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Juror From RIAA Trial Speaks
Damon Tog notes a Wired blog posting featuring quotes from a juror who took part in the recent RIAA trial. Some excerpts: "She should have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars... Spoofing? We're thinking, "Oh my God, you got to be kidding."... She lied. There was no defense. Her defense sucked... I think she thought a jury from Duluth would be naive. We're not that stupid up here. I don't know what the f**k she was thinking, to tell you the truth."
Sorry, but Jury Nullification, while having deeply entrenched common law roots, is not as cut and dry as you may think it is. Many court cases, including some from notable power courts such as the Supreme Court of California have held that Jury Nullification is "contrary to [the court's] ideal of justice of equal justice for all and permits both the prosecution's case and the defendant's fate to depend upon the whims of a particular jury, rather than upon the equal application of settled rules of law." People v. Williams (2001) 25 Cal.4th 441, 463
Also, just from browsing the Wiki article you linked there are many examples of court cases in which Jury Nullification has either been criticized or not been held to be a viable option for juries. See U.S. v. Krzyske 836 F.2d 1013, 1021 (Upholding on appeal a judge's answer to a juror that jury nullification "didn't exist") and U.S. v. Thomas 116 F.3d 606 (2d Cir. 1997) (holding that jurors can be removed if there is evidence that they are planning on utilizing jury nullification)
Now, I'm in no way advocating the removal of the concept of jury nullification from our system, but I'm simply stating that to just throw out such a blanket action as the answer to this question doesn't help much because the action itself is under attack by significant powers in the legal realm. At least IMO, it seems like it would make much more sense to focus on electing a decent legislative body to reject these rules, rather than holding out for jury nullification that really only works as a one shot deal to begin with.
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You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
She also had the hard drive wiped by the geek squad and they testified that it was due to a legit windows problem. The geek squad guy was also asked of the defendants music buying habbits at bestbuy. The defendant was a huge purchaser of music cds.
The jury had the option of fixing penalties at $750 per song. They opted for more than 10x that.
On that, I have to agree with you. Though I have to admit, it doesn't do much for my personal opinion of the naivete of Duluthites.
Says who?
Says anyone who understands why we have juries of our peers rather than juries of government-appointed experts, when the latter could incontrovertibly do a much better job of deciding the facts of the case.
Jury nullification, not the USSC or the presidential pardon, represents the final and most effective of the "checks and balances" on government abuse of power.
Actually, you do, and this is well established in English jurisprudence. William Penn was on trial for preaching Quakerism in the streets. The jury was instructed to convict because he was indeed preaching and it was indeed against the law. The jury refused to convict. The judge sent them back. They still refused. He threw them in jail. They still refused. He put them on bread and water rations. They still refused. Finally he gave up and accepted their acquittal. And ever since then juries have been able to vote according to their conscience rather than the law.
It's also equally well established that you can't tell people about it in the context of a court case (except during jury deliberations). Otherwise you would ALWAYS have lawyers attempting to get the jury to nullify.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Stealing or copyright infringement? It makes a difference!
> probability states that it would be worthwhile putting one of a thousand guns to your head,
> where only one was loaded, and pulling the trigger if the reward was a million dollers upon survival.
Uh, no. Probability and expectation theory only deals in uniform ideal units. Your example contains two different units: "death" and "dollar". You're confusing probability theory with utility theory here. Or with a combination of probability and utility theory.
E.g., if the person pulling the trigger knows he is sick and most likely will die in great pain within several weeks, I wouldn't think it at all extraordinary for him to take this wager. In his case the utility of death vs. money is different than for others (you, for example, it seems).
And in the downloader's case, in many cases the downloaded product has a higher utility (e.g., no DRM) than the product he can attain legally. And what the relative utility of being sued by RIAA is for him is dependent on what he thinks, not what you think.
If you go back and read some history, you'll find that a goodly chunk of the first Americans thought jury nullification is a right. I could quote a bunch of famous people, or give you the long history of Bushel's case, Zenger's case. I encourage you to educate yourself and look at both cases, in which jury nullification was upheld as a juror's right in the English common law (which, by the way, where do you think the rights protected by the 9th Amendment are most likely to spring from?).
No, I will quote only one authority: "It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision... you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy" -- John Jay, First Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, State Of Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. 1,4 (1794).