Thanks to Liz for sending me this excellent article from the writers of “The Wire” about the War On (Some Classes Of People Who Use) Drugs. I’m going to write a piece on the show’s themes for Monday morning, after the last episode airs. In the meantime, I want to fall over myself gushing the writers with praise for being brave enough to talk about what citizens who know the War On Drugs is bullshit can do to resist it. No, not use drugs. But avail yourself of a right that few people are aware they have.
But this is what we can do — and what we will do.
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. And when the lawyers or the judge or your fellow jurors seek explanation, think for a moment on Bubbles or Bodie or Wallace. And remember that the lives being held in the balance aren’t fictional.
I don’t think I’ve had an opportunity to talk about jury nullification on the blog before, but I’ve certainly brought it up to friends in the past when talking about the miserable failure that is the War On Drugs. I’ve always sworn to myself that if I ever sit on a jury where the defendant is sitting on trial for a non-violent drug offense, to vote to acquit and try to convince others to come with. I’ve never been called for jury duty, which surprises me, since I keep my voter registration religiously up to date, so I’ve never had a chance to do this. But should it happen, I will vote to acquit, and so should you. Yes, even if the drug is heroin or cocaine and not just pot. The War On Some Classes Of People Who Use Drugs isn’t more legitimate when the people being attacked have hard drugs, and especially not if they are junkies and they’re people in need of help, not jail. A civilized society doesn’t indict people for victimless crimes (recreational users) and doesn’t punish people for being mentally ill (addicts). I’m not downplaying the fact that drug addiction ruins communities and families. But drug addiction is a disease, not a crime.
But I will also vote to acquit a dealer, too. One reason I think everyone in the country should watch “The Wire” is because it humanizes drug dealers. It doesn’t do it in a way that minimizes their violent crimes, but it shows how they are true products of a system. The system we have now has very little to do with ending drug dealing in our society. It’s an extremely efficient system for delivering further ruin to already poverty-stricken communities, especially those that are populated mostly by people of color. It’s very good at alienating people from American society. But what it’s not is a good system for stopping drug dealing, even and especially not the kind that is most damaging to neighborhoods, the slinging-on-the-corner stuff that makes already poor neighborhoods downright dangerous. In fact, it’s so good at the former task and so bad at the stated task that reasonable people have to assume that it’s primary purpose is to wreck havoc on poor communities. As I’ve said before, it is no coincidence that the War On Drugs heated up after the civil rights movement achieved a set of huge victories that gave this country a moment of hope for something like racial equality. Now we have a country where 1 in 15 black people are currently in jail.
If we decriminalized drugs and set everyone that’s in jail on non-violent drug offenses right now (and redirected the money used to house them in prison towards rehabilitation programs), we would immediately start to see a massive improvement in terms of our prison-industrial complex diminishing. Over time, we would continue to see the number of incarcerations slide downhill, because a great deal of violent crime in this country is directly related to the drug trade. Freeing up money being spent to incarcerate people with an eye towards destroying poorer communities would be the immediate benefit, but of course, to really tackle the problem would take a lot more.
The other thing I’ve really appreciated about “The Wire” in the past couple of seasons is that they’ve shown, with their usual economic but blunt storytelling, how the drug trade isn’t simply a product of drugs being illegal, though that has a lot to do with it, and especially with the amount of violence it breeds. Another root cause is poverty and lack of opportunity. The show has really educated me about how deep the claws of the drug trade really are in some places, where jobs might be hard to come by, and drug dealing becomes a form of honest-ish work by default. I’m almost embarrassed to say that, but it just goes to show how much so many Americans are undereducated about the lives of other Americans. My great sorrow this election season is that the one candidate who was really talking about poverty, about the major cancer on our once-great nation, was knocked out of the race. At least John Edwards stayed in long enough to keep the conversation going, just a little bit.
My grandfather would probably disagree with me about poverty, considering that I’m pretty much a socialist, and he’s hard on the right, to the degree that he’s annoyed that McCain got the nomination because he thinks McCain is some kind of moderate. (I’m not sure where he’s a moderate, but okay.) I bring this up, though, because one thing that’s always stuck with me and probably gave me a lot of courage to be outspoken against the War On Drugs my whole adult life was this: My grandpa was in military law enforcement and was retiring from that just when the War On Drugs was really heating up. But living in El Paso, and working in a form of law enforcement that deals heavily with international issues, and of course, because Spanish was his first language, he had a chance to be better-informed about how pointless, useless, and destructive the War On Drugs would be. And I remember having dinner with him and grandma when I was a freshman in high school, and he held forth on how stupid it all was, and how drugs should be legal (marijuana at least), and I was shocked that my very conservative grandfather felt this way. But there’s something about seeing stupid up close that makes it harder to swallow, I suppose. But the lesson I learned was that a great deal more people than you’d think are willing to call out the War On Drugs for the stupidity that it is. Which is why I continue to have trouble understanding why it’s the elephant in the room, the issue that neither Republicans nor Democrats will dare mention outside of mindless affirmations of it.
86 Responses to “The brainless, pointless War On Drugs”
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I’ve been on three juries, including one drug case. In the drug case we found not guilty on the merits, essentially because the cop was absolutely unconvincing. However, I only got onto the jury because the prosecution neglected to ask me how I feel about drug laws. That trial was in MD - the other two were in Portland, OR, and I was called for a drug case but dismissed for cause because I answered honestly that I oppose drug laws (at least as they exist currently). I wouldn’t lie in order to get on a jury in order to throw a trial, and I suspect that there might be legal consequences for anyone who did. Given the makeup of the Supreme Court, I’d be surprised if they upheld jury nullification, originalism be damned.
Only one thought - and the rest of the legal eagles will no doubt refine this point - there’s no way in Hell that Amanda will ever serve on a jury in the state of Texas.
One, missy, you’re too goddamn smart. Lawyers hate smart people on juries. They ask too many questions and go where they don’t want you to go.
Two, voir dire in preparation for seating a jury will no doubt uncover your thoughts on this matter, and you’ll be stricken faster than a 3 day old cantaloupe in the heat.
Three, even if you’re not asked, you’ve made your thoughts public and quite available to any researcher checking up on jurors.
Interesting idea, but I know from both sides of the box that in any trial with a halfway competent attorney, much less 2 of them, someone will discuss drug sentencing laws with prospective jurors, and tossing the troublemakers.
Now here’s an interesting question, and one that came up for me the last time I was called in for jury duty.
If this is your feeling (and I share those opinions) would you lie when asked if you thought you could judge the trial fairly? When the jury pool was being briefed, the judge made it clear enough that if you thought this way, you should state that you had a problem with being asked to sit in judgement if your name was chosen.
Being against drug laws appears to be a more and more common position, and in this case the judge seemed to accept it - but does that warrant concealing such dissent in order to get onto a jury?
The only time I have been called for jury duty, I had made the same committment in my mind. As it turned out, the case involved an argument between two men outside a bar in Olathe that ended when the defendant allegedly whupped the other guy upside the head with a tahr ahrn. Despite my dressing for the occasion (dark blue pinstripe suit and my Residents earring [eyeball with top hat] and an earring fashioned from an ex-molar of mine [hey, Justice, right? Eye, tooth?]), I was not chosen to serve.
I don’t know anything about the statistics on this sort of thing and I was wondering something, so I’ll just ask in the hopes that someone else knows: Any idea how often people are tried for drug use or possession without there being other corresponding violence or property crimes as part of the charges against the accused?
I’ll accept your points and suggestions as you’ve stated them. I’m bothered about the nullification position because of the selective nature of picking which laws you like or dis-like.
I hate drug use. Period. But people are going to do this. Fine. Legalize it. But I would really penalize any activity which results in harm to people or property while under the influence. Including alcohol. Go ahead and get happy, but if you screw up, you must accept the consequences. Provide funding for re-hab.
Fine. Treat it as a disease. Fine. Responsible use, fine. Irresponsible use, fuck em!
I’ll accept your points and suggestions as you’ve stated them. I’m bothered about the nullification position because of the selective nature of picking which laws you like or dis-like.
