OH YEAH THEYRE TALKING ABOUT IT NOW
Please do not remove mods, really sorry for the Google AMP link, but this is a “subscribers only” blocked article on CNN that for some reason AMP just straight up bypasses and opens fine.
Direct link: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/10/us/jury-nullification-luigi-mangione-defense/index.html.
Edit 1: updated title, CNN changed it on me
By that logic, why bother with democracy and not trial by combat?
The problem with your logic is that you assume jurors don’t have a sense of ethics and justice. If they truly don’t, then forget the judiciary as a problem, because the society itself isn’t going to hold up. So in that way, applying your logic here and under that assumption you are right, why bother with democracy and not trial by combat when people no longer care about acting in good will?
Sentenced to one night of rehabilitation?
I’m not assuming that at all. Jurors have a very specific role, which is to determine whether the evidence against a defendant is sufficient to find them guilty of the charges against them. That does not require a sense of ethics and justice.
“Juries are required to perform determinations based on a system of ethically based laws and justice. That does not require a sense of ethics and justice.”
Try again.
That’s not what I said at all.
I can’t be any clearer. Jurors consider whether evidence confirms the defendant performed the acts they are charged with.
They do not “perform determinations” in any way. They do not consider ethics. They do not dispense justice.
I can’t be clearer either. The jury needs to have a sense of what they are participating in it, and “consider whether evidence confirms the defendant performed the acts they are charged with” is just another way of saying they have to determine something but disingenuously acting like it’s completely different. Grammar Nazis, people who will argue to oblivion about something, MAGAists, they all have one thing in common, they focus and overextend very limited but convenient interpretations in order to build walls around a context that suits them.
Technically, you’re correct. In this particular case though, I don’t think it’s the best kind of correct.
Juries are the triers of fact when present. In a civil case, that means the judge can ask all kinds of nuanced questions in the jury instructions, as that could be necessary for the judge’s application of the law later down the line.
In the US criminal justice system, the laws are meant to be interpretable by the common person (a lot of work being done by “meant-to-be”). A judge only asks them a single question: For the charge X, how do you find? Since juries do not need to justify their decision, they can use whatever reasoning they want to behind closed doors to reach their decision: facts, ethics, or flipping a coin. The lawyers use voir-dire to try to exclude jurors that would be too biased, or would be willing to use a coin flip (juries almost universally take their job seriously—they hold the freedom of someone in their hands.)
As mentioned elsewhere, an acquittal by a jury in the US is non-reviewable. It doesn’t matter why they acquit. Convictions, OTOH, are reviewable, and judges have famously thrown out guilty verdicts from juries before.
It’s not a question of can, but ought.
Ought a jury just make up the law based on the vibe of the case?
How would you feel if it were Trump on trial for whatever crime and the Jury just decided that although the evidence says he’s guilty as sin it just didn’t feel right to convict such an important person.