Too many of the potential jurors said that even if the defendant, Elisa Meadows, was guilty, they were unwilling to issue the $500 fine a city attorney was seeking, said Ren Rideauxx, Meadows’ attorney.
So much time, effort, and resources wasted towards trying to fine someone $500 for doing something humane. Our “leaders” are out of touch with reality. Can we fine them for wasting our tax dollars on shit that doesn’t matter?
with “leaders”, the best course of action usually involves guilliotines.
You really believe that? I’ve had way too many conversations with people that generally support the mentality of the stick over the carrot.
My cousin, totally not super conservative or anything, just gen x, was talking about how Mike Tyson (I think) had said his son couldn’t box like him cause he didn’t know what it was like to be hungry. I was just like, is that important for us to have boxers?
Stop telling them this in advance! They can’t get at your work material or deliberations. Just give them a general affirmative and go on to nullify that shit.
Also, at the point you can’t seat a jury because they’re telling you they won’t convict there has to be some kind of slaughter rule. To stop wasting the court’s time if nothing else. Because at some point you’re just letting the prosecutor choose a verdict, not a jury.
Exactly. Well put
Don’t lie under oath, but you also don’t have to scream from the hilltops that the whole damn system is out of order and ensure that someone who is heavily invested in punishing the people for feeding the homeless gets your spot in the jury instead.
What the fuck did I just read?
Humans arrested and charged for feeding hungry and needy humans
That’s a level of Freedom ©®™ I just cannot comprehend
That’s fucking evil
You’ll fucking love this one then: Ohio pastor charged for opening church to homeless people in freezing weather
Welcome to America!
Home of the fuck you i got mine
Worse: they think they got theirs but didn’t. The group most likely to experience homelessness? Boomers. The group most entering the workforce? People over 75 years old.
An entire generation worked so hard to put their vision of the world out there but couldn’t see that they were destroying their own future in the process.
Somehow freedom morphed into Free Dumb.
Believe it or not, it used to be illegal in most places to be in public if you were maimed or deformed. We’re talking veterans will be arrested for walking down the street. The reason? Good christian folk suffer when they see it, it has to be kept out of sight.
This is the 20th century version of that.
This still goes on with dress codes directed at women. “This women’s skirt is an inch too short, all the boys will turn into sexual predators!”
Men should grow beards because other men might become sexually attracted to them if they don’t.
What if men have beards and other men are attracted to men with beards?
Believe it or not, straight to jail.
Not just jail in many countries.
SHHH, don’t create a new point of panic amongst the fearful.
The bear community has something to say about that.
This is a reference from a couple years back. Don’t recall where but a Muslim scholar made this argument. It’s bad to not have a beard just in case, apparently.
Making me look up the source 😡
Had no idea that it was called that. The San Francisco law was specifically the one I was thinking of.
You’re breaking the money chain! Believe it or not, prison.
So the DA is just allowed to say, “I don’t like any of my choices in this jury pool” and that’s just okay?? That doesn’t sound like a fair trial at all. It’s like grabbing the stack of lottery tickets from behind the counter and starting to scratch them off. When somebody comes to make you stop you just say, “it’s all good. I’m just trying to find one I like before I decide to play the lottery today.”
The process of jury selection is complex. It good that it’s this way, however it can be abused if the system itself (meant to keep it working properly) breaks down. One of the most important elements in that is that the officers of the court (both lawyers and the judge) are operating honestly and in good faith.
So, you see the problem.
To over-simplify, as I understand things…
There’s a variety of reasons a juror can be rejected, with one of them being “the juror is not willing to follow the law, as written”. This seems to be what’s happening here, the law says that if a person does X, the penalty is fine Y, and these jurors are saying “I would not issue fine Y even if you prove they did X.”
To an extent, this is the system working they way it’s supposed to, one of the checks on unreasonable laws is being unable to find people willing to enforce them in good conscience.
Although that process can also be heavily abused, such as when all white juries would routinely find white defendants not guilty when they very obviously lynched black people.