I hate drug use. Period. But people are going to do this. Fine. Legalize it. But I would really penalize any activity which results in harm to people or property while under the influence. Including alcohol. Go ahead and get happy, but if you screw up, you must accept the consequences. Provide funding for re-hab.
Fine. Treat it as a disease. Fine. Responsible use, fine. Irresponsible use, fuck em!
Piator, I wouldn’t lie. I think that’s criminal, and wouldn’t want to go there. It’s unfortunate that the system is set up to get anyone smart enough to see through the War On Drugs off the jury.
As I understand it, that’s why the principle of jury nullification was established in the first place, early in the history of our country’s legal system (I think John Jay, the first Supreme Court Chief Justice, ruled on it). The whole idea is that a jury can object to a particular conviction, application of a law, or even a law, if they find it unjust. They can refuse to convict — not the other way around, they can only acquit.
I had a hard time lying about this when I was questioned in voir dire. The attorneys ended up questioning me privately along with the judge, and when I admitted that I didn’t think juries should rule solely on the evidence and not on the justness of the law or the judge’s interpretation, they then asked me about jury nullification and basically caught me. I was instructed to not say a single word about those ideas to anyone in the courthouse, and was dismissed. They really don’t want this idea “polluting” the courts. Also, if you do swear to rule only on the evidence — which is basically what they will make you swear if you’re in a criminal trial, I think — then they can throw the book at you if you try to nullify. Hold you in contempt of court for breaking your oath, or something like that.
If this is your feeling (and I share those opinions) would you lie when asked if you thought you could judge the trial fairly?
I might.
Nobody in Texas had ever called me to sit in judgment, either, but I might consider lying. After all, it’s technically _possible_ that I could somehow be swayed into believing someone’s guilty for a drug crime. It might require that I receive a frontal lobotomy during the trial, but that’s not impossible. Technically.
So, uh, I’m not into nullification at all.
That’s the ticket.
Amanda, one thing I’ll add to your praise for The Wire’s depiction of the drug economy is that even reeling in the “big fish” is useless in the long run. The demand is so great, and other opportunities, as you say, so remote, that someone will always fill the need.
I remember watching a PBS documentary on rum runners and bootleggers in Detroit during the Roaring ’20s. The authorities did a lot of the same things around alcohol that are now done around drugs - with very similar results. School zones and such. Very telling.
In the end, when Prohibition ended their business model, the mobsters packed up their cash … and moved to Las Vegas.
Any idea how often people are tried for drug use or possession without there being other corresponding violence or property crimes as part of the charges against the accused?
I could be wrong, but I think it’s usually when there’s a previous underlying crime, and the continued drug use is a probation violation even if you don’t do anything else wrong.
So, for example, Robert Downey Jr. got three years of probation because of a drunk-driving conviction, but all of his subsequent jail time were for drug use even though he didn’t do anything else dangerous because it was a violation of his probation.
Any idea how often people are tried for drug use or possession without there being other corresponding violence or property crimes as part of the charges against the accused?
Probably depends on their class and skin color. But I will point out that the question doesn’t encompass dealers who haven’t committed other crimes. I would vote to acquit anyone who sold, not just someone who bought.
This came up at a faculty function a couple of weeks ago. One of my colleagues had been summoned to jury duty, and the minute they found out that she was a professor, they tossed her. She told the story very amusingly, so others started sharing theirs, and pretty soon we’d managed to get through over 150 college professors and *not one* of them had ever been anything but immediately bounced from the jury pool, sometimes several times over the course of the years. I even have some colleagues who are “out” as Republicans, which is very unusual in academia, and none of them got picked, either.
Drug use is a victimless crime, and should be wiped off the books like all such crimes (prostitution, sodomy, etc.) Drug addiction is a disease and should be treated as such. Drug dealing is just entrepreneurial small business, and as long as there’s no violence involved, should be treated as such. Driving while intoxicated is a serious public hazard and should be treated as misdemeanor crime. I think you can probably tell why I’ve been bounced from the jury pool three times now.
Any idea how often people are tried for drug use or possession without there being other corresponding violence or property crimes as part of the charges against the accused?
The way the drug laws are written, possession can get you hard time if they can spin it as “with intent to distribute,” not to mention the wacky penalties for being within some absurdly large distance of a school. The last time I took a serious look at the laws, intent to distribute in some jurisdictions required only that you possess multiple separate packages of drugs. That means having five dime bags gets you hard time, but the same amount of pot in a single baggie gets probation and counseling. There are also stupid criteria for manufacturing, so if you decide to turn that schwag into bubble hash or hash oil you can get hard time even if it’s a matter of turning a half ounce of ditchweed into a couple of drops of hash oil.
A couple of points…
I saw one person mentioning the SCOTUS not upholding jury nullification. You need to understand, jury nullification isn’t an explicit right that can be ruled upon. It’s a consequence of the prohibition on double jeopardy, and the secrecy of jury deliberations.
A judge can’t order you to vote for a conviction (I believe this was tried once in England, and the jury voted for acquittal) and can’t demand to know why you voted a certain way.
However, please note that if you lie during voir dire, well, you *are* under oath during the process. You’d want to hold to a very careful set of statements.
Note that jury nullification is not so widespread that it’s guarded against. A prosecutor is unlikely to ask “are you willing to convict if the facts support a conviction under the laws as they stand?” You’re more likely to be asked if you can decide the case “fairly”. You could honestly say that you don’t think a conviction on simple possession is fair.
One other thing: intelligence is *not* a bar to serving on a jury. It’s true, there are times when an attorney might strike a juror who seems hard to handle, but most of the time, they just aren’t worrying that deeply. They want to pull out anyone who has direct knowledge of the case, or who don’t feel they can judge fairly. And sure, if you give some smarty-pants answer, they might strike you because they might imagine you’re the kind of person who’ll try to show off during deliberations.
But their questions are frequently nothing more than “do you know about this case? have you ever been a victim of this particular crime? Do you know any of the people involved? Do you have (e.g.) any reason to trust or distrust a police officer’s testimony?”
I suppose you’re aware that jury nullification was essentially the way the abortion laws were undermined and destroyed in Canada. Juries just wouldn’t bring in a guilty verdict, and eventually the government got the message.
And the sky didn’t fall. Just like TEH GAY MARRIAGE, as a matter of fact.
Yeah, I’m for legalization but I’m not holding my breath it’s happening anytime soon nor do I think jury nullification will have any positive effect towards that end.
In the mean time when some of you nullifiers let off street dealers, I hope they can they go sell their product in front of your house. I sure don’t want them in front of mine.
Let us know when arresting a drug dealer or three makes the drug sales stop in your neighborhood.
I’d certainly like to know more about this. Some sources, like FIJA, claim that these judicial threats are unenforceable. I’d like to know a bit more before I put my ass on the line, because…
… I sure as hell would lie, even if it puts me at risk of prosecution. If, by lying, I can save someone else’s ass from the machinery of injustice, then I’ll prevaricate with a smile.
I get the impression that nullification is unlikely under the current legal paradigm. But acquittal is always within reach.
So, for anyone who might advise, a question: what does one have to say to avoid being dismissed during jury selection? I’d imagine the wise choice would be to act both conventional and manipulable, with lots of “well, I believe in the law” generally, and “I guess that sounds reasonable” when pressed specificially from either side. Hmm?
I despair of a system where, such as was the case when I left the US, the prison guard lobby was the largest political contributer in the state of California. The politicians aren’t looking for ways to lower the inmate population and the drug laws serve their purposes (obviously).
Keeping the minority population relatively powerless, keeping the prison guard union growing, keeping the prison construction industry booming, keeping the drug profits in the accounts of the pharmaceutical companies… these are the priorities. Jury nullification is a nice fantasy for striking back, but impractical in a reality where we’re rarely called for juries and weeded out if we’re more enlightened than a rock.
The system is broken. Irreparably. I was horrified by Angela Davis when I was a child but more understanding (if still non-violent) today.
