} }What?  Almost every lawyer's association and lobby, most specifically the }ATLA, have most vigorously resisted tort reform in every way, shape, and }form.     Good. *Someone* needs to counter these corporate efforts  to limit the authority of juries. }Heck, if major securities reform passed, alot of my lawyer pals would be }out of a job.  My firm makes money hand over fist defending their clients }from strike suits and other generally meritless actions.     Meritless actions . Nuisance lawsuits _base_less claims .  Ever hear of someone being sued that *didn't* feel the suit against  them was _base_less? }If businesses got everything they wanted in the way of tort, securities and )other reform which focuses on laws which primarily give a cause of action }against big business, most corporate lawyers would be out of a job.      Who care about the needs of corporate lawyers? It is *consumers*   that ought to be the focus, the same consumers that are seeing their   rights cut off at the knees by these corporate lawyers . Be careful, Mitchell.  Be careful, or you'll find yourself agreeing with me. Don Cline, WB6OCO < This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it PGP Public Key available by request. =============================================================== God made Man (and Woman).  Sam Colt made Man (and Woman) Equal. =============================================================== If government can do it to THEM, government can do it to YOU. ===============================================================

}Be careful, Mitchell.  Be careful, or you'll find yourself agreeing }with me. } }Don Cline, WB6OCO < This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it     Don Cline is now Freedom Fighter ?

As another poster put it, jury nullification is intrinsic in the Bill of Rights.  Live with it. This topic is running on and on, so I will mostly drop it.  But what does the above mean.  The Seventh Amendment provides for jury trials in certain cases.  However, what does the word jury mean or do?  If we assume jury is a common law term incorporating English practice of jury trials, then one would have to show that there was some practice of permitting nullification in England.  I am not saying that it has to incorporate English practice, but then, according to what theory of Constitutional interpretation do you make this grandiose claim? Ever hear of William Penn? Umm.  Yes.  Now can you respond to my question in a non-cryptic fashion? I haven't found my files yet to answer specifically and accurately, but it boils down to Britain having a law against preaching Quakerism, and an individual held forth doing so on the courthouse steps in circa 1610.  He was arrested, tried, and the jury refused to convict in spite of a judge's order of directed conviction.   Whereupon the magistrate ordered them locked up indefinitely until they should issue forth with a verdict of his liking.  They were so incarcerated, I understand, for about ten days, and many of the jurymen gave up, told the judge what he wanted to hear, and were allowed to depart.  William Penn (I can never remember if he was the juryman or the defendant, but I believe he was the juryman) and two or three others held fast, and eventually an order from a higher court was received setting them free.  The higher court had recognized the right of the jury to vote their conscience, and the impotence of the trial court judge in doing anything about it.  The sovereignty of the jury in deliberation and rendering of verdict has been recognized under the common law ever since, and was recognized in either the first or second Supreme Court ruling ever issued in this country.  The court system has been systematically chipping away at the right ever since in an effort to make the jury a rubber stamp for government lawlessness. First of, even without jury nullification, such a situation would not happen in present-day America.  First, because a directed verdict of guilty has been held unconstitutional in this country.  It still exists in England, but I have only seen it applied to really extreme circumstances (for example, the leading case on mens rea as to consent in rape, Regina v. Faulkner, was one that was directed at the House of Lords level). Second, because nowhere is it permissible to lock-up jurors for anything short of taking bribes, engaging in some kind of mob extortion scheme, etc. But second, I would like too see some sort of cite for the higher court opinion.  I am particularly concerned about the wording because of the above concerns, i.e. whether the appellate court reversed because it endorsed nullification or it reversed for some reason I outlined above. But finally, this is the reason that I am totally perplexed about various claims that nullification is intrinsic or essential to the Bill of Rights.  I take this to mean that nullification must exist for Bill of Rights freedoms to be effectively enforced.  But I can show you opinion polling data which shows you that elites (the media, big business, those big bad lawyers in Congress) are actually considerably more sympathetic to justice claims that fall under the rubric of civil rights than is the average guy on the street.  That doesn't directly hurt your case for nullification, but it does a good deal to deflate characterizations of the jury as some unproblematic institution that only cares about Constitutional freedoms.

As another poster put it, jury nullification is intrinsic in the Bill of Rights.  Live with it. This topic is running on and on, so I will mostly drop it.  But what does the above mean.  The Seventh Amendment provides for jury trials in certain cases.  However, what does the word jury mean or do?  If we assume jury is a common law term incorporating English practice of jury trials, then one would have to show that there was some practice of permitting nullification in England.  I am not saying that it has to incorporate English practice, but then, according to what theory of Constitutional interpretation do you make this grandiose claim? You don't have to be a lawyer, or develop a controversial interpretation of the Constitution to understand that jury nullification is intrinsic therein.  I do find it somewhat ironic that I am lecturing somebody in law school about it however.   The folks who wrote the Bill of Rights were profoundly influenced by the bravery of nullifying-juries within their own life-times; and recent past. It was jury nullification that struck the first blow for Freedom of Religion, in the case of William Penn, and jury nullification that struck the first blow for Freedom of the Press, in Zenger. The Founders saw fit to give these two freedoms top billing, in the First Amendment, elevating these decisions first made by runaway juries to the Law of the Land.  It is unlikely that the Founders had any other inclination but that nullification was a necessary-given, and it was just a small matter to ensure that it could not be subverted.   Every Founder who ever expressed a written opinion on the matter held that juries have the power to decide both the law and the facts

Legislatures consist of predominantly wealthy lawyers.  There are a few non-lawyers, and a few non-wealthy people, but I think we can safely say that 90%+ of legislators fall into one of these two categories. Now, who is more likely to represent the views of the average citizen: 12 average citizens, or a group of rich lawyers who are used to throwing their weight around, and who are generally exempt from the consequences of the laws that they write? Of course, it's also true that (except for the rare cases of people who are appointed to fill vacated seats) 100% of legislators fall into the category of people who were democratically elected by the average citizens to represent them in the legislature.  If these average citizens keep electing wealthy lawyers, that must be because they _want_ to be represented by wealthy lawyers. (Either that, or these average citizens are collectively as dumb as a rock.  But we all know that that couldn't be the case, right?