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 Simplepowa
Socially Awkward
Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 3,141
Loc: Canada 
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 Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" 
#16720593 - 08/18/12 03:05 PM (8 months, 26 days ago) |
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Jacob Sullum shares this incredible story from a defense attorney in Kansas:
"I had a jury trial this morning on level 3 possession with intent MJ, level 4 possession drug paraphernalia and level 10 no drug tax stamp.
During voir dire, my almost all white, middle-class, middle-aged jury went into full rebellion against the prosecutor stating that they wouldn't convict even if the client's guilt was proven beyond a reasonable doubt -- almost all of them!
They felt marijuana should be legalized, what he does with it is his own business and that the jails are already full of people for this silly charge. Then, when the potential jurors found out that the State wanted him to pay taxes on illegal drugs, they went nuts.
One woman from the back said how stupid this was and why are we even here wasting our time. A "suit" from the front said this was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard.
The prosecutor ended up dismissing the case. Judge gave me a dismissal with prejudice. I'm still laughing my ass off over this one. I have NEVER seen a full on mutiny by an entire jury pool before. Easiest win ever!"
http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy/2012/aug/16/another_jury_revolts_against_mar
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If you can't control drugs in a maximum security prison, then how can you control drugs in a free society?
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If it's true that there was a Big Bang, everything that each of us are was once contained in that needle tip of highly condensed matter. Over time, the Universe grew in ways which enabled it to see and understand itself. We are the universe looking back at itself.
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 SCleROTiUM_LICK
ResearchedFiction Writer
Registered: 11/08/06
Posts: 835
Last seen: 1 minute, 40 seconds
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: Simplepowa]
#16721066 - 08/18/12 04:59 PM (8 months, 26 days ago) |
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Wow! This is awesome! This is how justice SHOULD work.
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 Humility
Working on it
Registered: 10/07/08
Posts: 6,696
Last seen: 27 days, 52 minutes
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: SCleROTiUM_LICK]
#16721259 - 08/18/12 05:41 PM (8 months, 26 days ago) |
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Yeah. Annoys me a bit how the defense refers to it as "his case". It really puts things in to perspective. legal system people by and large don't think about the human being tried. They look at numbers and think of their jobs.
That's amazing that it came from the entire jury though. You're usually hard-pressed to get even one that will do that.
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lowbrow
Stranger
Registered: 09/12/08
Posts: 166
Last seen: 5 hours, 59 minutes
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: Humility]
#16721777 - 08/18/12 07:18 PM (8 months, 26 days ago) |
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Where at in Kansas?
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Absent Minded
Registered: 04/13/12
Posts: 2,852
Loc: New Jersey
Last seen: 1 day, 16 hours
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: lowbrow]
#16722257 - 08/18/12 09:00 PM (8 months, 26 days ago) |
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ha, that's kick ass
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sheekle: fuck peace love and unity
sheekle: death despair and misery
sheekle: is where it's
"Foremost among them was the suspicion that my strange and ungovernable instincts might do me in before I had a chance to get rich. No matter how much I wanted all those things that I needed money to buy, there was some devilish current pushing me off in another direction – toward anarchy and poverty and craziness. That maddening delusion that a man can lead a decent life without hiring himself out as a Judas Goat." - The good Doctor
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Dystopia
unit - [s2dope] - v1.0.13
Registered: 03/24/00
Posts: 15,251
Loc: Danger Zone
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: Simplepowa]
#16722275 - 08/18/12 09:03 PM (8 months, 26 days ago) |
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"I was there when the movement began, I saw it happen, and I love my fellow man for everything he did."
Has a nice ring to it, I'll come back to it in 10ish years or so.
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Celestial Traveler
Random Observer
Registered: 03/04/11
Posts: 6,540
Loc: Idaho
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: Simplepowa]
#16722640 - 08/18/12 10:21 PM (8 months, 26 days ago) |
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Honestly this is something that should be on mainstream news, like CNN possibly.
This would probably occur more often if more people knew it could happen and was legally sound.
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RoastedPete
Noun
Registered: 12/16/10
Posts: 868
Loc: The Candy Kingdom
Last seen: 2 days, 16 hours
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: Celestial Traveler]
#16722930 - 08/18/12 11:10 PM (8 months, 26 days ago) |
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This is a prime example of why you never take a plea bargain. The accused here did what any good citizen should do under similar circumstances -- he exercised his right to have a trial by jury of his peers. This saved his ass, taking a plea would have landed him time guaranteed.
