For Your Consideration

Robb Myers, one of the commenters on my guest blogger’s nullification post, included this little gem in his comment:

“There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order.” -Ed Howdershelt

Perfect.

Truth and Jury Nullification

Jurors in Texas must swear that they “will a true verdict render according to the law and the evidence.”
My Guest Blogger maintains that a nullification verdict is not “a true verdict according to the law and the evidence,” insisting that “true” in the context means “Guilty if he’s guilty and not guilty if he’s not.”
He [...]

This F**kin F**ker’s F**ked.

As soon as I get a mention on Fark.com, my website crashes.
Thanks so much, Lunarpages. I’ll be looking for a new ISP.

Guest Post: Jury Nullification — A Prosecutor’s View

The following was sent to me by a prosecutor who wishes to remain anonymous. (No, it’s not AHCL.) I disagree with him — I think he’s missing at least one essential point (that jury nullification is the law, so that a nullifying verdict is a verdict “according to the law”) — but he’s not entirely [...]

Know Anger, Know Fear. No Fear, No Anger.

This is one of those things. If you do know it already (like Jon Katz), I don’t need to tell you, and if you don’t know it already, it’s not going to make any sense to you and you’re going to fight it. So here goes:

Our anger is almost always based on our fear.

“Hey, waitaminute!” [...]

The Importance of “Make People Afraid”

I said yesterday that what’s important about the Chronicle writing that Kelly Siegler admonished other lawyers to “make people afraid” is that jurors know about it.
Why? Because I think people are much less likely to be manipulated if they know that someone is going to be trying to manipulate them.

If a prosecutor gets up in [...]

From Baboon to Caveman to . . .?

PJ’s first comment here made me think of this, from Edward O. Wilson’s sociobiology book, On Human Nature:

Lawrence Kohlberg, an educational psychologist, has traced what he believes to be six sequential stages of ethical reasoning through which each person progresses as part of his normal mental development. The child moves from an unquestioning dependence on [...]

What I Learned Last Weekend

Heat stroke (sun stroke) represents the complete breakdown of the heat control process . . . This is a true emergency. . . . The patient will be confused, very belligerent and uncooperative . . . . Spray with water or other suitable fluid and fan vigorously to lower the core temperature through evaporative cooling. [...]

Strange Traffic Pattern

Yesterday I received a couple of complaints that Defending People was loading slowly. I looked at my traffic stats, and saw that, while my overall numbers weren’t high enough to explain the slowdown, I was getting three times as many total page loads as unique visitors; usually it’s less than twice as many page loads [...]

More Truth About Fear

When I pointed yesterday to the fact that Kelly Siegler’s advice to other prosecutors to “make people afraid” it was intended to be a Sunday-afternoon placeholder until I had time to deal with Kelly’s admonishment in more depth.
Judge Caprice Cosper says that there are people whom we punish because we’re mad at them, and people [...]

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