• Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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        21 days ago

        In practice, sort of. It’s a symptom or side effect of two other really good ideas:

        • A jury cannot be in any way punished for any verdict they reach.

        • One cannot be tried for the same offense twice if it is acquitted. Technical term for this is “double jeopardy.” A guilty verdict can be appealed but a not guilty verdict is absolutely final.

        The shapes of these two principles are such that they cannot interlock in any way that does not leave room for jury nullification.

          • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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            20 days ago

            I would love to make this into some viral tiktok craze or something. Because…

            The powers that be don’t want it to exist. Because we’ve got a whole system of legislatures and executives and judges to bicker about what the laws actually are but because the jury has to be the final say and we can’t allow double jeopardy, it all comes down to twelve random citizens on a case by case basis.

            Wouldn’t it be fun to live in a world where every last person understands this and it’s not a question they can disqualify on?

    • Maalus@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      You need to lie to the judge under oath to do it. There simply aren’t consequences, but it is very much illegal.

      • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.worksOP
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        21 days ago

        Wrong. They try to filter out people who know about jury nullification, but the act itself is not illegal, as you do not have to have the knowledge to accidentally do it anyway.

        • Gregor@gregtech.eu
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          21 days ago

          That seems pretty unfair to filter out people who know about it, it’s basically filtering knowledgeable people.

        • helloworld55@lemm.ee
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          21 days ago

          Just to be clear, one of the standard questions to ask a potential jury is “you must be able to render a verdict solely on the evidence presented at the trial and in the context of the law as I will give it to you in my instructions, disregarding any other ideas, notions, or beliefs about the law. Are you able to do this?”

          If you know about jury nullification, with the intent of using it, then you need to lie under oath to get past this question.

          The question was taken from the New Mexico US courts

          • Malfeasant@lemm.ee
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            21 days ago

            Are you able to do this?

            Ahead of time, I could answer truthfully that I am able. I don’t have to say “but when the time comes, I may choose not to for any reason”

            • helloworld55@lemm.ee
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              I mean that may be “the truth”, but it is purposely not “the whole truth”. Which is a violation of the oath. The only way jury nullification is allowed is if a jury independently decides not to convict, because then jury is unbiased in deciding that the law is wrong or shouldn’t apply.

              Again, if you are selected for jury duty, and you already have decided you will ignore the law to avoid convicting the criminal, then there is no way you can make it past the selection without lying to the court.

              • lad@programming.dev
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                21 days ago

                I think then talks about jury nullification may be changed in such a way that no legal matter is discussed, but a jury is still inclined to act such that nullification happens, and that will be in accordance to the phrasing of the oath

              • wellheh@lemmy.sdf.org
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                20 days ago

                Afaik, in a court of law, the questions they ask matter. If it is a poorly worded question, it is the fault of the one interrogating. Don’t answer your own version of their questions

          • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.worksOP
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            21 days ago

            Check the links in the main post. Your example question and many other variations of it are explicitly addressed there.

            But in short, you answer truthfully, but stick to the letter of your answer and not what the judge thinks. There’s nothing illegal about it.

      • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        21 days ago

        You do not have to lie to the judge. There is no lying to the judge. If the jury decides to ignore evidence and nullify, the judge knows exactly why, and there’s nothing they can do about it.

        • helloworld55@lemm.ee
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          21 days ago

          Before being selected to be on the jury, the candidates are asked questions after being sworn in, that almost always include language that would disallow ideas of jury nullification.

      • xapr [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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        I was a juror in two different trials and don’t recall ever being asked about my beliefs on jury nullification. It’s been many years though.

        Edit: it seems like I was wrong. Supposedly, jury nullification is not legal in my US state.

        Edit 2: perhaps it’s still not completely settled in my state yet?

        • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          21 days ago

          See links in top post. Jury nullification is legal, it is inherently part of how our justice system is structured. However, most judges and prosecutors would much rather prefer you didn’t know your rights, and have outright lied in court about it.

          • xapr [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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            21 days ago

            Thanks. I hadn’t read your link, but found articles giving conflicting case history in my state. It was a quick read of those articles though.