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Celestial Traveler
Random Observer
Registered: 03/04/11
Posts: 6,540
Loc: Idaho
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: RoastedPete]
#16722999 - 08/18/12 11:25 PM (8 months, 25 days ago) |
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Quote:
RoastedPete said:
This is a prime example of why you never take a plea bargain. The accused here did what any good citizen should do under similar circumstances -- he exercised his right to have a trial by jury of his peers. This saved his ass, taking a plea would have landed him time guaranteed.
Well that's a little broad. There are times where it's obviously probably a good idea to take a plea. If you're selling heroin, for instance. No way a jury's going to acquit you of that.
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Humility
Working on it
Registered: 10/07/08
Posts: 6,696
Last seen: 27 days, 52 minutes
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: Celestial Traveler]
#16723050 - 08/18/12 11:37 PM (8 months, 25 days ago) |
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Taking the plea bargain is usually a very bad idea, most especially the first "bargain" you're offered.
The concept of "plea bargaining" is so corrupt to begin with. Free, innocent people shouldn't suffer consequences for crimes they haven't committed and guilty people that have hurt others should never have their time alleviated to make a persecutor's job easier.
It's corruption through and through. They've clogged the system with so many victims of non-violent arrests that they try their best to get them on that revolving door of probation - incarceration - probation.
Taking the plea bargain is immoral and unethical but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Some states don't permit you to plea no contest and actually require you to plea guilty to receive a plea bargain.
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Annapurna1
liberal pussy
Registered: 05/21/02
Posts: 5,577
Loc: innsmouth..MA
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: Celestial Traveler]
#16723111 - 08/18/12 11:50 PM (8 months, 25 days ago) |
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i hate to be the wet blanket..but dont get giddy just yet...the govt still has the option of *military detention* of drug offenders as funding terrorism...
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"anchor blocks counteract the process of pontiprobation..while omalean globes regulize the pressure"...
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Celestial Traveler
Random Observer
Registered: 03/04/11
Posts: 6,540
Loc: Idaho
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: Humility]
#16723290 - 08/19/12 12:16 AM (8 months, 25 days ago) |
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Quote:
Humility said:
Taking the plea bargain is usually a very bad idea, most especially the first "bargain" you're offered.
The concept of "plea bargaining" is so corrupt to begin with. Free, innocent people shouldn't suffer consequences for crimes they haven't committed and guilty people that have hurt others should never have their time alleviated to make a persecutor's job easier.
It's corruption through and through. They've clogged the system with so many victims of non-violent arrests that they try their best to get them on that revolving door of probation - incarceration - probation.
Taking the plea bargain is immoral and unethical but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Some states don't permit you to plea no contest and actually require you to plea guilty to receive a plea bargain.
You make a good point, the plea bargaining system really sucks. But it is one of those things that is implemented with understandable intentions - the idea that people who confess to their crimes are of higher virtue and thus deserve less punishment who lie and do not confess to their crimes.
Of course, an issue comes when the defendant is innocent but is convicted as guilty, and receives EVEN MORE undeserved time for simply fighting false accusations. Or when they except a plea bargain and have to lie about their guilt just so the legal dick will only be shoved halfway up their ass.
All of this illustrates that human-implemented "justice" is never perfect and thus not justice to begin with.
But I might not be fully educated about legal trials because I was under the impression that pleading "no contest" was the same as pleading guilty.
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LongStrangeTrip
Deadhead
Registered: 09/19/09
Posts: 4,482
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: Annapurna1]
#16726115 - 08/19/12 01:35 PM (8 months, 25 days ago) |
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Quote:
Annapurna1 said:
i hate to be the wet blanket..but dont get giddy just yet...the govt still has the option of *military detention* of drug offenders as funding terrorism...
...?!?! 
Did you see that happen here, is it likely to happen, is there a reason you come in with this scenario at all, or are you just trying to.... idk I can't figure it out.
According to the story this guy is sitting at home comfortably having beaten his case, as far as I can tell...what's with the immediate jump to fear mongering? what are you smoking?! And can I have some plz 
 
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Nothing I say or do is factual; every single thing I write is a work of fiction. Got no idea what I'm talking about here~
"Once in awhile, you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right"~ (Grateful Dead)
"o puer, qui omnia nomini debes"; "You, boy, who owe's everything to a name"~ Mark Anthony
"Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum."; "Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system."~ Cicero
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SWEDEN
Miracle of Science
Registered: 10/25/04
Posts: 2,502
Loc: PNW
Last seen: 8 hours, 24 minutes
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: Simplepowa]
#16726449 - 08/19/12 02:30 PM (8 months, 25 days ago) |
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This truly is an incredible story, but what should've been highlighted is that juries have always had this power. If every jury from now on refuses to convict cannabis users we would not only end that facet of prohibition but send a powerful message to the swollen, infected bureaucracy that their mountains of frivolous laws are meaningless if the people decide they are.