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Unfortunately this is a very cut and dry indication of intention of jury nullification, and that is a reason to dismiss a potential juror. They shouldn’t have said anything and then nullified once they actually got on the jury.
Not even intent, even the risk that someone has the ideological basis that could justify nullification in that case is enough to throw them out.
It’s actually why it took a while to prosecute the boston marathon bombers, because the jury selection ran face first into the fact that the jury pool was bostoners and bostoners lean pretty sharply against the death penalty, which is what the prosecutor was after.
Both parties get a certain number (like 2 or 3) chances to excuse anyone, no reason required. Outside of that, you’re raising technical reasons to the judge and the judge does the dismissing. If the judge doesn’t buy the reason and the other party doesn’t object, they may just end up on the jury.
This makes sense to me, but I also think that you shouldn’t be able to dismiss the jury en masse more than once. Jury pools are what, 20-30 people? If they can’t find 12 people and/or set 1 doesn’t work out for some reason and the judge agrees, you get one more shot and either accept the hand you’re dealt or drop the case.
When something of similar scope happens to the defense they can ask for a change of venue, and if it’s granted that’s it. The trial proceeds.
This is picked up on elsewhere in the thread that basically this, itself, is a form of jury nullification. If the law is so bad that they can’t ever get a jury together to try a case, then that law is unenforceable and effectively nullified.
This sounds like an abstraction of a general “problem” in the system. If you set a law with consequences that no reasonable person would think is proportionate to the crime no jury will convict someone of the crime. It was a real problem back when the death penalty was too broadly applied.
One particular thing with the abortion ban debates that is overlooked is how common women killing children under the age of one used to be before birth control/abortion legality. In those eras courts (usually somewhere between 1850 and early 1900’s) had to put new laws on the books to lower their punishments well off of full murder convictions because juries would refuse to apply full murder charges broadly to the category because at some level they accepted it as kind of a natural but volitle reaction to misery beyond the control of the person that the juries were very empathetic towards because a woman’s lot being particularly miserable was an accepted social norm.
These “problems” have ways of figuring themselves out. If you can’t reliably find a jury you have to change the law.
Too many jurors… don’t know about jury nullification.
To get there they’d have to risk being charged with perjury since it sounds like they were directly asking that question.
Only if they could prove it
This actually is a great example of jury nullification. From https://fija.org/library-and-resources/library/jury-nullification-faq/what-is-jury-nullification.html talking about a different case:
Of 27 potential jurors questioned during voir dire, only five said they would vote to convict a person of possession of such a small amount of marijuana. Skeptical that it would even be possible to seat a jury, the judge in the case called a recess during which time the lawyers worked out a deal known as an “Alford plea” in which the defendant didn’t admit guilt.
When these kinds of rejections of enforcement of laws stack up over time, the laws become unenforceable. We’ve seen this rejection of the Fugitive Slave Laws and alcohol prohibition, for example, undermine such laws’ enforcement. Eventually, it is no longer worth the time or hassle or embarrassment for government officials to try to enforce these laws. They may be further nullified in a sense either remaining on the books but not being enforced or being repealed altogether.
So when these potential jurors said they wouldn’t fine someone for feeding the homeless, it’s one brick in the wall. Get enough bricks and all of a sudden the law is unenforceable.
This is an excellent writeup, thank you.
I always wonder what they’ll do if I start chatting about it with other people during the selection process.
From what I understand it depends on the jurisdiction. Some places nothing happens, other places they’ll declare a mistrial and select from a new jury pool. Yet others they’ll slap you with a charge of contempt of court or possibly jury tampering.
It is contempt of a court of law to
checks notes
broaden the involved parties’ knowledge of the law.
Ultimately it comes down to a subtle but important disagreement about what exactly the role of a juror is. For supporters of jury nullification, a juror determines if someone is guilty or innocent. For opponents of jury nullification a juror determines if someone broke the letter of the law or not. Those that think a juror only decides if a law was broken or not feel it’s the judges duty to determine guilt or innocence based on the juries findings. The contempt of court charge is for essentially stepping out of your lane and taking power from the judge.
