"Nullification" is a principle of law that says that a jury has the plenary right to find a defendant not guilty during secret deliberations, even when a defendant is clearly guilty of the crime. The purpose of a trial by a jury of one's peers is to administer justice, not merely to determine guilt or innocence. Jury nullification holds that a jury may judge the appropriateness of the application of a particular law in a particular case and may, in its sovereign and absolute judgment, choose to ignore the law and find the defendant not guilty regardless of the evidence of guilt. This power, which has existed as part of the jury process long before the US was formed, is intended to give a jury of citizens the ability to prevent miscarriages of justice that might be perpetrated by the government.rEvolutionist wrote:I don't know what "nullification" is, but you can't really allow vigilante justice, particularly in this situation where they chased him down and he wasn't posing an immediate threat to anyone. What the family did was wrong, but perhaps the judge could go easy on him in sentencing. That would seem like a more sensible legal action.Seth wrote:Yup. Which makes it appropriate for him to be tried. And the circumstances are such that I say that a jury should nullify the law in this particular circumstance because to subject him to prison would constitute a miscarriage of justice. That's the role of the jury to begin with, and it has every right to find him not guilty by nullification because their duty is to dispense justice, not be blindly bound to the letter of the law.klr wrote:Indeed. Anything beyond that is just taking the law into one's own hands.JimC wrote:There was ample justification for chasing him down and restraining him, and if that involved a punch or two, fair enough.
But that is not unlimited license to beat someone to a pulp.
Examples of such injustices are rife in English history. We can look to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and the King's manufacture of evidence through torture and subornation of perjury as one of the classic examples of why and how the jury nullification practice came into law.
The whole point of requiring a "jury of one's peers" was to protect the defendant against kangaroo courts and stacked juries as well as government abuse by the courts. The only way to ensure that a jury of one's peers will be able to render a fair and impartial verdict is to make the jury deliberations absolutely secret and their verdict of innocence completely unrevokable and unassailable. While a guilty verdict may be overturned by a higher court or thrown out by the trial judge if it perpetrates a miscarriage of justice, a verdict of not guilty, under the double jeopardy rules, cannot be overturned.
Thus, jury nullification (which judges and DAs absolutely loathe and try to suborn and avoid...and falsely tell jurors they cannot do) is the final link in the chain of justice that helps to ensure that justice remains fair and impartial even when corruption would result in a wrongful verdict.
In this case, a naked pervert was caught masturbating outside the bedroom window of young girls. The father was naturally outraged and lost control of his temper because of the heinous and despicable nature of the crime and he beat the pervert up. It's wrong for him to do that and yes, it's a crime, but in this particular case, his actions are, in my view (and I hope in the view of a jury) understandable and forgivable as a slight overreaction in protection of his daughters. In other words, the pervert got what he had justly coming to him. Actually far less, as in the past he likely would have been killed on the spot by enraged parents.
Therefore, while the defendants actions were wrong and a criminal offense in the eyes of the law, his actions are entirely understandable and excusable and a jury may decide that turning him into a felon and depriving his family of his paycheck, his presence, and his protection would be more punishment that he deserves in the interests of justice, so the jury may decide in its sovereign judgment that the assault law as applied in this case would perpetrate an injustice and it may find him not guilty.
