[Jury Nullification] is when the jury in a criminal trial gives a verdict of not guilty even though they think a defendant has broken the law. The jury’s reasons may include the belief that the law itself is unjust

Until the wealthy and powerful are held to account, why punish your fellow everyday citizens? Use your brain. Decide if what they’re charging people with is suppression or actually keeping society safe.

When those prosecutors start losing these cases, maybe they will start to rethink who they are focusing on.

  • pelespirit
    3·
    1 day ago

    That’s hilarious, the jury wasn’t fucking around.

    UK, the year 1670- I wonder if the US uses that law since we were under the crown at the time? Did we inherit any laws from before we claimed independence? I never thought about that.

    • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
      6·
      1 day ago

      We adopted a lot of the English legal system since a lot of the same courts were still operating before, during and after the revolution. We just wrote a bunch more stuff down (since for some reason even really important stuff in English law is still this kind of “everyone knows it’s that way” weird type of oral history system.) We also modified certain aspects in a more democratic spirit. But a lot of the bedrock, things like precedent, judges, juries, appeals, habeas corpus, and so on, comes from that system, so Bushel’s Case is still relevant in terms of talking about the nature of the judge/jury relationship.

      • mkwt@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 day ago

        We adopted a lot of the English legal system since a lot of the same courts were still operating before,

        Except Louisiana. Louisiana is instead gifted with laws from Napoleonic France.

          • mkwt@lemmy.world
            3·
            17 hours ago
            • “Case law,” meaning deciding court cases by referring to the results of previous cases, is much less important in Louisiana. Courts of appeals and the Louisiana Supreme Court are more liable to go against previous precedents than they might be in common law states.
            • A lot more basic stuff in Louisiana is written into law statutes. The Louisiana constitution was completely rewritten in the 1970s, but today it is still the size of one of those old fashioned phone books.
            • Louisiana has parishes instead of counties.
            • In a criminal case, the Louisiana constitution does not guarantee defendants the right to trial by jury. That’s an English law tradition thing, not French (or “continental European”). Louisiana criminal defendants do get a right to jury guaranteed by the US constitution and by Louisiana statutes.
            • Louisiana is (basically) the only state in the Union that doesn’t require a unanimous jury verdict in criminal cases. They got partially overruled by the feds on this recently, though.
            • Louisiana does not participate in the Multistate Bar Exam. The Louisiana bar exam is the longest one to sit in the Union.
            • You cannot disinherit any of your children. All children are entitled to a minimum fractional share of your estate. This is a reform actually from Napoleon, getting rid of “primogeniture” that was all the rage in England.
            • Louisiana has a thing called “usufruct” that could be used to, say, let your spouse keep using your assets after you die (and your assets were force-inherited to your children).
            • The governor of Louisiana is required to recite the oath of office twice, in English and French.