“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”
Jason Kuznicki on Mar 7th 2008
I don’t watch The Wire. I only vaguely know of its existence. But this message from the show’s writers really made me stand up and cheer:
If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun’s manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.
Jury nullification is American dissent, as old and as heralded as the 1735 trial of John Peter Zenger, who was acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, and absent a government capable of repairing injustices, it is legitimate protest. If some few episodes of a television entertainment have caused others to reflect on the war zones we have created in our cities and the human beings stranded there, we ask that those people might also consider their conscience.
Read it all. Libertarians, this is the most inspiring thing you’re likely to see today. Thank you, Radley.
Yes, jury nullification is dangerous. Nullifiers can end up in prison for perjury, and it’s not at all clear that this is a better outcome than nonviolent drug users ending up in prison for a victimless so-called crime. Prison would be an especially nasty place for a skinny white gay guy like me. But nullification does register a dissent, and that dissent is badly needed in the drug war.
Filed in The Bistro, The Bureau
We should hear more about jury nullification, especially in light of the war on drugs. Rad Geek had an excellent discussion in his January 29th posting, “Meanwhile, In Minarchistan”, on his blog. It’s worth looking at if you haven’t seen it.
Do yourself a favor and put season 1 of The Wire at the top of your Netflix queue. It’s one of the richest portrayals of American city life in any medium–if it’s not being used in economics and political science classes, it should be.