And also why no one could get convicted of killing a black man in the south for quite some time. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that jury nullification doesn’t bring injustice. If we say that a jury is able to ignore the law and the instructions of the judge when they feel that some higher principle is served, we open up the door to people whose have principles we find abhorrent.
Perhaps the key to reforming jury trials is to take two steps in lockstep:
(1) remove the requirement for unanimity and replace it with an 11-1 majority*;
(2) be open about and permit jury nullification, but make it societally and judicially clear that it’s the “nuclear option” of the jury trial.
These steps have to be taken together, lest nullification become the vehicle for jurors who revel in being the One Dissenting Voice! quite independent of the evidence. It ensures that there is at least some consensus on whether the law is deemed unjust by more than one person.
* - Why? Because it is the frequent case that one out of the twelve jurors will be dumber, meaner or more obsessively stubborn than the other eleven. The one that remains in my mind is the elderly nincompoop on the Chambers trial in NYC. The evidence was damning and the other eleven jurors were raring to convict his slimy, lying rapist murderer ass, but one woman kept insisting that he was innocent because he seemed like such a nice boy. IIRC she deadlocked the jury, necessitating a plea bargain.
Excellent! Amanda Marcotte for president!
The only way to put the cartels out of business — and they are very bad eggs, make no mistake; thugs and murderers — is to legalize. That means coke and heroin, too, which may be a little problematic to say the least, but there you have the simple fact of the matter.
Exhibit B: Listen to “Another One Bites the Dust” backwards (only an LP on a turntable will work, of course). Freddy Mercury clearly states, “It’s fun to smoke marijuana.” I, for one, take him at his word.
I suppose you’re aware that jury nullification was essentially the way the abortion laws were undermined and destroyed in Canada. Juries just wouldn’t bring in a guilty verdict, and eventually the government got the message.
Believe it or not, that was largely the case in the U.S., with one major exception: Black abortion providers were often convicted. However, law enforcement in this country is all too often unwilling to take a hint, so the lack of convictions meant the police just upped the ante in raids and arrests, turning that into the punishment itself. Basically, we have the counterproblem of police acting like judge and jury, too, with the amount of abuse and violence and humiliation they offer up front.
In the mean time when some of you nullifiers let off street dealers, I hope they can they go sell their product in front of your house. I sure don’t want them in front of mine.
I don’t think that being an eyesore or a minor public nuisance—and most of the time for most of us, that’s what they are, and yes, I’ve lived in neighborhoods that have petty street crime going on—should result in prison time, which just usually turns criminals harder and meaner, since they’re so traumatized inside. Remember, you’re suggesting that someone should be raped up the ass for being an eyesore. That people are willing to go there shows how much racism and TV scare tactics are used to dehumanize drug dealers. We don’t look upon them as human beings, or else we wouldn’t pass punishments that far outstrip the crimes.
Street level dealers are employees of the real bad guys, most of the time. Like Godmonkey says, the real bad guys flourish in an environment where drugs are illegal.
Amanda is spot-on when she notes that much of the Drug War is in fact a backlash to civil rights, but it isn’t the only tool.
One should also remember that a real wave of felony disenfranchisement laws gained steam at around this time. As the law in the USA currently stands::
* only two US states have no laws on voting by felons;
* only inmates convicted of a felony are barred from voting (with their right to vote restored upon release from prison) in 13 states;
* felons (in prison and on parole) are barred from voting but can vote upon completion of parole in 5 states;
* inmates, parolees, and probationers are barred (and so can vote only upon completion of all supervised release) in 20 states;
* inmates, parolees, probationers, and ex-felons are completely barred from voting (restoration of voting varies by state) in 10 states.
Given that Blacks are grossly disproportionately represented in the American prison population it should come as no surprise that every single state of the former Confederacy is found in the two categories with the toughest restrictions, as are three states which were Confederate Territories in whole or in part, as are three states that remained in the Union but had majority-Reb populations, and “bleeding Kansas”, which is currently aggressively pro-GOP. (Further, many of the felony disenfranchisement laws in the Old South started during Reconstruction as the former Confederate states cast about for ways to prevent their’n newly free and unacceptably uppity niggers from votin’.)
Don’t forget that these lists don’t have to be accurate to stop a person from voting. By way of example: many, many people in Florida (mostly Black) in the notorious 2000 presidential election found themselves unable to vote because of being erroneously listed as having felony convictions, and could not get their right to vote restored in time or at all. (It was, I’m sure that we all agree, just a coincidence that the list was provided by a Texas GOP firm to a state with a GOP governor, a GOP legislature and a GOP Secretary of State - Katherine Harris - who was disgustingly overt about her efforts to stop people from voting Democrat. And most Blacks vote Democrat. Just a coincidence.)
Do tell.felagund: Same here. I got bumped just a few weeks ago, and all they knew about me was my job. My parents, also profs, have had the same experience.
BTW, I don’t know about Austin, but here in Nashville, jury duty is not tied to voter registration, but to driver’s licenses. There are some inherent problems with that, but it does take away one excuse people use for not registering.
Another great point that the article makes is about the effect on law enforcement:
I see this happening in my city of Boston right now. Violent crime has been escalating over the last few years especially in the worst neighborhoods and almost none of the murders have been solved. Our local alt-weekly did a great story about this a few years ago.
The rationale for the Drug War is what now? That removing drug dealers would make the streets safer? And yet actual violent crimes are on the rise in cities like Boston (where the population is actually shrinking!) and the police force is too incompetent to do a damn thing about it. It’s just easier to arrest a drug addict than to investigate a homicide - and it’s just a coincidence that the drug arrests are for crack addicts in Dorchester and not cokeheads on Beacon Hill or pot dealers in the suburbs. Yeah.
Another great point that the article makes is about the effect on law enforcement:
I see this happening in my city of Boston right now. Violent crime has been escalating over the last few years especially in the worst neighborhoods and almost none of the murders have been solved. Our local alt-weekly did a great story about this a few years ago.
The rationale for the Drug War is what now? That removing drug dealers would make the streets safer? And yet actual violent crimes are on the rise in cities like Boston (where the population is actually shrinking!) and the police force is too incompetent to do a damn thing about it. It’s just easier to arrest a drug addict than to investigate a homicide - and it’s just a coincidence that the drug arrests are for crack addicts in Dorchester and not cokeheads on Beacon Hill or pot dealers in the suburbs. Yeah.
Another great point that the article makes is about the effect on law enforcement:
I see this happening in my city of Boston right now. Violent crime has been escalating over the last few years especially in the worst neighborhoods and almost none of the murders have been solved. Our local alt-weekly did a great story about this a few years ago.
The rationale for the Drug War is what now? That removing drug dealers would make the streets safer? And yet actual violent crimes are on the rise in cities like Boston (where the population is actually shrinking!) and the police force is too incompetent to do a damn thing about it. It’s just easier to arrest a drug addict than to investigate a homicide - and it’s just a coincidence that the drug arrests are for crack addicts in Dorchester and not cokeheads on Beacon Hill or pot dealers in the suburbs. Yeah.
(oh man, I hope I didn’t just post this three times.)
Speaking as a lawyer who just empaneled a jury two days ago: you’re wrong. I’m trying to be polite here and not use phrases like “you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about”, but there it is.
Stupid people on a jury will be swayed by the other side’s lies. Stupid people on a jury will decide they don’t need to follow the law because they know what the Bible/their cousin Bob/Ayn Rand has to say on the subject, and that’s the end of the discussion. Stupid people will decide a case based on what kind of shirt your client wears. Stupid people will concoct bizarre and jaw-droppingly insane rationalizations to ignore evidence they don’t want to hear.
So no, lawyers don’t want stupid people on a jury. If you had a friend who was bounced because they were a professor, or a doctor, or a teacher, unless that lawyer is bone-dense incompetent, there was some other reason the lawyer thought they would not make a good juror.
Amanda, I’m sure you know that in the US, the greatest use of jury nullification was to excuse white men who committed crimes against black people. And let’s not forget the use of jury nullification to excuse rape; it’s the reason we have rape-shield laws.
