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by pooper 1298 days ago
> The law should be the law. If you allow juries to decide to give “innocent” verdicts even if someone broke it, then congrats you have made a system where the jury gets to decide randomly if they want to enforce something.

This is the world we live in though. Imagine telling someone who is facing life in prison "tough luck but we need to fix the law first".

1. Congress is pretty much deadlocked and has been for decades.

2. This guy, Michael Flynn[flynn], received a presidential pardon.

3. Prosecution routinely uses its "discretion" on which cases to bring forward and what charges it wants to recommend. Police / law enforcement uses its "discretion" as well.

If there is any justice, either this guy should serve his full sentence or we should immediately release anyone and everyone convicted of "lying to federal agents[making false statements]" from prison declaring the insane law null and void.

[flynn] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Flynn

[making false statements] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_false_statements
1 comments
3a2d29 1298 days ago
Right but isn't the whole issue we have with white people walking free after crimes while black people face the actual punishment all because of this exact issue?

White college girl has weed, jury nullifies. Black unemployed guy has weed, jail.

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pooper 1297 days ago
> White college girl has weed, jury nullifies. Black unemployed guy has weed, jail.

I replied elsewhere but to tl;Dr what currently happens is:

White college girl has weed, no charges pressed.

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shadowgovt 1297 days ago
No charges pressed because jury will nullify; it's a cycle.

Jury nullification, of a sort, actually dates back to England. One of the pressures that diminished the penalties for theft (which had crept up to "death") was that juries, seeing a young man in the box with their whole life ahead of them whose only crime was taking from some unaccountable rich boffin, found themselves unwilling to toss the man in the gallows for taking from one who had plenty.

Upon seeing this pattern emerge, the London merchant class panicked and petitioned the king to lower the penalty, lest no crimes against them be punished at all.

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