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__MatrixMan__today at 5:58 AM3 repliesview on HN

Some of us report for jury duty just itching to nullify something. Don't you? Checks and balances...


Replies

Barbingtoday at 6:41 AM

Nullify if necessary, more likely duty to justice as best as I can come to understand it.

We should all know it though!:

  It has been commonly used to oppose what jurors perceive as unjust laws, such as those that once penalized runaway slaves under the Fugitive Slave Act, prohibited alcohol during Prohibition, or criminalized draft evasion during the Vietnam War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
blitzartoday at 6:46 AM

I went itching to nullify injustices - I left wanting to reintroduce the death penalty for petty crimes.

helterskeltertoday at 6:18 AM

I got selected as juror once just hoping to laugh at anything the cops said on the witness stand and let some poor soul go free but it turns out the defendant was just a violent scumbag who stabbed random people in public, and there was a video of it. After we decided he was guilty, they listed other things he had been convicted of and asked if he was a repeat offender... Let's see, shot somebody in the back, robbed liquor stores at gun point (dressed as a clown IIRC) and some other weird shit. That decision didn't take very long.

Honestly we didn't even throw the book at him, prosecutors were charging him with a bunch of offenses and we decided guilty on only two, but the repeat offender bit probably locked him up for a few decades.

The funny thing was that all the jurors thought the victim was a complete douchebag and thought both parties deserved time. As it turns, somebody I knew at the time knew the victim from childhood and he apparently molested his 8 year old cousin.

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