On lying, please remember that you will probably be asked to give your answers to the lawyers’ and judge’s questions under penalty of perjury.
“And I remember having dinner with him and grandma when I was a freshman in high school, and he held forth on how stupid it all was, and how drugs should be legal (marijuana at least), and I was shocked that my very conservative grandfather felt this way.”
There are a few who can see things for what they really are. Just not very many…
The thing that always confuses me is that virtually no one argues that ending Prohibition was not a good thing. The crime that grew as a direct consequence was very damaging. Prosecution of something most people didn’t see as a really a “crime”, and the rank hypocrisy that resulted - all point to just why Prohibition was a bad thing and needed to be repealed.
But when it comes to drugs, the knowledge and understanding we got from the mass social experiment of Prohibition goes right out the window.
“Drugs are different!!!”, even though a “drug” like marijuana is generally not considered any worse than alcohol, and has been used by most Americans (at least most of those below the age of 60).
Perhaps an argument can be made that cocaine (in any form), meth, and opiates (in any form) are SO damaging that they must be controlled for society’s sake. However, it seems to me that almost anybody who really want to use either any of these drugs is already doing so. And the crime that results from their illegality outweighs any benefits of controlling their use.
It’s pretty difficult to argue that continuing to control marijuana serves any purpose at all. The whole “gateway drug” argument doesn’t hold water when alcohol is as good or better for that purpose.
But like a lot of things in this country that I don’t understand, we will keep on doing what we’re doing until some external force stops us, whether it makes any sense or not. We’re good at that…
(BTW, lest anyone think I’m only saying these things because I’m a chronic - no pun - user of drugs and wish only to defend my own use, I can say in absolute truth that I have never taken any drug not prescribed by a Dr., and that includes marijuana. I have consumed alcohol…)
I wish to argue a point made by a commenter above. In most cases, prostitution is hardly a victimless crime. However, I would say that the seedier side (whether it’s 30 or 50 or 90 or 98% of it doesn’t matter) involves money needed for drugs that are artifically inflated in price by the very war on drugs. It’s not the drugs that control the women who get enslaved into prostitution, but the money to get the drugs that control the women. This vicious cycle won’t get destroyed by legalization (of drugs or prostitution,) but it certainly can’t make it much worse.
The thing about street-level dealers to keep in mind is that their entire function is to take the bullet, take the prison sentence, take the rap. In short, take the risk. After they fall, there are a dozen eager replacements waiting right behind them. A hundred. Meanwhile, the real bad guys sit in a fortified mansion somewhere in Mexico with the local police shining their shoes and fetching coffee. These people rule by intimidation, by no means of the idle variety. Our government’s drug policy absolutely, incontrovertibly ensures their continued prosperity. Their continued terrorism.
Moral outrage at street dealers is only natural, especially if they’re in front of your house, but it is futile and misguided. Law enforcement and the justice system both have a vested interest in maintaining this delivery model. Cops operate within the criminal rubric, guns drawn, panting in the same adrenaline rush as the common thug. In the court system, professional reputations are made on on a never-ending series of slam-dunks, not least of all since most defendents are poor and black. At higher levels, illegal drugs are the perfect vehicle to make the public fearful enough to consider civil liberties malleable. And the prison-industrial complex is very lucrative indeed — a “growth industry,” you might even say.
Think about it.
The thing about street-level dealers to keep in mind is that their entire function is to take the bullet, take the prison sentence, take the rap. In short, take the risk. After they fall, there are a dozen eager replacements waiting right behind them. A hundred. Meanwhile, the real bad guys sit in a fortified mansion somewhere in Mexico with the local police shining their shoes and fetching coffee. These people rule by intimidation, by no means of the idle variety. Our government’s drug policy absolutely, incontrovertibly ensures their continued prosperity. Their continued terrorism.
Moral outrage at street dealers is only natural, especially if they’re in front of your house, but it is futile and misguided. Law enforcement and the justice system both have a vested interest in maintaining this delivery model. Cops operate within the criminal rubric, guns drawn, panting in the same adrenaline rush as the common thug. In the court system, professional reputations are made on on a never-ending series of slam-dunks, not least of all since most defendents are poor and black. At higher levels, illegal drugs are the perfect vehicle to make the public fearful enough to consider civil liberties malleable. And the prison-industrial complex is very lucrative indeed — a “growth industry,” you might even say.
Think about it.
Amanda, I’m sure you know that in the US, the greatest use of jury nullification was to excuse white men who committed crimes against black people. And let’s not forget the use of jury nullification to excuse rape; it’s the reason we have rape-shield laws.
The thing is, that’s a really broad definition of “jury nullification”. They aren’t protesting, as a general rule, the law itself. Southern whites who let lynchers off weren’t really making a statement about how murder is wrong, and people who let rapists off would rarely state that they think rape is alright.
So I don’t think the two situations are analogous, no. Refusing to convict a drug user or drug dealer is closer to refusing to convict an abortion provider. I can’t, in good conscience, enforce a law that I believe exists mainly to oppress large groups of people and undermine our democracy.
What jury nullification for justice resembles the most is civil disobedience. And yes, the argument racists used against the civil rights movement is that the law should be obeyed at all times, regardless of how unjust it is.
Freedom of speech is used to spread hateful speech about minorities. Doesn’t mean I should refuse the right in the service of good.
“The only way to put the cartels out of business — and they are very bad eggs, make no mistake; thugs and murderers — is to legalize. That means coke and heroin, too, which may be a little problematic to say the least, but there you have the simple fact of the matter.”
This points to my personal bugaboo with the drug war, what we’re doing to the countries south of here (and Afghanistan) in the name of this stupidity. Mexico is currently experiencing a nasty bout of drug warfare in the streets, with the innocent and the guilty dying. These deaths, we need to remember, are a direct result of us both making drugs illegal and being absolute fiends for the stuff.
Even if everything drug warriors said about drugs was true, we still have the moral obligation to take the damage of drug use ourselves rather than pushing it across the border.
Re: jury nullification:
Michigan juries repeatedly nullified the state’s assisted suicide laws until they finally found an Oakland County jury that would convict Jack Kevorkian. (Currently out on parole under odious terms restricting him from speaking his mind) I’m pretty proud of my state for that.
I commented on the same article myself, noting my own struggle with the question of nullification when I was called for jury duty in a drug case. I finally decided to lie about my unwillingness to convict for certain drug crimes, especially in light of the prosecutor’s obvious obfuscation of the facts of the case (which appeared to be very minor). In the end I wasn’t empaneled, but I was prepared to nullify if I was, and hid that fact in voir dire precisely to make it possible. Yet I am ambivalent about encouraging nullification - traditionally a weapon in the arsenal of crank legal theorists and militia types, and often used to bad ends, as others have pointed out above. I thought it was bold and intriguing that the Wire writers took this stand, but I still feel uneasy about it.
Regarding the reality of the drug trade and its role in depressed communities, I have to enthusiastically recommend the new book Gang Leader for a Day, by Sudhir Venkatesh. Venkatesh was a U. of Chicago sociology grad student who ingratiated himself with the leader of the drug gang that controlled part of the nightmarish Robert Taylor Homes project houses. He spent his entire 7-year grad-school period hanging out, and sometimes living, in the projects on a daily basis, and charted the relationships between the gang members, their families, other project residents, housing department staff, social workers, and the police, and the myriad scams and schemes all of them were running in order to survive and maintain their community. At one point he did, in fact, act as gang leader for one day, after challenging the leader’s claim that it was a tough job (it is). What he documents is that no part of the community is wholly good or bad, wholly beneficial or parasitical. The gangs provide security, enforce order, and contribute money to the community, but also elevate themselves as dictators who rule by fear and violence, exact “taxes” on non-members’ money-making schemes, and embroil other residents in their criminal activity. The tenant leaders seek out donations and aid for residents in need, but take a cut off the top for themselves, and channel aid only to selected residents who pay them off. One cop, raised in the projects, intervenes to resolve disputes and prevent violence; others freely steal money, jewelry, and cars from the drug dealers under cover of their authority. Most residents are just trying to get by, but are themselves running scams of various descriptions, squatting in empty rooms, living off the books to cheat the welfare system, stealing gas and electricty from the project grid, and paying off housing department staff for unauthorized services. Residents also band together to hide members on the lam, seek justice (from the gangs) for those who have been hurt, hide the children of arrested residents to keep them out of the foster-care system, and in general get by together because none of them can get by alone.
