Lawyers are “scared” of doing their jobs following contempt of court charges made against a top barrister who defended a Palestine Action activist, senior legal figures say.
Juries can practice jury nullification if they want and nobody can stop them, but barristers aren’t supposed to suggest it. Imagine if, say, a prosecutor told an Israeli jury that they didn’t technically need evidence to arrive at a “guilty” verdict for a Palestinian defendant, just “their conscience”. Jury nullification can’t become just another trial strategy, or the whole legal system becomes worthless.
This is so wildly general, I can’t comment in good faith. As it stands, the whole legal system does seem to be worthless, unless one has plenty of money for legal fees and social status, and even then, as long as they are arguing the “preferred” view.
I don’t disagree; I’m just pointing out that the judge was unlikely to be targeting the barrister for any political reason. Courts always discourage any overly obvious suggestion of jury nullification, regardless of the case being tried or whether it does or does not relate to Israel.
That doesn’t really work. The right wing aggressors will always see the purpose of law is to punish their enemies (which it is). The idea that it contains a technicality for the sake of fairness that you’re literally not allowed to tell people about so its not entirely one sided is not the same.
With an argument like that, it sounds like you have a lot of contempt for the court system. So if the barrister also argued in open court that “ignoring all law and evidence is the right thing to do”…
That’s the point, isn’t it?
Juries can practice jury nullification if they want and nobody can stop them, but barristers aren’t supposed to suggest it. Imagine if, say, a prosecutor told an Israeli jury that they didn’t technically need evidence to arrive at a “guilty” verdict for a Palestinian defendant, just “their conscience”. Jury nullification can’t become just another trial strategy, or the whole legal system becomes worthless.
This is so wildly general, I can’t comment in good faith. As it stands, the whole legal system does seem to be worthless, unless one has plenty of money for legal fees and social status, and even then, as long as they are arguing the “preferred” view.
I don’t disagree; I’m just pointing out that the judge was unlikely to be targeting the barrister for any political reason. Courts always discourage any overly obvious suggestion of jury nullification, regardless of the case being tried or whether it does or does not relate to Israel.
Fair.
That doesn’t really work. The right wing aggressors will always see the purpose of law is to punish their enemies (which it is). The idea that it contains a technicality for the sake of fairness that you’re literally not allowed to tell people about so its not entirely one sided is not the same.
With an argument like that, it sounds like you have a lot of contempt for the court system. So if the barrister also argued in open court that “ignoring all law and evidence is the right thing to do”…
No, you use a dog whistle for that.
Given that even before his closing statement, the judge had already warned him not to encourage jury nullification, he can’t have been that subtle.
Noi meant for the thing you said
If the jury don’t know their options, then what’s the point of them?
What do you think the purpose is of keeping something like that a part of the system?
The whole point of a jury system is that jurors aren’t morons.
So they’re supposed to know but its illegal to tell them?