him? That it's instead some abstract intangible force? Seriously, what a terrible person.
And if elected lawmakers produce a clear and unambiguous law with a manifestly unjust outcome, to get that fixed society should turn to lawmakers rather than judges.
And sure, in an ideal world things would get fixed in the legislative branch. But can you blame anyone for going where so much of actual power is?
Well, the justice system has a number of types of discretion:
(1) Determining facts. Two first-hand accounts disagree, which do we find most believable?
(2) Discretion granted by lawmakers. This person has been found guilty of X and the law calls for a prison sentence of 3 to 15 years depending on the facts of the case, how long should the sentence be?
(3) Discretion in how to interpret the words of the law. For example, if a farmer grows wheat to feed to his own livestock, and it isn't sold and doesn't cross state lines, is that still "interstate commerce" because otherwise the farmer might have brought feed on on the national market?
You're never going to remove (1) or (2) from the legal system, of course. But some people would say (3) is a question of politics which should be resolved through the political system - not through the justice system.
It brings up related two latin phrases and one in spanish
de minimis non curat lex / de minimis non curat praetor [1]
De los asuntos intrascendentes no se ocupa el magistrado
On one side we could have the "hanging prosecutor" and the other extreme, a Chesa Boudin refusing to bring cases forward.
Selecting prosecutors with the wisdom to know where the harsh application of the law is needed, and where electing not to bring forward a case is essential, or, a diversion to a non-criminal path is a must.
Discretion & wisdom are essential.
Or they first arrive conclusion/decision they want for a particular case or topic, and then rationalize their decision (perhaps ignoring precedent) when they write their brief.
So I imagine some victims for example may not feel that a minor fine/warning is 'Justice' they can't argue that it was decided by the law ?
The application of law to promote justice is the role of the prosecutor - and that is the part that is most frequently broken.
For example, if a jury finds a defendant guilty of some crime, because they really did it (let's say Aladdin stole some bread from the supermarket and it's clear beyond reasonable doubt that he did indeed), and the law dictates that the _minimum_ penalty is 10 years, then a judge is bound. It does not matter one iota that both the jury and the judge feels this punishment is excessive bordering on ridiculous; in that sense, it is 'a court of law' and not 'a court of justice'. It's not self-serving, it's self-denigrating: Awareness that the judge/jury can't just decide together how to proceed.
That's what jury nullification is about: If a jury member realizes the judge is going to be forced to give a to them utterly ridiculous sentence if the jury finds the defendant guilty, you can simply decide to find them not guilty even though you are well convinced beyond reasonable doubt that they are. Now they are meting out justice and flaunting the law. The jury can actually get away with this (as this news article again shows); a judge absolutely wouldn't be able to.
NB: Current SCOTUS seems to just do whatever the heck they feel like, flaunting all plausible readings of a given law, deference to expertise, and precedence (e.g. how modern SCOTUS opinions often write that Stare Decisis is meaningless – saying that it matters "unless it was wrongly decided" is a euphemism for "it does not matter", of course). So specifically modern day SCOTUS? They seem to think they are beyond the law. It also shows how I really, really don't think you _want_ a court to think itself a court of justice, meeting out excessive punishments because they feel that is just, and letting defendants clearly guilty of egregious acts go free or nearly so for some imagined reason. It also means that any clash with the law has utterly unpredictable consequences. By definition, minimum and maximum penalties clash with the notion that a court is 'a court of justice' instead of 'a court of law'.
Take asset forfeiture for example, there is no law that permits it explicitly but there are laws about property rights,due process and privacy. By precedent and in ignorance of what common sense tells a reasonable person "this is unfair" they steal property from people without due process.
The legislature can't even stop companies from being treated as persons which any sane person will tell you is unreasonable or illogical.
It is all merely theatrics to veil implementations of hidden agendas and ulterior motives.
Yeah, they are.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/453
> The legislature can't even stop companies from being treated as persons which any sane person will tell you is unreasonable or illogical.
I've never gotten why people are so opposed to the idea of corporations being treated as unnatural persons for certain purposes.
Companies are owned and operated by people with rights, so some of those rights transfer to the company. But, the owners agree to have some of their rights qualified when acting through a corporation in exchange for enjoying limited liability.