The utter, desperate brokenness of the community is what comes through most strongly. The drugs are almost incidental. Drugs are what pays, for gang members who see little other opportunity, but it’s not drugs, or drug addiction, or even the violent gangs that sell the drugs, that have destroyed the community. It was the deliberate indifference of those who planned the projecs, and the later years of criminally cynical mismanagement and underfunding, that made them the way they are. In that world as it is, the residents are a real community, and they help each other survive, knowing that the predatory, or at least pathetically inadequate, attentions of the police (who steal from them), housing department staff (who sell the furniture and appliances for the apartments on the black market), and politicians (who are just fucking useless in every way) will never be trustworthy or make a dime’s worth of difference. And they cling to each other as family and community, knowing they have been victimized by members of their own community, but that only those members can be relied upon to help them, too.
The book is a little thinly written, and focuses more on the author and his feelings, instead of the community members, than it should, but it’s still an unquestionable instant classic. Amazingly, near the end of his research, Venkatesh was given a stack of notebooks maintained by the drug gang’s bookkeeper - detailing years’ worth of drug transactions, by individual gang members, at all levels of the trade. (I’m shocked he wrote it all down.) This became the basis of the widely-remarked “Why do drug dealers live with their mothers?” chapter in the best-seller Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner. Venkatesh’s full story is even more enthralling and insightful, but utimately disheartening.
“If we decriminalized drugs and set [free?] everyone that’s in jail on non-violent drug offenses right now (and redirected the money used to house them in prison towards rehabilitation programs), we would immediately start to see a massive improvement in terms of our prison-industrial complex diminishing. Over time, we would continue to see the number of incarcerations slide downhill, because a great deal of violent crime in this country is directly related to the drug trade.”
As a criminological researcher in correctional intervention and programming, I feel I am responsible for warning that the rationale above echoes the same quick-thinking, non-evaluative approach to crime prevention that fueled the War on Drugs in the first place. Indeed, there is overwhelming evidence in the scholarly literature that lends support for the pre-Martisonian rehabilitative ideal (now reborn in the US and UK) over punitive general and specific deterrence measures. However, to set free or release to the community so many thousands of drug offenders from among our ~2.2m in prisons and jails can have a lasting deleterious impact on communities. In particular, think of the financial repercussions of so many unemployed ex-inmates returning to communities (i.e., Rose and Clear’s coercive mobility). Rather, let us first consider step-down programs that have solid empirical support (such as that newly employed in Maine’s offender reentry program, and those successfully practiced throughout Europe via open prisons), lest we forget the negative effects of jumping the gun with policy, so to speak. I implore any proponents who wish to make peace by ending the War on Drugs to consider supporting alternatives that have demonstrated positive impacts within the current correctional infrastructure, before trying to make the hard sell of immediate, total release to communities. We may just find these alternatives are more receptive among policy makers–a different means to our shared end.
MikeEss:
Not only do I admire your writing skills, but I admire your courage. To admit to the bloggers that you have not done drugs is nearly as bad as admitting you are a conservative. I find that society is tremendously biased towards non drug-users. Its terrible to walk down the street and know people are thinking, “what an asshole, he doesn’t use drugs!”.
You hang in there. I know that life can be good even for the drug free.
mythago
Speaking as a lawyer who just empaneled a jury two days ago: you’re wrong. I’m trying to be polite here and not use phrases like “you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about”, but there it is.
Stupid people on a jury will be swayed by the other side’s lies. Stupid people on a jury will decide they don’t need to follow the law because they know what the Bible/their cousin Bob/Ayn Rand has to say on the subject, and that’s the end of the discussion. Stupid people will decide a case based on what kind of shirt your client wears. Stupid people will concoct bizarre and jaw-droppingly insane rationalizations to ignore evidence they don’t want to hear.
So no, lawyers don’t want stupid people on a jury. If you had a friend who was bounced because they were a professor, or a doctor, or a teacher, unless that lawyer is bone-dense incompetent, there was some other reason the lawyer thought they would not make a good juror.
Thanks for saying what I was thinking. I’ve tried about a dozen cases with juries, alot less them some, but still more than about 98% of all lawyers. In addition to what mythago noted, sometimes you have a complicated case (for any number of reasons - the law, the facts, calculations) and you need people on the jury who are smart enough to simply understand it.
On the more general theme above, I was pleased to see George McGovern’s (who I worked for and voted for, lo those many years ago) piece in the WSJ sounding very libertarian themes about freedom and individual responsibility.
It’s here.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120485275086518279.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
I wonder if he’s in favor of legalization? You know my position.
Note that jury nullification is not so widespread that it’s guarded against.
In Portland, OR, when you go in to server jury duty, they hand you a pamphlet that states that jury nullification is not legal or valid. I’ve been on jury duty twice in the last 8 years in Portland and I’ve been handed that pamphlet by the clerk both times. They seem to be very aware of nullification here.
Sorry: the definition of “jury nullification” is not “whenever a jury decides to a reject a law that I think is bad, but omitting any instance where a jury decides to reject a law I think is good.” If a bunch of jurors decides that it’s unjust for a murder statute to include white men lynching a black man for rape, that’s jury nullifcation. If a bunch of jurors decides that rape laws are unjust because they don’t consider the woman’s moral character and so refuse to convict, that’s jury nullification.
Arguing otherwise is a big, fat, That’s Different And It’s Okay When We Do It.
There’s nothing wrong with a potential juror responding to voir dire by saying “These laws are wrong and I will not send somebody to jail for them.” Imagine what would happen if citizen after citizen stood up in court and said no, I will not follow the law and I will not convict somebody unjustly for an act that should not be a crime. How would the prosecution possibly seat a jury?
Proclaiming jury nullification (but only for the good guys!) is slacker activism: hey, after somebody’s *already* been convicted of a crime and put on trial, I guess I’ll see if I get called for jury duty, and if I happen to get assigned to a drug case, I guess I’ll vote to acquit. That doesn’t change the laws a bit. They’ll just get somebody else next time on the same damn thing, and chances they won’t get to a trial at all to be saved by us noble would-be jurors.
Which is why I continue to have trouble understanding why it’s the elephant in the room, the issue that neither Republicans nor Democrats will dare mention outside of mindless affirmations of it.
It’s because the suburban / exurban whitebread soccer moms are stone terrified that little Justin or Ashley will get hooked on teh dope. That’s not an unreasonable thing to worry about - drug addiction is a terrible thing - but the problem is that they don’t have any idea how else to prevent that from happening. Politicians know that exploiting fear works, so that’s what they do: vote for me, and I will make sure those scary black men don’t sell a dime bag to your beautiful unique snowflake.
I commented on the same article myself, noting my own struggle with the question of nullification when I was called for jury duty in a drug case. I finally decided to lie about my unwillingness to convict for certain drug crimes, especially in light of the prosecutor’s obvious obfuscation of the facts of the case (which appeared to be very minor). In the end I wasn’t empaneled, but I was prepared to nullify if I was, and hid that fact in voir dire precisely to make it possible. Yet I am ambivalent about encouraging nullification - traditionally a weapon in the arsenal of crank legal theorists and militia types, and often used to bad ends, as others have pointed out above. I thought it was bold and intriguing that the Wire writers took this stand, but I still feel uneasy about it.
