Comment by tastyfreeze | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tastyfreeze | Hacker News Reader

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My last stint on grand jury we had a case that none of us felt great about. It was a felony theft charge where the thief likely used the vehicle regularly but took it in the middle of the night to return home. He was at a logging camp where he pays for accommodations but they had no work for him. After 3 days he got frustrated and left in the middle of the night. Camp foreman called the law reporting the vehicle stolen. The officer went and checked at the now missing guy's house and the vehicle was parked in his driveway.

The whole group felt the felony charge was too much for that series of events. Somebody said "I don't want to vote on this". I suggested that is a valid option. The vote was the weakest of all the cases we covered. Several abstentions but just enough to send the case to trial.

To me that is nullification in practice. It is "the community" deciding that they don't believe the State is right in pursuing conviction. Juries are meant to be a randomized "council of elders" type body not just cogs in the machine.

Using your belief in jury nullification as a tool to get out of your duty as a citizen rubs me the wrong way. You have to participate in the functions of civilization if you want it to reflect your beliefs.

If they are going to seat me on the jury after I loudly proclaim my willingness to nullify - I'm game for the trial!

The main problem is the idea that I'm held captive by some fake contract to the state. I'm lucky that where I am the law is more just/libertarian than in most other places - meaning that in general the average arrested person is more likely to be actually guilty, but especially in places that are ultra authoritarian (i.e. Virginia), I need all the power I can get to protest their unjust system or I'm not going to have my time wasted.

So, uh, was the guy planning on bringing the vehicle back to the logging camp? It's not obvious to me that this wasn't in fact vehicle theft.

Yes, it was technically theft. Officers found the vehicle at his house shortly after it was reported missing. Not really an opportunity to return it. If all laws were prosecuted to the exact letter of the law we would not need juries. The DA will prosecute any case that they feel has enough evidence to secure a conviction, as this case had. It is the juries that determine if prosecution in each case is "just".

Steal a car to rush somebody to a hospital then return it after and the letter of the law will convict you as a felon. It is the jury that could decide, as representatives of the community, that you should not be a felon for saving somebody's life even if you technically stole a car.

In most states the jury instructions are to make their judgement based solely on the evidence presented to them. These instructions make a jury a cog in the prosecution machine. The purpose of a jury is a final check on the government's execution of the law by members of the community.

> If all laws were prosecuted to the exact letter of the law we would not need juries. The DA will prosecute any case that they feel has enough evidence to secure a conviction, as this case had. It is the juries that determine if prosecution in each case is "just".

I think you're think of grand juries. They decide if there is enough evidence to go to trial, I.e. if the prosecution is just.

Even without grand juries, we'd still have juries that decide the verdicts. They decide if a conviction is just.

I was referring to both grand and petit jury in general but yes, that is correct.

If they had previously allowed him to take the vehicle home, then I would presume he probably was planning to bring it back. Once you explicitly allow a person to do something, it becomes harder to claim harm when they do it again.

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