Jury defies judge and refuses to convict Palestine Action activists
Jury defies judge and refuses to convict Palestine Action activists
Defendants represented themselves to communicate directly with jurors about their legal right to acquit A jury at Bradford Crown Court has defied a judge’s attempts to rule out any legal argu…
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I'm neither a UK person nor a Palestinian activist, but I found this to be an interesting example of how freedom of speech and jury nullification (or "jury equity," apparently) work in the UK.
I didn't realize they had an equivalent in the uk
Jury nullification isn't a real thing. It's not a law in any country, it's a "loophole" that springs out from some simple concepts.
- You have a right to a trial by a jury of your peers, jurors are protected from consequences related to their deliberation and decisions.
- If found "not guilty" the state cannot retry you for the same crime.
Both of those things are important to avoid tyranny in the judicial system.
What that means is that if, for any reason, the jury decides to find you "not guilty" even against their "jury instructions" or the law itself, you're off the hook forever. This concept is called "jury nullification" but it's not a law or "feature" of the justice system. In fact most of the time it's been used for very unjust outcomes, for example juries often refused to find people who perpetrated lynchings guilty because a "jury of your peers" in many states was racist AF!
That being said I LOVE to see it used to refuse unjust laws!
Thanks, that makes sense. The internet creates a skewed perspective on shit like this.