Personally I find it a weak argument, it has always I feel been the intent that jurors judge guilt or innocence. Specifically they decide if not just the letter but the spirit of the law has been violated, or in the case of an unjust law if no guilt is possible.
Everyone should know about Jury Nullification.
For better or worse, Jury Nullification’s validity is highly debatable. Its history is also mixed. It was used by juries to acquit people who were charged against the Fugitive Slave Act. It was also used in the Jim Crow era to acquit white people of lynching black people.
At a systemic level, its validity is kind of irrelevant because any time you ask a human being to judge whether a law is broken, there’s no way to prevent them from saying no because they don’t agree with the law. Prosecutors and judges can try to weed out jurors who will answer based on their conscience rather than just facts, but they can’t eliminate the possibility.
On a personal level, I can recognize nullification is easy to abuse, but if I’m on a jury and I’m asked to convict someone of breaking an unjust law, I could not in good conscience sacrifice that person’s freedom just because another juror in a different trial could do the same thing for bad reasons.
As the question of whether nullification should be promoted, I think it should, because people have a right to know how their government works as part of their right to choose how it works. A government whose most fundamental mechanisms can’t hold up to public security is ipso facto authoritarian and undemocratic.
The validity isn’t debatable. Just it’s checkered history. Ending jury nullification would require making the jury an advisory body or getting rid of it altogether. And considering it’s entire purpose is to be the last check on the justice system, that’s not happening any time soon.
No, dude. It’s popular on the Internet. Talk to real lawyers about it. When I’ve come across it with them, they rate it barely higher than SovCit nonsense.
Here’s the ACLU on it. Let me know when they’re willing to defend Sovereign Citizens.
Here’s Cornell Law School on it, and their operative quote.
This can occur because a not guilty verdict cannot be overturned and jurors are protected regardless of their verdicts.
So please tell me how this is a conspiracy theory with no legal force?
I mean sure, if “a jury of your peers” means at least seven other racist fucks, then it could very well go badly.
But it keeps the laws of the land on the same page as the opinions of the people. Jury nullification is as close to democracy as you can hope for.
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
-William Blackstone
LOL amazingly a jury can decide how they want and that’s the end of it. the fact that someone may not like it is immaterial.
Uhh, no. That’s not how it works.:
According to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Sparf v. U.S., written by Justice Harlan, juries have no right to ignore the law when rendering the jury’s verdict. However, nullification still occurs in some instances because of the secrecy of jury deliberations. It is difficult to determine if a jury negates the law, especially in close cases.
If it was up to judges, it would never be allowed, and cases would go to appeal or retrial if it happens. It only continues because jury deliberations are private. If judges found out, they would toss it.
You’ve just proven that the SCOTUS decision is fully unenforceable, which means that jury nullification is the de facto law of the land.
It’s not. People blab about it a lot. Often right during jury selection, which makes it easy.
That makes it easy to prevent, I think, but not necessarily enforce/punish
That’s the one time they will get you. The other is like in the Darryl Brooks trial where he tried to bring it up repeatedly and was shut down instantly by the judge.
People blab all the time when they think they’re on to something smart. It’s surprisingly reliable.
Yeah, is this the same SCOTUS that says women have to die if their pregnancy fucks up?
We should probably stop letting judges make laws. They don’t run this place, we do.
It’s been precedent for a long time. Also, if you want to confront the legitimately of the court system altogether, then jury nullification is meaningless.
It’s called Perverse Jury in the UK and it’s always caused major shocks when it’s happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification#England_and_Wales
Judges don’t like it and politicians have considered making it illegal. It’s been really heating up recently (2021 & 2023) with environmental protestors being acquitted after juries refused to find them guilty.
Judges have tried to avoid it in those cases by blocking the defendent from explaining their moral argument. People were acquitted of the crime but then convicted of contempt of court for breaching the judges orders.
They wouldn’t have to feed the homeless if the city did a better job at helping them.
If not even California can make meaningful steps towards permanent supportive housing, it sure as shit won’t happen in Texas.
