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Food Not Bombs trial rescheduled after too many jurors objected to $500 fine for feeding homeless
(www.houstonchronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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Only after they’re empaneled. There’s nothing preventing the education of jurors on the subject beforehand…
You're not wrong, but when you get selected for jury duty the selecting lawyer will make inquiries about your knowledge on the subject and disqualify you if you admit knowing about it.
If you bring it up to the jury, that can also have you disqualified as well as anyone else the lawyers think were influenced by the discussion.
The third option is supposed to 'naturally' occurr, as in the jury agrees that the law was broken but the situation is so 'outside the scope of the law' that the law can no longer be applied. (IIRC the judge can overrule the jury in this case, but it can be a pain)
Essentially it's up to the judge to determine whether the jury's conclusion is within the realm of the 'third option'.
Yeah. That’s why people, who could be jurors, should be generally educated on the subject.
I was trying to be subtle.
I don't have the data to say one way or the other. I can definitely see how public knowledge of the third option can be abused, especially these days when political alignment is more important than facts to many people.
Good point
Which is why you just say you don't believe the prosecutors proved the case. Also, there's supposed to be a limit on the number of jurors lawyers can dismiss, for exactly this reason. They're spending well more than the cost of the fine just trying to empanel a jury at this point.
If we wanted a justice system that didn't waste money, we'd be authoritarian in nature.
The money wasted is to insure 'as even a case' as possible, regardless of the crime.
That's the idea anyway.
When I say wasting money here, I mean because you're not going to get a guilty verdict. Not in the authoritarian judge dredd sense. In fact, in other articles it's clear the city has brought a bunch of these cases and has gotten zero convictions.
So it really seems like someone decided they're going to win this one even if they have to go through 100 sessions of jury selection. (They've gone though about 30 so far)