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Novartis
Dimitri
Registered: 08/27/11
Posts: 169
Loc: everywhere
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: SWEDEN]
#16727023 - 08/19/12 04:26 PM (8 months, 25 days ago) |
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Lovin' it, i bet Lazlo would be ecstatic
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Be courageous in a society that sees no value in desire.
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chrissake
Student of Life
Registered: 11/18/10
Posts: 311
Loc: Northern Woods
Last seen: 5 days, 19 hours
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: Novartis]
#16729483 - 08/20/12 03:54 AM (8 months, 24 days ago) |
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This is what I like to see. I have a...."friend" who has a trial coming up on some mushroom and pot charges. It would be sweet if he got this kind of reaction from the jurors. Especially since said "friend" is a student, and productive member of society who uses the substances for personal medicinal and spiritual reasons, and being falsely accused of "intent to distribute" on the shrooms. Too bad his lawyer is a coward and a putz.
To anyone with experience in a trial setting, does a defendant have an opportunity to address the jurors? If yes, what should he say?
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LongStrangeTrip
Deadhead
Registered: 09/19/09
Posts: 4,482
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: chrissake]
#16730285 - 08/20/12 10:32 AM (8 months, 24 days ago) |
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He is normal kind of fucked with that mushroom charge, you know psychedelics are veeery scary and dangerous to people!
Don't worry, this is a freak occurrence, I am sure that your friend is fucked, as per usual, in that scenario.
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Nothing I say or do is factual; every single thing I write is a work of fiction. Got no idea what I'm talking about here~
"Once in awhile, you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right"~ (Grateful Dead)
"o puer, qui omnia nomini debes"; "You, boy, who owe's everything to a name"~ Mark Anthony
"Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum."; "Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system."~ Cicero
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fapjack
I had sex with your dad
Registered: 07/26/07
Posts: 10,450
Loc: Central New Jersey
Last seen: 2 days, 10 hours
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: Humility]
#16730329 - 08/20/12 10:46 AM (8 months, 24 days ago) |
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Quote:
Humility said:
Taking the plea bargain is usually a very bad idea, most especially the first "bargain" you're offered.
The concept of "plea bargaining" is so corrupt to begin with. Free, innocent people shouldn't suffer consequences for crimes they haven't committed and guilty people that have hurt others should never have their time alleviated to make a persecutor's job easier.
It's corruption through and through. They've clogged the system with so many victims of non-violent arrests that they try their best to get them on that revolving door of probation - incarceration - probation.
Taking the plea bargain is immoral and unethical but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Some states don't permit you to plea no contest and actually require you to plea guilty to receive a plea bargain.
If you get caught in a drug free school zone in my state with intent to distribute any amount of drugs you can get 10 years in prison right off the bat. If you don't take the plea bargain a lot of Judges will smoke you, so you can either get 3 years probation for first offense, with most likely 3 years with a 9 month stipulation being the most time you are going to get if you do have a record or you can gamble and possibly get 10 years in prison for a case you are probably going to lose anyway. Most people don't know about jury nullification and courts almost never allow your lawyer to talk about it and can call a mistrial. The system is fucked, but prison sucks and I would rather not gamble with my freedom personally.
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SWEDEN
Miracle of Science
Registered: 10/25/04
Posts: 2,502
Loc: PNW
Last seen: 8 hours, 24 minutes
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: fapjack]
#16731299 - 08/20/12 02:02 PM (8 months, 24 days ago) |
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Afoaf took down all the drug free zone signs in his neighborhood. Ugly eyesores, and they have never been replaced. He was disgusted with the hypocritical message they were sending, declaring schools to be drug free while kids are being forced to take behavior-modifying drugs and teachers swill their caffeine with sugar.
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Alan Rockefeller
Mycologist
Registered: 03/10/07
Posts: 31,172
Last seen: 3 seconds
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Re: Jury In Court Case Revolt Against Marijuana Laws, "Marijuana should be legalized" [Re: RoastedPete]
#16732047 - 08/20/12 04:30 PM (8 months, 24 days ago) |
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Quote:
Annapurna1 said:
i hate to be the wet blanket..but dont get giddy just yet...the govt still has the option of *military detention* of drug offenders as funding terrorism...
Source?
Quote:
RoastedPete said:
This is a prime example of why you never take a plea bargain.
You should take a plea bargain if you think you will be convicted of the charges.
89% of jury trials result in conviction.
64% of bench trials result in conviction.
According to http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/judge_v_judge/
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