In CA, like everywhere, it’s just a problem of money. NYC has a mandate to offer everyone temporary housing if they need it. Recently Texas and Florida have strained the system by sending thousands of migrants to NYC (100K total).
Most of them are able to find temporary housing because the city pays for it. The SF Bay Area and Los Angeles could easily do the same, but they just don’t want to spend the money. They need to raise taxes slightly and get it done.
Its not even a thing of money.
cause other countries have proven, Giving the homeless apartments and support will let the overwhelming majority of them get back on their feet, find jobs, and take over all the payments htemselves.
and its proven that doing this is cheaper than keeping people on the street.
Cruelty is the point, not a lack of resources.
You think “cruelty is the point, not a lack of resources” in San Francisco? It’s one of the most homeless-friendly and expensive places in the country.
Stop just copying and pasting catchphrases.
If your precious san fran was super homeless friendly, they wouldnt be on the streets. They wouldn’t be handwaving money as a reason for ignoring them.
They can easily fix the problem. They just don’t want to.
So yes. Its cruelty. thats the point.
You cant use money as an excuse to sit on your hands and do fuck all, especially if you are claiming to be the most homeless friendly area in the country, When a simple act of kindness in giving them housing, medical care, and financial aid, to get them back on their feet so they can take over the financials for themselves, is not only a good moral choice, its also the cheaper, more financially pragmatic option
But why help people and elevate them, when you can keep markets artificially inflated and line your pockets.
The peope being cruel and the people trying to help others are different groups, they both exist in most ‘liberal’ cities. Like Seattle, they have good resources for needy people compared to a lot of cities but the police are also known to have significant problems with white supremacists. And the business associations are allied with the police.
There’s a GIGANTIC difference: CA is trying, TX is not.
You’re actually entirely backwards there, and I’m no fan of Texas, but they have done a far better job than any of the coastal states, at least in the major metros. Google it, I’m not kidding.
The onus of providing sources is on the person making the claim. Please provide them yourself.
Or if they shot the homeless.
Put me on the jury. If the city can make a convincing case that permits are needed to ensure safe food handling practices are being followed, and that permits are granted freely when reasonable requirements are met, they’ll get their fine (they won’t).
Ok, you’re on.
So what happens if they just can’t find anyone willing to say the fine is okay?
They’ll just postpone it indefinitely and keep trying to find a jury pool.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury…
I’m probably not quoting (with emphasis added) any sort of amendment to a document that forms the supreme law of the land though.
This is Texas we’re talking about, when has something as pesky as the US Consitution gotten in their way of doing whatever the fuck they want?
“The Earth is at least six thousand years old so ten years in jail while we look for a jury is negligible in comparison your honor” - Some Texan prosecutor
It’ll probably get dismissed. You have a right to a fair and speedy trial (6th Amendment) as long as you don’t waive the speedy trial which happens and is why some people spend years in prison without a trial…and probably plea out eventually.
When people want to know what anarchism is, it’s this organization. In many places where it operates it isn’t legal, but what good is the law when it stands between people and freely feeding their community.
And if you don’t have a local chapter and want to you can just start your own. There’s like four rules and you don’t need to get approval, from anyone. It’s completely decentralized. Hell you can operate one across the street from another.
Humanity prevails
LOL the city leaders are so desperate to act out their cruelty and cannot understand that the citizenry is capable of human empathy.
I mean most of them aren’t inherently evil at least not more evil than they are lazy. I’m sure if they were given the chance to just ignore the homeless population they would much prefer that. But they’re wealthier constituents the business owners and the elite don’t like seeing the homeless people around and they don’t like the increased crime that comes with it. Having a homeless population around does have some ramifications. It does make a number of their constituents uneasy and they would be very happy to get rid of the problem.
They’re trying to make them more uncomfortable so they move on. It’s not a good answer it’s not a moral answer it’s not a right answer but it’s not just out of pure evil. Most of them anyway.
Where are the benevolent philanthropists to show us the light with their “elite” luminary brains?
See, this is the shit American and Canadian cities waste time and resources on instead of actually helping people in need.
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