Regarding the reality of the drug trade and its role in depressed communities, I have to enthusiastically recommend the new book Gang Leader for a Day, by Sudhir Venkatesh. Venkatesh was a U. of Chicago sociology grad student who ingratiated himself with the leader of the drug gang that controlled part of the nightmarish Robert Taylor Homes project houses. He spent his entire 7-year grad-school period hanging out, and sometimes living, in the projects on a daily basis, and charted the relationships between the gang members, their families, other project residents, housing department staff, social workers, and the police, and the myriad scams and schemes all of them were running in order to survive and maintain their community. At one point he did, in fact, act as gang leader for one day, after challenging the leader’s claim that it was a tough job (it is). What he documents is that no part of the community is wholly good or bad, wholly beneficial or parasitical. The gangs provide security, enforce order, and contribute money to the community, but also elevate themselves as dictators who rule by fear and violence, exact “taxes” on non-members’ money-making schemes, and embroil other residents in their criminal activity. The tenant leaders seek out donations and aid for residents in need, but take a cut off the top for themselves, and channel aid only to selected residents who pay them off. One cop, raised in the projects, intervenes to resolve disputes and prevent violence; others freely steal money, jewelry, and cars from the drug dealers under cover of their authority. Most residents are just trying to get by, but are themselves running scams of various descriptions, squatting in empty rooms, living off the books to cheat the welfare system, stealing gas and electricty from the project grid, and paying off housing department staff for unauthorized services. Residents also band together to hide members on the lam, seek justice (from the gangs) for those who have been hurt, hide the children of arrested residents to keep them out of the foster-care system, and in general get by together because none of them can get by alone.
The utter, desperate brokenness of the community is what comes through most strongly. The drugs are almost incidental. Drugs are what pays, for gang members who see little other opportunity, but it’s not drugs, or drug addiction, or even the violent gangs that sell the drugs, that have destroyed the community. It was the deliberate indifference of those who planned the projecs, and the later years of criminally cynical mismanagement and underfunding, that made them the way they are. In that world as it is, the residents are a real community, and they help each other survive, knowing that the predatory, or at least pathetically inadequate, attentions of the police (who steal from them), housing department staff (who sell the furniture and appliances for the apartments on the black market), and politicians (who are just fucking useless in every way) will never be trustworthy or make a dime’s worth of difference. And they cling to each other as family and community, knowing they have been victimized by members of their own community, but that only those members can be relied upon to help them, too.
The book is a little thinly written, and focuses more on the author and his feelings, instead of the community members, than it should, but it’s still an unquestionable instant classic. Amazingly, near the end of his research, Venkatesh was given a stack of notebooks maintained by the drug gang’s bookkeeper - detailing years’ worth of drug transactions, by individual gang members, at all levels of the trade. (I’m shocked he wrote it all down.) This became the basis of the widely-remarked “Why do drug dealers live with their mothers?” chapter in the best-seller Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner. Venkatesh’s full story is even more enthralling and insightful, but utimately disheartening.
I completely disagree that street level drug dealers are a “minor nuisance” and a “public eyesore”. A significant portion of the outrageous levels of violence/crime where I live (Oakland) is related to street dealing. Yes, they’re human beings– human beings that are having an incredibly destructive effect on their respective communities. Perhaps the racism that needs to be examined is why the liberal/left hasn’t put urban violence as a higher political priority.
I completely disagree that street level drug dealers are a “minor nuisance” and a “public eyesore”. A significant portion of the outrageous levels of violence/crime where I live (Oakland) is related to street dealing. Yes, they’re human beings– human beings that are having an incredibly destructive effect on their respective communities. Perhaps the racism that needs to be examined is why the liberal/left hasn’t put urban violence as a higher political priority.
Amanda:
It’s not a bad observation, but I always assumed the real tipping points were when “our innocent white children!!”, rather than “degenerate Negro jazz musicians” or “opium-peddling Chinamen,” started partaking.MikeEss:
Unfortunately, some do argue this, and the DEA is pushing this meme (scroll down to last paragraph).Amanda, I’m sure you know that in the US, the greatest use of jury nullification was to excuse white men who committed crimes against black people. And let’s not forget the use of jury nullification to excuse rape; it’s the reason we have rape-shield laws.
This is certainly true, but it does not imply that jury nullification per se is a bad thing. Like many tools, it can be used for good and for not-so-good. It’s a strategy, like civil disobedience, and I think it’s a good one in emergency situations. 1 out of 100 Americans in jail is an emergency.
The alternative to jury nullification is either a)enforcing hideously cruel and tyrannical laws, or b) telling the prosecutor the whole truth, getting yourself kicked off the jury and allowing only those who believe in the war on drugs to have a say in these proceedings. Personally I would go with not being 100% honest with the court, depending on whether or not I thought I could get away with it, and then refusing to convict.
What Mythago said. I spend a lot of time in courtrooms at work and have come to have GREAT respect for law enforcement, defense attorneys and prosecutors, and yes, respect and pity for defendants.
Many posters here are rather flippantly advocating jury nullification or evading jury duty. How many of you have ever actually sat through a few jury picks or trials? To paraphrase something I heard on Fresh Air this week, cynicism is the result of inexperience.
How many of you have ever actually sat through a few jury picks or trials?
I have. And my cynicism is 100% the result of experience.
We have a thoroughly immoral system that’s not receptive to change at all. In that kind of situation, yes, you have an obligation to refuse to cooperate with the law if you can (i.e., if you can do it in a way that doesn’t result in YOU getting thrown in jail.)
I think the war on drugs as an effort to protect white people. Those horrible brown people are trying to sell your children drugs. Think of the children!
I’m absolutely convinced that’s the case in our foreign drug policy. Screw poor people in the Third World. Let them get abused and killed by cartels, paramilitaries, and official militaries, all in the name of protecting wealthy Americans from making dumb choices.
I’ve not been on a trial jury, but I have been on Grand Jury and nearly came to blows several times with one particular republican southern white male over indictments involving crack dealers/users–no evidence, no problem. Unnecessary trial jury costs to county, no problem.
I commented on the same article myself, noting my own struggle with the question of nullification when I was called for jury duty in a drug case. I finally decided to lie about my unwillingness to convict for certain drug crimes, especially in light of the prosecutor’s obvious obfuscation of the facts of the case (which appeared to be very minor). In the end I wasn’t empaneled, but I was prepared to nullify if I was, and hid that fact in voir dire precisely to make it possible. Yet I am ambivalent about encouraging nullification - traditionally a weapon in the arsenal of crank legal theorists and militia types, and often used to bad ends, as others have pointed out above. I thought it was bold and intriguing that the Wire writers took this stand, but I still feel uneasy about it.
Regarding the reality of the drug trade and its role in depressed communities, I have to enthusiastically recommend the new book Gang Leader for a Day, by Sudhir Venkatesh. Venkatesh was a U. of Chicago sociology grad student who ingratiated himself with the leader of the drug gang that controlled part of the nightmarish Robert Taylor Homes project houses. He spent his entire 7-year grad-school period hanging out, and sometimes living, in the projects on a daily basis, and charted the relationships between the gang members, their families, other project residents, housing department staff, social workers, and the police, and the myriad scams and schemes all of them were running in order to survive and maintain their community. At one point he did, in fact, act as gang leader for one day, after challenging the leader’s claim that it was a tough job (it is). What he documents is that no part of the community is wholly good or bad, wholly beneficial or parasitical. The gangs provide security, enforce order, and contribute money to the community, but also elevate themselves as dictators who rule by fear and violence, exact “taxes” on non-members’ money-making schemes, and embroil other residents in their criminal activity. The tenant leaders seek out donations and aid for residents in need, but take a cut off the top for themselves, and channel aid only to selected residents who pay them off. One cop, raised in the projects, intervenes to resolve disputes and prevent violence; others freely steal money, jewelry, and cars from the drug dealers under cover of their authority. Most residents are just trying to get by, but are themselves running scams of various descriptions, squatting in empty rooms, living off the books to cheat the welfare system, stealing gas and electricty from the project grid, and paying off housing department staff for unauthorized services. Residents also band together to hide members on the lam, seek justice (from the gangs) for those who have been hurt, hide the children of arrested residents to keep them out of the foster-care system, and in general get by together because none of them can get by alone.
