In loving, living memory, John Melançon 1928 – 2007
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Non-unanimous juries: bad for justice, bad for society
Sun, 2008/12/07 - 2:13pm — Benjamin Melançon
The research suggests that even more important than the chance for one, two, or three voters to block a conviction or acquittal is the ability for one, two, or three jurors to force a more complete discussion of more aspects of the case.
That is, it seems that letting the "lone juror" (or jurors) have veto power on the whole proceeding doesn't usually end in an 11-1 vote with a unanimous requirement, but instead often leads other jurors to question their earlier conclusions.
http://w3.uchastings.edu/plri/spr96tex/juryuna.html
(This grew out of a discussion with K about how drug laws, especially conspiracy, can be used to take down anyone, including the rare people like us who have not ever used illegal drugs... well, OK, I had alcohol before I was 21, but K didn't!)
One of the other points we discussed was the obvious pressure to point to someone else, regardless of truth, to get one's own sentence reduced. Some of my rants on the general topic...
'and all of the drug laws basically built on the premise of prosecuting people not based on the harm they do to others, but arbitrary rules
which is why I'd love to see a major jury nullification campaign (easier in the states that still require a unanimous jury)
the pact is people against drug prohibition agree to serve on juries without trying to get out of service and refuse to vote guilty, and people accused of drug crimes go to a jury trial instead of plea bargaining
thus endeth the system with active participation from 40% of the population (it needs to be high because they can reject so many jurors, that's another huge problem with the system)
but I do think you can reach a pretty reliable juror nullification threshold before we can get the laws themselves changed
and like you say, even we who are in the extreme minority for never having done drugs, could very easily be convicted on current drug laws
and the complete arbitrariness and unfairness of the system is, as usual, highlighted in the racial and economic bias at every step from "enforcement" to punishment'
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We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.