      • helloworld55@lemm.ee
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        Why are people downvoting this? Jury nullification itself isn’t illegal, but committing perjury definitely is, which is what Maalus is pointing out

  • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
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    It’s a TOS violation to discuss one of the very real and legitimate responsibilities you have as a juror?

    Like, nullification is a thing because it’s very much the absolute very very last defense against bullshit laws being used against people by a corrupt judicial system.

    It’s a moral imperative and something anyone sitting on a jury should understand and be willing to use.

    What an absurd take, especially since it sounds like it’s all the .world admins having it.

    • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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      theres no faster way to get kicked out of the selection process than mentioning it.

      if you want out of jury duty, mention jury nullification and you are out of there.

      • Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
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        21 days ago

        … and in jail for contempt of court.

        If all one had to do was utter ‘JN’ to get out of JD for free nobody even slightly inconvenienced would ever serve.

        In reality, they dance around the fact. Ask you questions designed to get you to admit you have no ‘valid’ reason to nullify if you did, at which point you are either guilty of lying under oath or contempt of court.

        You have to be firm in your convictions and hold your ground with a valid justification if you are going to try using nullification awareness to weasel out of jury duty because the judge will press, and press until they either think you’re a true believer of a valid reason, or are just trying to shirk your duty.

        • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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          21 days ago

          Link me even one case of that happening.

          If they think you even might support nullification, they don’t want you on the jury. They wouldn’t risk that you’re joking or trying to get out of serving.

            • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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              21 days ago

              Those are cases of attempting to encourage specific juries to nullify. You’re not gonna be held in contempt for revealing you support jury nullification during selection.

              • Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
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                held in contempt for revealing you support jury nullification during selection.

                Yes, you will. If you flat out say “I support Jury Nullification” during voir dire the judge will consider it flagrant contempt for the courts and deal with you accordingly.

                What will actually happen is you will be asked a vague question that skirts the issue like “do you have any beliefs which would render you unable to convict or acquit based on the evidence alone?”. If you answer in the affirmative an explanation will be demanded at which point what will your answer be? “I support jury nullification”, same deal. If you have an actual belief that gets in the way like say you abhor the death penalty they will say things like ‘case is regarding a traffic ticket, your concerns do not apply. any other reasons?’. Their goal being to show that any of your reasons either do not apply, or are insufficient in the judge’s eyes for you not to do your duty. At that point you’d still be a juror and if you do nullify for whatever reason there’s nothing they can do afaik.

                You’re dreaming if you think you wouldn’t be punished for praising jury nullification in front of a judge and an entire slew of potential jurors during voir dire, when someone was handing out fliers outside the court building was convicted despite no court being in session, no actual juror receiving the pamphlet, and it held on appeals.

                TBH you want evidence, the evidence is the court system still functioning because if what you said was true it would collapse in on itself.

                • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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                  21 days ago

                  Yes, you will. If you flat out say “I support Jury Nullification” during voir dire the judge will consider it flagrant contempt for the courts and deal with you accordingly.

                  Source? Cause this is some wild shit.

                • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  21 days ago

                  This is pure bullshit. And that’s not just my opinion, Cornell Law School explains jury nullification on their website, and lists multiple examples of it. Juries in the United States are protected, and you cannot be held responsible for refusing to convict. You will not be punished for it, and if you are, then your rights have been violated and you have a case to sue the government.

        • odelik@lemmy.today
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          Jurors cannot be punished for an incorrect verdict in the USA (where a potential trial would be held if the guy is caught).

    • Draconic NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      It’s likely not actually a TOS violation, that person commenting is almost certainly talking out of their ass, likely to try and push their own agenda and make people comply.

    • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      21 days ago

      Lemmy.world is a centrist instance. Liberals don’t like the idea that people can do something that the donor class can’t prevent.

  • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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    I consider human life sacred

    Like the lives of those cut short by denying treatment so CEOs and shareholders can make more money?

    only God may judge us

    Oh, fuck off. If God exists and actually cared, he/she/they would have “judged” the guy a long time ago for introducing needless suffering and cruelty.

    • Localhorst86@feddit.org
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      only god may judge us

      Is a great argument for jury nullification. Because that will allow for god to decide the shooters verdict.

    • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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      god is the most cruel entity in the entirety of the bible. kills the most people, causes the most suffering. how anyone can read that book and come away with a positive view of that beast is unfathomable.

      • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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        I agree, but that wasn’t quite the point I was trying to make.

        The moderator was on a moral superiority high-horse by suggesting that “only God may judge” a guy who served as the judge for other’s lives through complacent inaction and encouraging policies that put personal gain over humanity.

        The only way that argument wouldn’t have been hypocritical is if he agreed that God was a cruel bastard, and I don’t think that was the case.

          • Optional@lemmy.world
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            21 days ago

            Indeed.

            Note that I’m not claiming anything, just pointing out the traditional philosophical parameters of what-is-or-isn’t-‘god’.

        • samus12345@lemmy.world
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          21 days ago

          It is impossible for a being to be omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent given the amount of suffering in the world. They can only be two of the three at most:

          Omnipotent + omniscient = Knows about evil, can stop it, but chooses not to.

          Omnipotent + benevolent = Can do something about evil and wants to stop it, is too oblivious to on a large scale.

          Omniscient + benevolent = Knows about evil and wants to stop it, is powerless to do anything significant about it.

          • Optional@lemmy.world
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            21 days ago

            Yeah, that’s the way most people see it.

            As it happens, people don’t generally talk about it very much. For some reason.

            • samus12345@lemmy.world
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              21 days ago

              If they’re believers it’s because god is “good” no matter what he does or allows to happen.

    • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I’m as much of a god as anything or anyone else, and I hereby give you all permission to judge anyone you want for any reason. This applies both going forward in perpetuity, and retroactively until the Big Bang.

  • moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    21 days ago

    Banning people for encouraging continued violence is one thing, but banning people for encouraging others not to imprison someone is actually ridiculous, regardless of their actual guilt.

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    “only God may judge us”

    It’s okay, as an atheist, I only recognize the moral authority of humankind, so judge away.

    More seriously speaking, PTB. It would be one thing if the justification was “We REALLY do not want any legal trouble and we are just not equipped to take on any challenges, so we’re playing it safe”, but “i consider human life sacred”? They can fuck off.

    • WadeTheWizard@fedia.io
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      Human life is sacred, which is why I’m celebrating this POS no longer being able to abuse the sick to make a few extra bucks.

    • limelight79@lemm.ee
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      Also, WTF does the mod think “jury nullification” is? Wouldn’t he be against all jury trials? You’d think he’d support nullification if he really believes only God may judge us…

      I know, I’m trying to make sense of the rantings of a True Believer.

    • odelik@lemmy.today
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      And reading the shit they post, they’re judgemental as all hell.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if this dust-up loses this fool their mod powers on LW.

  • njm1314@lemmy.world
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    They keep claiming all these things against the TOS yet you can read that and none of it’s in there. I don’t know what it is about these mods but they sure seem to be trying to push their own agenda.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Remember how the !world@lemmy.world mods kept pushing for months the propaganda bot from a pro-Zionist and very rightwing (so much so that their definition of a Rightwing news media was pretty much only the Far-Right ones) organisation trying to tell everybody which news to trust and which to not trust?

      Also, curiously and back some months ago when I was making anti-Zionist posts in my Lemmy.world account, all of a sudden I started getting e-mails on the account I used to register on Lemmy.world from an Israeli organisation doing “Education about Israel” courses and they knew not just my e-mail but also the country I lived in (the e-mails were in my native language) even though I didn’t share my email on any posts.

    • goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org
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      I was questioning a certain mod why they banned someone for TOS violations but left up the offending comments and they were confused why anyone would question them about it.

      Like if something is that bad you ban and remove it but they thought it was better to use as an example.

      Simply put they just use it as their go to excuse.

  • nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    How is jury nullification against .world ToS? It is part of the law! Or more specifically it is literally created from the absence of a law, to allow a fair trial by your peers.

    Courts don’t want you to know about jury nullification but it is not illegal. It is a required part of the judicial system.

    • reksas@sopuli.xyz
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      so trying to prevent people knowing about is is more akin to trying to prevent people from knowing what rights they have?

  • young_broccoli@fedia.io
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    Imagine describing the denial of medical care to thousands in the name of profits as a “mistake”.