The utter, desperate brokenness of the community is what comes through most strongly. The drugs are almost incidental. Drugs are what pays, for gang members who see little other opportunity, but it’s not drugs, or drug addiction, or even the violent gangs that sell the drugs, that have destroyed the community. It was the deliberate indifference of those who planned the projecs, and the later years of criminally cynical mismanagement and underfunding, that made them the way they are. In that world as it is, the residents are a real community, and they help each other survive, knowing that the predatory, or at least pathetically inadequate, attentions of the police (who steal from them), housing department staff (who sell the furniture and appliances for the apartments on the black market), and politicians (who are just fucking useless in every way) will never be trustworthy or make a dime’s worth of difference. And they cling to each other as family and community, knowing they have been victimized by members of their own community, but that only those members can be relied upon to help them, too.
The book is a little thinly written, and focuses more on the author and his feelings, instead of the community members, than it should, but it’s still an unquestionable instant classic. Amazingly, near the end of his research, Venkatesh was given a stack of notebooks maintained by the drug gang’s bookkeeper - detailing years’ worth of drug transactions, by individual gang members, at all levels of the trade. (I’m shocked he wrote it all down.) This became the basis of the widely-remarked “Why do drug dealers live with their mothers?” chapter in the best-seller Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner. Venkatesh’s full story is even more enthralling and insightful, but utimately disheartening.
Jake Squid - I also served on juries in PDX, and I was well aware of jury nullification at the time. I didn’t get any pamphlet explicitly rejecting it, but the judge made it clear we were not to consider the morality of the law, just the facts of the cases. Things like jury nullification and the immorality of civil forfeiture were pretty often discussed in the circles I moved in at the time, but a good part of that might have been that I was at Reed, which has a very liberal/civil libertarian atmosphere.
I completely disagree that street level drug dealers are a “minor nuisance” and a “public eyesore”. A significant portion of the outrageous levels of violence/crime where I live (Oakland) is related to street dealing. Yes, they’re human beings– human beings that are having an incredibly destructive effect on their respective communities. Perhaps the racism that needs to be examined is why the liberal/left hasn’t put urban violence as a higher political priority.
I’ve done jury duty twice — here that means being in a jury pool for 8 days in a month, so you may do several trials during your month of duty. I did lots of voir-dire, but was often thrown out because I have not been comfortable flat-out lying if asked individually and directly about my drug law opinions. But I did get on one drug case where they seemed to be kind of hasty in the selection process, questions were directed to groups of potential jurors in a raise-your-hand fashion, e.g., “does anyone here think that drug laws should be abolished?” and I just failed to raise my hand (I know it’s still sort of lying, but the passive thing was easier for me than a direct active lie would be).
The case was indeed one where there was no other crime involved at all, just carrying-a-gym-bag-while-black had inspired a search and uncovered a tiny amount of meth in the bag. This guy lived with his girlfriend and baby and had a decent job and was supporting them, clearly was a productive functioning society member — regardless of whether he did drugs or not (of course he argued he didn’t know they were there, he’d borrowed the bag). As a jury we voted to acquit, officially on the grounds that the cops did not adequately prove that he “knowingly” possessed the drugs. But there was indeed a lot of talk amongst the jurors about how a conviction would ruin the lives of three people (defendant, girlfriend and baby) without doing any good that anyone could see.
In what way would you be lying? As a person possessed of reason I judge the facts dispassionately, consider the evidence, and deliver what I consider a moral and ethical vote about the case. Isn’t that kind of your responsibility as a juror? As a society isn’t it our obligation to interpret and revise our laws when fact and law collide?
Bull headed opposition to acknowledging that drugs are a pillar of our society is just stupid. From the British opium trade to laundering billions in drug money through Chase et. al. to fucking rock music, drugs inform our culture and support our economy.
But drugs are bad, ‘mkay.
togolosh -
Both times that I have been called for jury duty in PDX I have received that pamphlet w/ all the other juror info/orientation that you are handed when you enter the jury pool room. The first time was in 2001 and the second time was 3 months ago. It didn’t appear to me that the packet of info that I got was different than those that my co-jurypoolers got.
I don’t believe that it was unusual that I received that anti-nullification pamphlet since my wife and two of my friends received the same pamphlet when they went in for jury duty over the course of the last 10 years or so.
In addition to that pamphlet (which I imagine they hand out in response to the folks who are often pamphleteering outside the front doors w/ tracts about jury nullification), the judge gave us the same sort of instructions to which you refer.
I remember watching a very in-depth multi-part TV series about [alcohol] Prohibition a few years back, and it struck me how the situation was nearly identical to the illegal drug trade now - gang wars and vendettas, drive-by shootings, back-alley gathering places in shitty neighborhoods for people to imbibe, corrupt cops on the take, and other cops and politicians obsessed beyond all reason with eradicating the demon alcohol… it made it so clear how much of the pathology associated with our current drug trade is directly due to it being illegal. Sure we’d still have people screwing up their lives with drug addiction if we legalized, just like we currently have people screwing up their lives with alcoholism. But we treat alcoholism as a problem needing social/psychological/medical treatment rather than as a crime in itself, and we don’t have drive-by shootings over alcohol any more.
Everyone seems to acknowledge that prohibition of THAT drug (yes folks, alcohol IS a drug) was an utter failure that caused more harm than good. And yet they seem to think things will be completely different applying the same policy to other drugs.
The thing is, that’s a really broad definition of “jury nullification”. They aren’t protesting, as a general rule, the law itself. Southern whites who let lynchers off weren’t really making a statement about how murder is wrong, and people who let rapists off would rarely state that they think rape is alright.
So I don’t think the two situations are analogous, no. Refusing to convict a drug user or drug dealer is closer to refusing to convict an abortion provider. I can’t, in good conscience, enforce a law that I believe exists mainly to oppress large groups of people and undermine our democracy.
I have to go with mythago here - you’re drawing a distinction based on whether you agree with the law or not, based on your values. There is, in theory, nothing seperating you ethically from someone letting off a lyncher because the uppity niggers had it coming, or a rapist because the slut was just asking for it - except that you (and the vast majority of your readers) hold one set of attitudes morally unacceptable and another desirable.
Note, I am not questioning your morals - I am questioning the ethical basis for your making decisions based on these morals. You need to defend your position better.
Actually no, that’s not exactly what your job is supposed to be. You are supposed to consider the facts and the evidence and determine whether the person violated the law as written, not decide whether the law should have been written differently or ever written at all (that’s considered the role of the state legislature). Your instructions, and things like the “no nullification allowed” pamphlets people here have talked about make that clear.
Make no mistake, jury nullification is a subversive act.
And like Serafina, I have no problems admitting that such a subversive act has indeed been used for nefarious purposes (like acquitting white lynchers) as well as good ones (refusing to convict abortionists); that doesn’t render the suggestion to use it in this case morally indefensible in any way. Protest demonstrations have also been used for good things (civil rights) and bad (god hates fags), but we don’t argue that the bad use makes protest demonstrations an indefensible tactic in pursuit of justice.
I’m surprised no one has brought up Ryan Frederick, one of the most outrageous causalities of the War on Some Drugs.
Basically, the police in Chesapeake Virginia conducted a plain clothsed (!) military-style no-knock SWAT raid in the middle of the night because they suspected Frederick was growing marijuana. Frederick, who owned a gun, thought he was being robbed and shot the cop dead. Now hes charged with first degree murder! Frederick had no prior criminal record whatsoever.
Later, the cops found a small amount of marijuana in his house. A dead cop, and a guys life destroyed over a simple plant.
BTW, Frederick is a middle-class white guy. Don’t think it can’t happen to you.
Again, please google Ryan Frederick.
Drydock, I appreciate the seriousness of the situation. But at the end of the day, you lock up a dealer, he’s immediately replaced by someone else. The net result is that the problem hasn’t gone away, but someone’s life has been made a lot more miserable. Net loss to humanity, since nothing of value has been gained. Plus, your tax dollars are going to keeping him locked up instead of more positive things that would help people, and for no value add to society.
