pookie
That drama’s over. The lemmy.world admins posted an apology for their overuse of the banhammer and for asking mods to remove any mention of jury nullification. It’s allowed now.
Their excuse for the censorship was the jurisdiction they reside in something or another, legalities, etc. As far as I know discussing jury nullification in the NY, USA jurisdiction is legal. They eventually realized this and stopped the blocade of information.
This is just a summary of my ignorant interpretation of their attempted censorship, and the eventual backpedaling. I’m probably not remembering the drama well.
That made me think of the !vore@lemmy.ml community.
Jury nullification is when the jury in a criminal trial gives a verdict of not guilty even though they think a defendant has broken the law. The jury’s reasons may include the belief that the law itself is unjust, that the prosecutor has misapplied the law in the defendant’s case, that the punishment for breaking the law is too harsh, or general frustrations with the criminal justice system. Some juries have also refused to convict due to their own prejudices in favor of the defendant. Such verdicts are possible because a jury has an absolute right to return any verdict it chooses. Nullification is not an official part of criminal procedure, but is the logical consequence of two rules governing the systems in which it exists:
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Jurors cannot be punished for passing an incorrect verdict.
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In many jurisdictions, a defendant who is acquitted cannot be tried a second time for the same offense.
