Jury Abolitionist + Jury Nullification = Guaranteed Acquittal/Hung Jury?

[gawm]

If you really want to get technical, you're actually only "entitled" to an impartial jury in the same state in which the crime was committed. No peers.

Then where the hell did I get all this peer crap from? I think I'm going to sue the Arizona public school system because I remember my govt teacher beating that notion in our heads.

Okay, never mind, lets gut the jury system!

 

[Trip]

What's a "peer" these days?

We have so many more options in terms of education, employment, religion, entertainment, travel, etc. compared to the colonists... The number of experiential diferences between people seems to be outpacing our population growth.

I have yet to find someone who shares my taste in music, let alone my views on what's right and wrong.

By the way, legal specialists at least deal with logic; I'd feel a lot more "akin" to them than I would to most people I see around town.

 

[Gevalia]

The peer crap is just one of those things that becomes a widely-shared misconception by way of repetition. Sort of like "supercede" or "asparagus was meant to be used as food". Most people believe we're constitutionally entitled to a jury of our peers, and it's so often invoked that the vast majority of us accept it as fact.

The idea was born when The Federalist Papers were published and supported the concept of an impartial jury. Although the word peer wasn't actually used, that's how it was interpreted. In this context, "peer" is meant to imply someone of equal legal status, not someone who shares your taste in music or philosophy.

This is also a great bar bet.