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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (62486)	10/12/2002 11:19:26 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Here's a column about something I find a real dilemma. I've had occasion to be on a jury where nullification was an issue so I've thought quite a bit about it but reached no firm conclusion. Tucson, Arizona Saturday, 12 October 2002 Letting juries nullify laws weakens democracy By Steve Chapman Someone once said the best thing to do with bad laws is to enforce them vigorously - thus exposing their flaws and speeding their repeal. But South Dakotans are pondering another possibility. On their November ballot is a measure that would try to remedy bad laws by encouraging juries to chuck them out the window. That might not sound like a bad idea. South Dakota is just one of many states with Draconian drug laws that make criminals out of sick people who smoke marijuana to treat their symptoms. A quadriplegic named Matthew Ducheneaux recently was prosecuted for possession of the drug, which he says he needs to ease muscle spasms. A jury convicted him - even though, by his lawyer's account, "All of them conclusively said afterward that they didn't want to find him guilty." Supporters of Amendment A, as it is known, say his case is exactly the type in which a jury should be free to decide that even if he broke the law, it's a stupid law that deserves to be ignored. They'd like to see this option, known as jury nullification, adopted not only in South Dakota but everywhere. Advocates could do more to publicize that the measure would let juries effectively suspend not only bad laws but good laws, and not just in rare cases but in common ones. Prosecutors say it could be invoked in up to half of all criminal trials - and might offer a refuge not only for those defendants charged with such "victimless" offenses as drug use and prostitution but also domestic abuse, drunken driving and statutory rape. As the puckish legal scholar Herbert Wexler once put it in reference to jury nullification, "What's sauce for the goose depends on whose ox is being gored." If you allow juries to acquit pot-smoking invalids, you have to let them give a pass to husbands who slap the missus around or good old boys who fail roadside sobriety tests. Good laws and bad laws alike can be overridden. Supporters of jury nullification say the measure would merely tell juries about a right they already have. As Texas attorney Clay Conrad puts it in his book on the subject, withholding this information "is like trying to keep teen-agers from finding out about sex: If they do not learn about it from a responsible source, they are likely to learn about it on the streets." Under Amendment A, defendants would be allowed to acknowledge technical guilt while arguing that the law they broke shouldn't be applied to them. And juries could then proceed to toss it aside. It's true that juries already have the freedom to acquit even if the defendant is indisputably guilty and policies reflect as accurately as possible the preferences of the people. There is no reason to think juries are more representative of community sentiment than legislatures. Juries may just as easily reflect minority views. If South Dakotans think medical need should be a defense for marijuana possession, they can demand that the legislature pass a law to that effect. Juries are an important part of our system of law and justice. But they are also the only part that is totally unaccountable to the people. If legislators vote for bad laws, their constituents can vote them out. Likewise with prosecutors who bring unwarranted indictments. Police answer to their superiors, who answer to elected officials. But juries answer to no one. They can abuse their powers by spurning the will of the people, and the people have no recourse. For a jury to overrule a law passed by an elected legislature is not a triumph for democracy, as supporters of Amendment A insist. It's the opposite of democracy.

To: epicure who wrote (62486)	10/12/2002 11:41:47 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Egad! I hadn't seen that. I thought that group was dust. promising an administration that would advocate the group's key agenda items: anti-abortion activism, low taxes, limited government and judges who don't legislate. I wonder how pleased the group is with the "limited government" approach of the Administration... Speaking of anti-abortion, I had just gotten out of the shower yesterday when a woman a little older than I whom I did not know but who had been swimming in the next lane started talking to me. She was all dressed and about to leave the locker room but she turned around and approached me. I guess she just felt she had to talk to someone. We had not yet heard about the morning's shooting. She was wondering how anyone could murder anyone. Then she told me about a phone conversation she had with her daughter in California about the death penalty, how her daughter questioned her about being pro-life while supporting the death penalty, and about how she subsequently rethought her position and is now against the death penalty. Then she left. When I left the locker room, I found her outside talking to someone else.