Comment by dylan604
8 hours ago
> And if I ever serve for jury duty over a case like that, they didn't do it.
Now you're bending facts. You can decide they are not guilty of a crime, but you can't make them have not done it.
8 hours ago
> And if I ever serve for jury duty over a case like that, they didn't do it.
Now you're bending facts. You can decide they are not guilty of a crime, but you can't make them have not done it.
And you're just being a pedant, aiming for the worst kind of correct.
nope, read my response lower in this thread before your knee jerk reaction
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49158933
He’s referencing jury nullification.
Juries actually can “make them have not done it”, although that’s been used for good and ill purposes.
"Not guilty" does not mean "did not do it" - it means "the state didn't prove that they did it beyond a reasonable doubt."
Yea and that’s effectively “did not do it” when it comes to anything involving consequences.
It was obvious what the rhetorical point `nekusar was making. I’ll give you the pedantic point of being technically correct when looking at it from a gods eye view.
1 reply →
Exactly.
I think as a citizen and a 2x juror, that it is our responsibility first to determine if a law should be a law for all. Secondly, if the law passes scrutiny, ONLY then should we determine guilt or innocence.
I am highly disincentivised in seeing victimless crimes as crimes. Like drug usage and all that. Or destruction of horrific security appratus like Flock.
Simply put, the laws wrong. And that means 'Not Guilty' for anyone I would have to judge, even if they admitted it in open court.
(I'm also aware that jury nullification has also been used to find black lynching perpetrators to be not guilty of the same nullification. I said that I judge a law if it should be. Murder is pretty clearly not victimless, but extenuating circumstances like self defense are a thing. Lynching is terrible, and so is freeing lynching perpe-traitors.)
If you really want to nitpick, juries are what settle questions of facts.
You can agree that the person did the act yet still find them not guilty. The fact is still the fact. As someone else stated, not guilty does not mean they did not do it. It just means they do not want to say they are guilty. There's only two options. If if you do not choose "guilty" the only option remaining is "not guilty".