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Jury Pool In Marijuana Case Stages ‘Mutiny'


peanutbutter

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A funny thing happened on the way to a trial in Missoula County District Court last week.

 

Jurors – well, potential jurors – staged a revolt.

 

They took the law into their own hands, as it were, and made it clear they weren’t about to convict anybody for having a couple of buds of marijuana. Never mind that the defendant in question also faced a felony charge of criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.

 

The tiny amount of marijuana police found while searching Touray Cornell’s home on April 23 became a huge issue for some members of the jury panel.

 

No, they said, one after the other. No way would they convict somebody for having a 16th of an ounce.

 

snip ..

 

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Bittersweet victory.

Boy mixed feelings about this. I,m pleased that it happened but a slightly different defendant would have been nice. I hope the guy gets it together but his past was, well shaky at best.

It would have been better have it happen after a trial also.

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Hopefully this type of thing will play out just like the indecency trials of the 60's and 70's, where juries just refused to convict people of ridiculous laws, many times even after being threatened by judges and prosecutors.

 

Eventually everyone who got charged for peddling obscene material was acquitted, so prosecutors just gave up trying to enforce the antiquated laws.

 

A law that cannot be enforced or can be nullified by a jury, is a useless law, that can basically be ignored without peril.

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JOHN ADAMS (Second President of U.S.) (1771) (Quoted in Yale Law Journal 74 (1964): 173): "It is not only his right, but his duty...to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court."

 

ALEXANDER HAMILTON (1804): Jurors should acquit even against the judge's instruction...."if exercising their judgement with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong."

 

THOMAS JEFFERSON: "To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy."

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A funny thing happened on the way to a trial in Missoula County District Court last week.

 

Jurors – well, potential jurors – staged a revolt.

 

They took the law into their own hands, as it were, and made it clear they weren’t about to convict anybody for having a couple of buds of marijuana. Never mind that the defendant in question also faced a felony charge of criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.

 

The tiny amount of marijuana police found while searching Touray Cornell’s home on April 23 became a huge issue for some members of the jury panel.

 

No, they said, one after the other. No way would they convict somebody for having a 16th of an ounce.

 

snip ..

 

click here for more

 

 

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dont skip out on jury duty if ya get called on, it only takes one not guilty ( I think anyways).

 

very cool info, thanks

 

 

yep dont skip out, we need to be on them jury's, I respect what they did, but it would have been better to go to trial and found innocent!

 

Peace

FTW

Jim

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