Nullification progress
At jury selection for a minuscule amount of drugs:
But Wheeler – who was eventually picked for the jury – was even more surprised by the answers. She said yes, but 50 out of 130 jurors said no, they would not convict someone even if it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
“I was surprised it was that many,” Walker said.
One juror was more blunt than the others.
“She said, ‘I can’t believe I had to get in my car and come down here for this,'” Dupont said.
“It says there is a segment of the population that doesn’t think small possession cases should be punished as severely as the law call for them to be,” Assistant District Attorney Julian Ramirez said.
This isn’t a so-called trace case, the DA says she won’t prosecute. A trace is equal to single grain of equal; this was 40 times that. The law is clear.
“It’s against the law,” Ramirez said.
But Rangel’s defense lawyer says something else is clear too.
“They said they weren’t going to make somebody a felon and ruin their lives over less than a gram of cocaine,” Dupont said.
Good. Glad to see some people have some sense.
June 21st, 2012 at 10:49 am
Not the DA’s call. The defendant always has the choice of a jury trial or bench trial on any case that can result in jail time. Defense attorneys count on people being pissed at serving on the jury on minor cases focusing their anger on the state. And the DA can’t tell them that it was the Defendant that wanted the jury trial and why.
June 21st, 2012 at 10:58 am
It isn’t the process the jury members are angry about, it is the “crime” they are passing judgement upon that makes them wonder why they are there, missing work and paying childcare.
My only jury experience was for a dealer in coke – by the kilo – who was convicted as expeditiously as possible by the mixed race, mixed gender jury in Baltimore, MD, in the 90’s. When we learned he was already in jail for 15 to 30 years in the county, for several previous kilos of coke dealing, we asked the judge why the city trial had been allowed to proceed.
The judge opined that the prosecutor liked a slam dunk on his record.
June 22nd, 2012 at 10:05 am
You’d think that excluding a third of the jury pool for holding a perfectly valid view of the law because it happens to favor the defense would be a basis for challenging the trial on appeal.