[107499] in Cypherpunks
[Fwd: LFB Book News: JURY NULLIFICATION]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Soren)
Fri Jan 15 06:40:42 1999
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 07:25:22 -0400
From: Soren <sorens@workmail.com>
To: cyphers <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net>
Reply-To: Soren <sorens@workmail.com>
Russell Hanneken wrote:
>
> =================================================================
> Laissez Faire Books - Book News - January 14, 1999
> Please forward this message to anyone who might be interested.
> =================================================================
>
> Bulwark of liberty and justice
>
> JURY NULLIFICATION
> The Evolution of a Doctrine
> by Clay S. Conrad
> (Carolina Academic Press, 1998)
>
> LL7857 (paperback) 311p. $22.50
>
> (reviewed by Jim Powell)
>
> Defense lawyers face contempt of court penalties if they say a
> guilty person can be acquitted for violating a law which jury
> members consider unjust. Yet this practice, known as jury
> nullification, goes on today, and historically it has proven to
> be a bulwark against arbitrary government power. Conrad, a
> Houston-based attorney, does a splendid job explaining what jury
> nullification is all about.
>
> Why would a jury refuse to convict? As he writes, "Many of the
> defendants facing trial in criminal courtrooms across America are
> no threat to their neighbors. They are harmless violators of
> victimless crime laws, tax laws, regulatory laws, licensing laws,
> or political protestors. . . . They are peaceful gun owners who
> wish to be equipped to protect themselves, if need be. They are
> cancer, AIDS, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis (MS) patients who
> grow and smoke marijuana in order to alleviate their
> suffering. . . . These are not the people who prey upon society;
> in the eyes of many jurors, these are the people society preys
> upon."
>
> Conrad rebuts the charge that juries can't be trusted because
> they allegedly refuse to convict racist murderers. Historically,
> he shows, the great bulk of miscarriages of justice had nothing
> to do with juries, because the cases weren't brought to trial.
> When a case was brought to trial and murderers were acquitted,
> police, prosecutors and judges had a great deal to do with the
> outcome--intimidating jurors or testifying as defense witnesses.
> Conrad goes on to discuss the white Mississippi jury which
> convicted the Ku Klux Klan murderers of civil rights workers
> Andrew Goodman, James Earl Chaney, and Michael Henry Schwerner in
> 1964.
>
> Conrad covers everything--the origins of jury nullification, how
> it became important in early America, how late 19th century
> judges restricted juries, how juries perform in capital cases,
> how lawyers can encourage juries to be independent without
> getting cited for contempt of court, and much more. Great book.
>
> =================================================================
>
> JURY NULLIFICATION
> LL7857 (paperback) 311p. $22.50
>
> For more information, see our web page at
>
> http://laissezfaire.org/ll7857.html
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> If you like JURY NULLIFICATION, you may also want to read . . .
>
> WE THE JURY
> The Impact of Jurors on Our Basic Freedoms
> by Godfrey D. Lehman
>
> Focuses on dramatic cases from around the world, showing that
> "when the jury is unshackled and fully informed, when jurors are
> guided by conscience and act independently of outside influences,
> they almost always prove to be the ultimate guardians of the
> people's liberties."
>
> LL7584 (hardcover) 369p.
> Publisher's price: $26.95
> OUR PRICE ONLY $21.95
>
> For more information, see our web page at
>
> http://laissezfaire.org/ll7584.html
>
> =================================================================
>
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> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Russell Hanneken Laissez Faire Books
> russell@laissezfaire.org http://laissezfaire.org/