    What a clown!

  • repungnant_canary@lemmy.world
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    Also, isn’t lemmy.WORLD supposed to be a worldwide instance? I can discuss jury nullification as much as I want because I’ll never be in the US jury. From my point of view, if I discussed jury nullification and got banned for it, I would treat that as a quite aggressive restriction of free speech.

    • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      Based on past behaviour, the .world ToS generally gets modified to justify whatever actions they’ve taken AFTER they’ve already taken it.

      • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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        The lemmy.world terms of service are not exactly a work of clear legal craftmanship. I don’t always think it’s a bad thing to change the TOS to match this situation that just came up, so that we’ll have a consistent policy written down that everyone’s had time to look over. But it’s clearly been thrown together by a bunch of amateurs who are, for some reason, cosplaying as a mini-Facebook with all the mode of speaking and fake professionalism that entails.

        Read our Terms of Service carefully before using this website (“the website"). These Terms of Service (“the Terms of Service” or “the document”) govern your access to and use of the website. The website is available for your use only on the condition that you agree to the Terms of Service set forth above and below. If you do not agree with all of the Terms of Service, then do not access or use Lemmy.World. By accessing or using the website, you and the entity you are authorized to represent (“user” “you” or “your”) signify your agreement to be bound by the Terms of Service.

        That part sounds very lawyerly. Then the rest of the document is clearly a wiki that’s been edited by a variety of volunteer admins as time goes on as different situations come up, with random pieces of general internet advice intermixed with what the rules of the site are, not clearly separated into which one is which.

        Before using the website, remember you will be interacting with actual, real people and communities. Lemmy.World is not a place for you to attack other people or groups of people. Just because you disagree with someone doesn’t give you the right to harass them. Discuss ideas and be critical of principles. Show the respect you desire to receive.

        Everyone has a right to browse and interact with Lemmy.World and other federated instances free of harassment and/or threats of violence. Please try and be kind to your fellow human, or at least civil. Trolling users is only funny if both parties find it funny. Trolling mods and/or site admins is ill-advised.

        Do not engage in content manipulation such as posting spam content, vote manipulation through using several user accounts or consistently down-voting a user. Vote for the content, not for the person.

        Those are all good advice. Will I get banned for violating them? If I consistently downvote a user I don’t like, or if I don’t show the respect I desire to receive? Or if I’m trolling, and someone doesn’t find it funny?

        Do I just need to intuit that if I use multiple accounts to make fake downvotes, I’ll be banned, but if I just consistently downvote another user when I see them, I won’t be? The whole reason for having a TOS is so that users, and admins, won’t need to intuit things like that.

        Then there’s this. Wait for the end, there’s a punchline:

        1. Violent Content

        No visual content depicting executions, murder, suicide, dismemberment, visible innards, excessive gore, or charred bodies. No content depicting, promoting or enabling animal abuse. No erotic or otherwise suggestive media or text content featuring depictions of rape, sexual assault, or non-consensual violence. All other violent content should be tagged NSFW.

        6.1 War Footage

        Any graphic war footage taken by either private individuals or media outlets is prohibited. Exceptions may be made for photos and videos of historical significance.

        6.2 Violent Content (Exceptions)

        Depictions, imagery or otherwise ancient artwork in any form, other publicly available media entertainment content depicting gore or sexual content may be excluded and allowed, as long as they are fair use, in the public domain, or tolerated by the copyright owner, and in compliance with our Content Policy, as well as all applicable laws and their local laws. For example, films depicting war or historical reenactments.

        Well, that seems perfectly clear. Any graphic war footage is prohibited, except war footage. That’s allowed.

        • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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          It sounds lawyerly to a layman, but they’re defining lowercase words, which is not a thing (no offense intended). It looks like they tried to copy a legalistic style without understanding the point of writing in that style

        • ochi_chernye@startrek.website
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          Third TOS candidates, hmmm.

          • Tears of the Sun
          • Tits-out Sunday
          • Turtle Ossification Syndrome
          • Telescoping Oscillating Syringe

          Any number of possibilities, really!

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      Yeah its called whatever the fuck a mod wants to make up whenever the fuck they want to make it up. See some of the main mods in politics and world news.