For instance, imagine you own a house under your own name. The government can't build a stadium on top of it without just compensation. Why should it be any different if you happened to have purchased that house through a corporation?
Corporations were a relatively recent invention in the context of the common law and treating them as qualified unnatural persons allowed them to integrate into the legal system without creating an entire parallel system. As a developer, I find it a pretty cute retrofit to the model.
When people talk about corporate personhood, they're almost certainly talking about Citizens United v. FEC which allows corporations to make unlimited donations to politicians because it's 'free speech' - a decision that opens the door to unchecked bribery.
They oppose this because they don't want their politicians to accept bribes.
A corporation can't be homeless, so I'm fine with them being treated differently when the bulldozer comes to knock their house down.
For the second, it is not a question of opposition. It is not reasonable or logical no matter the mental gymnasics and legal bullshit you legalists try to apply to it (you are so deep in legality you have forgotten reason). There is no such thing as an unnatural person. A corporation is an entity with specific defintions. The reason behind this mental gymnastics is precisely what you noted: rights. But if you follow logic and reason companies have absolutley no rights whatsoever, only obligations and privileges that allow them to participate in commerce. However, stipulatig that somehow they are partially persons because people operate them and they derive those people's rights allows them to argue against their obligations because of inerited rights. This is what I meant by a veil of theatrics to acheive your underlying goal.
Under a government of the people,for the people and by the people, the people's understand of what could reasonably be considered a person trumps every other argument. A reasonable person would not consider walmart or cpac a person or to have rights of a person because people operate it. Companies were around long before the USA was a country and this stipulation was never made before because it is hilariously illogical.
If you want corporations to have specific privileges, legislate that as such, meaning unlike rights they are not irrevocable by the government and contingent on the fulfillment of their obligations.
Take a billboard paid for by a company for example, the company has no rights to free speech. However the individuals that run it can run the billboard as individuals on behalf of the company, accepting responsibility as individuals under law (typically the CEO would).
> Why should it be any different if you happened to have purchased that house through a corporation?
It is different because you chose to make it different and relinquished any rights of ownership as an individual. You now should pay corporate taxes and nullification of your incorporation means the government gets your house. If you don't like that, buy it as a person. Thank you for bringing this up, do you know about the home ownership, housing price and homeless catastrophe that is unflolding? This is the cause. Corporations are buying houses left and right and taking advantage of home owner rights to do so. A city should be able to ban corporate owned housing but since they are persons that is impossible unless done at the federal level and even then it must pass a supreme court challenge. As a result corporations enjoy personhood rights more than most americans.
When you forgot reason, you tolerated corruption at the foundation of the whole system.
Justice is much more subjective and is the domain of prosecutors and the executive branch.
The checks and balances that prevent the judicial system from abandoning reason and justice have failed and as a result it is very partial and political with interpretations of the law according to opinion superseding common and reasonable understanding of justice. A person may have subjective views on justice, sure but what I am saying is even that is not being applied. A judge will not disregard an attempt to interpret law unjustly (e.g.:asset forfeiture) or attempt to give a reason as to why it is unjust, simply that the law is valid and implied injustice is correct (that is to say, the judge will not consider an interpretation law because that would imply the legislature had unjust intent according to subjective understanding). Reason is supposed to be a corner stone of the system but where public liars and corrupt people are made judges the result is what you have now.
I am sure there are many in the profession that genuinely pursue justice and apply reason over whatever bullshit they can convince each other but their minority voice is drowned out it seems.
Judges very often do reject charges and procedures brought to them by the enforcement authorities. This separation of power is evident if you ever sit in on proceedings (many courts allow and encourage the public to sit and watch).
Enforcement authority is executive branch and answerable to the elected officials. If you don't like asset forfeiture - ask the mayor why he allows it. You may discover that your fellow residents don't agree with you.
Judicial review panels are what judges endure in their tenure where panels of judges review how frequently their rulings are overturned in appeal. The rationale of their rulings are disputed and their tenure as a judge can be removed if they're found to intentionally skirt the law by their peers.
This is how the system works. Do you have specific suggestions to make it better, or are you just advocating we burn everything down?
Of course there are lots of other systemic issues with the US 'justice' system, but I also think the foundation is fundamentally flawed.