Montana Marijuana Prosecution Runs into Jury Pool "Mutiny"
Potential jurors repeatedly told the court they would not convict for a couple of buds found during a raid on Cornell's home in April. One juror wondered out loud why the county was wasting time and money prosecuting the case at all, especially in a locale that approved a 2004 initiative making marijuana possession offenses the lowest law enforcement priority.
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It was refreshing to hear of a Jury taking a stand against what they thought was the unethical prosecution of a fellow American, now lets see this happen more often! Recently we have seen our fellow citizens arrested for filming Police who are acting without regard for the law, I would love to hear some of these cases being nullified by jurors, thus freeing said film makers!
Maybe *This* Is The Way The War On Marijuana Ends
By Steve Elliott
The 59-year-old was arrested after officers from a state "drug task force" found 25 pounds of pot and 50 pounds of growing plants in his home in 2007. The Vietnam veteran walks with a cane, has bad knees and feet and says he uses marijuana to relieve body pain, as well as to help cope with post traumatic stress.
This jury exercised their right of jury nullification.
Judges and prosecutors never tell you this, but when you serve on a jury, it's not just the defendant on trial. It's the law as well. If you don't like the law and think applying it in this particular case would be unjust, then you don't have to find the defendant guilty, even if the evidence clearly indicates guilt.
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I thought that a few of my readers, might like to know why the Judges do not inform of jurors of their right to jury nullification.
Labor Versus Big Business
In 1895, the Supreme Court, under pressure from large corporations, rendered in a bitter split decision that courts no longer had to inform juries they had the power to veto an unjust law. The giant corporations had lost numerous trials against labor leaders trying to organize unions. Striking was against the law at that time. "Juries also ruled against corporations in damage suits and other cases, prompting influential members of the American Bar Association to fear that jurors were becoming too hostile to their clients and too sympathetic to the poor. As the American Law Review wrote in 1892, jurors had 'developed agrarian tendencies of an alarming character.'..." (Barkan, Jury Nullification in Political Trials, 1983)[emphasis added] LINK
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