Teri KanefieldMay 25, 2024

Hi, Fediverse,

I have my weekend blog post ready. It's a fun one because I answered a question about juries and I wrote about the Zenger trial.

What? You've never heard of the Zenger trial?

It's here: https://terikanefield.com/juries-and-the-zenger-trial/

(if you get the error message, wait a minute and try again.)

Juries and the Zenger Trial - Teri Kanefield

Because I’ll be talking about the case of Crown v. Peter Zenger, you know this blog post will be fun. What? You’ve never heard of Peter Zenger? Well, read on. I ended last week’s post with this question: Because jurors can’t un-hear or un-see, how does having things stricken from the record work? The routine goes […]

Teri Kanefield
Show threadTawtovo (ܬܘܬܒܐ)May 26, 2024

@Teri_Kanefield
Interesting! Thank you for another informative post.

I'm particularly interested that you present jury nullification in a positive light, and I can see from your examples that it has been used positively. But I've been worrying about jurors (not just in NY) in Trump's personality cult who cannot be convinced that he did anything wrong, leading to a hung jury. I suppose unless a juror talks afterward it's impossible to know if other personality cults swayed juries historically.

Show threadTeri KanefieldMay 26, 2024
@tawtovo I presented it in a positive light because I know that people too often look at criminal law policies from the narrow viewpoint of how it effects Trump. Don't do that. It's how bad policies are made.
Show threadTawtovo (ܬܘܬܒܐ)

@Teri_Kanefield
I agree! I very much appreciate your approach of asking how it affects other defendants as well.

I'm not proposing any policy about jury nullification (I suspect it would be very difficult to make any policy there which would not gut the power of jury trials), but just commenting that I also see the social costs of nullification.

But I suppose part of the point of the jury selection process is to attempt to exclude jurors who would refuse to consider evidence and law.

May 26, 2024 at 3:03pmWeb
Show threadTeri KanefieldMay 26, 2024

@tawtovo You are still thinking of jury nullification policy in terns of the result you want to see in Trump's trial.

Suppose they are sitting a jury to accuse a woman you know of murder becuase she had a questionable miscarriage in a state that says abortion is murder.

"This will help someone I dislike" is not the way to evaluate a policy.

I am not saying jury nullification is good. I am saying it has served as a protection against a tyranniacl government.

Show threadTeri KanefieldMay 26, 2024

@tawtovo Adding: The point is generally to eliminate bias. They can also make sure the jurors will follow instructions. Jurors also take an oath.

Jury nullification happens generally when juries just can't, in good faith, apply the law.

It's always an imperfect process but looking for potential bias is generally the idea, which goes together, right? If someone is biased they are unlikely to apply the law.

Show threadTawtovo (ܬܘܬܒܐ)May 26, 2024
@Teri_Kanefield
Thank you for sharing your expertise with us! I benefit from your perspective.