Locking people up based on the violence they might do instead of the violence they did do is pre-emptive war, and against the values of our society. Wasn’t that the issue with Iraq in the first place? If we want to take steps to lessen racism in our society, we need to quit seeking ways to create different rules for non-white people than for white people.
The reason for the focus on jury nullification is to draw attention to the fact that until we accept that this is a radical problem that we are all complicit in—and that therefore we need to start looking for creative solutions to get to the heart of it and get out of our complicity.
It’s been explained thoroughly, PR. The right to protest doesn’t go away because the Klan holds protests. But I do think that having the moral “value” that some people’s lives are less worthy (women, black people) is such a non-value that I doubt the people engaged in such behavior care if jury nullification is a right or not. They’re not engaging in high-minded thoughts of just laws vs. unjust laws. They’re mainly being dicks.
But seriously, it’s a little different. With the juries who let off rapists or lynch mobs, they’d usually argue that the law was not actually broken, whereas someone engaging in jury nullification says yes, the law was broken, but the law is unjust. Juries who let off rapists say it wasn’t rape/she was lying and juries who let off lynchers had a really broad definition of self-defense.
No, the alternative is to refuse to elect politicians who support the War On Poor People’s Drugs; to pressure local leaders and the police department to stop arresting people for minor drug crimes; and to otherwise work to get rid of the laws entirely.
Which is why jury nullification raises a serious moral issue. You are taking a law that has been passed by normal means and allowing a dozen people to say “Screw all y’alls, we don’t like the law.” It’s *not* like a protest.
No. They’re refusing to convict a person even though law + facts = guilt, because they disagree with the law. As other posters have pointed out, “juries should have the power to acquit if they believe the law is unjust” cuts both ways.
Please point me to the politician running on a platform of decriminalizing drugs who is not a black helicopter spotting maniac and I will vote for her.
Oh, no such thing?
Hmmmm….It appears other strategies are necessary. Meanwhile, the question of whether or not an individual like myself should carry the guilt of sending someone to jail to be possibly raped and tortured for a crime you don’t think is even a crime still hangs. I realize we all have problems extracting ourselves from complete complicity, but actively hurting people and taking part in the active perpetuation of the War On Poor People just crosses a big line for me.
I just want to say, also, thanks for covering the War on Some Drugs. There aren’t enough blogs on the net that cover this massive police state-enabling failure.
I just want to say, also, thanks for covering the War on Some Drugs. There aren’t enough blogs on the net that cover this massive police state-enabling failure.
It’s been explained thoroughly, PR. The right to protest doesn’t go away because the Klan holds protests.
Agreed.
But I do think that having the moral “value” that some people’s lives are less worthy (women, black people) is such a non-value that I doubt the people engaged in such behavior care if jury nullification is a right or not. They’re not engaging in high-minded thoughts of just laws vs. unjust laws. They’re mainly being dicks.
The problematic words there are “I do think” and “I doubt”. First rule of characterisation - nobody is a villian in their own mind. Jury nullification is a matter of people choosing not to enforce a law they consider unjust or wrong - you don’t get to state that because your cause is moral, your jury nullification is high-minded and just, but because their cause is immoral, their jury nullification is just because they’re being a dick. They’d be fighting for their view of how society should be just as much as you would - and using the same unethical tactic of ignoring the law.
Now, note, I am drawing a distinction between morality and ethics. Ethical requirements may require you to suspend your personal morality (defense lawyers, for example, may have to face this problem). What you are talking about here is acting unethically in order to promote a moral goal - which is not necessarily wrong. But having endorsed such an action, you don’t have the option of saying it is “wrong” when other people do it simply because you find the moral reasoning motivating them unappealing. You have subordinated the legitimacy of the law to your personal morality, and can’t complain when others do the same.
But seriously, it’s a little different. With the juries who let off rapists or lynch mobs, they’d usually argue that the law was not actually broken, whereas someone engaging in jury nullification says yes, the law was broken, but the law is unjust.
And what about someone who agreed that, yes, the law said X was rape, but that the victim was in part asking for it by walking around with a vagina and such a short mini-skirt into a bar, and that they weren’t willing to condemn the rapist to a full jail term for acting on a natural impulse? We know there are people with those opinions, and we know that should they find themselves on juries they may full well know what the law is and disgaree with it.
You have to develop a basis to make judgements about the legitimacy of the law on which to state “jury nullification for victimless drug crimes is justified” and “jury nullification for victim responsibility for rape is not justified” which is beyond your own personal moral stance.
I would suggest that there is such a basis - the concept that the goal of the good society as that allowing the maximum autonomy to individuals, and that the legitimacy of law is based on allowing individuals to coexist in a society with such a goal can allow such a distinction. A law condemning rape is legitimate because rape directly violates the autonomy of the victim, whereas a law condemning drug use is illegitimate because the State has no reason to stop drug-taking, in general.
But you haven’t made that argument.
Using drugs, more often than not, is not a victimless crime. If you’re growing your own or something along those lines I would see it as victimless but if youre buying off a dealer you are perpetuating a violent and deadly system to get your high. This, in my mind, is one of the best reasons we should decriminalize or legalize pretty much all drugs and go one step further to controlling/monitoring drug production. It would be great if having an ounce on you wouldnt send you to jail but it would be even better if that ounce was produced either in this country or another place under strict private/gov’t control so that the lives of people in other countries arent torn apart by drug production and the various groups/cartels who will try and control it.
No, the alternative is to refuse to elect politicians who support the War On Poor People’s Drugs; to pressure local leaders and the police department to stop arresting people for minor drug crimes; and to otherwise work to get rid of the laws entirely.
How exactly has that been working out for us, lately? And what are we supposed to do in the mean time–send people off to prison for decades until the public gets around to changing its mind about drugs? Sorry, but no.
Which is why jury nullification raises a serious moral issue. You are taking a law that has been passed by normal means and allowing a dozen people to say “Screw all y’alls, we don’t like the law.” It’s *not* like a protest.
It’s exactly like a protest–like the protest of those who helped slaves escape through the Underground Railroad. They said “screw you, we don’t like the law,” and they were right. And no, that’s not an extreme example. The prison is today’s version of the plantation.
As other posters have pointed out, “juries should have the power to acquit if they believe the law is unjust” cuts both ways.
So does everything. A soldier has the obligation not to commit atrocities, even if he’s ordered to; that can have nasty results if a soldier exercises his individual judgment the wrong way. Breaking unjust laws is a good thing when the consequences of the injustice are severe; that does mean that, if a person is mistaken about whether or not something is an injustice, he could end up doing something I consider immoral in the name of what he thinks is right. So what? All that means is that you should think hard before you decide to make an ethical judgment, whether or not it involves breaking the law.
Saying “screw you, we don’t like the law” is perfectly fine. I have no problem with it in principle. Do I have a problem with certain instances of it? Sure. I also have a problem with many instances of people choosing to defend the law, just because it’s the law. I don’t think that’s a necessarily superior approach–it all depends on the particulars.
Note, I am not questioning your morals - I am questioning the ethical basis for your making decisions based on these morals.
You can’t make decisions based on anything but your morals. If you choose to convict a drug addict, you’re putting your moral belief in the abstract notion of the Law over your moral belief that the war on drugs is wrong. It’s still a moral judgment, and you are still responsible as an individual. You don’t get to abdicate the right or the responsibility to judge by saying “oh, well, the law is the law.” It always comes down to your judgment.
Imagine what would happen if citizen after citizen stood up in court and said no, I will not follow the law and I will not convict somebody unjustly for an act that should not be a crime. How would the prosecution possibly seat a jury?
This only works if we manage to convince the vast majority of citizens that drugs should be legalized. So long as there’s even a significant minority in favor of drug laws–or willing to serve on a jury and convict a drug convict, even if they’re against the idea of the laws–prosecutors will be able to find a jury. How is it acceptable to continue to ferry African-Americans to jail until the white majority wraps its mind around the idea of drug legalization?
Proclaiming jury nullification (but only for the good guys!) is slacker activism: hey, after somebody’s *already* been convicted of a crime and put on trial, I guess I’ll see if I get called for jury duty, and if I happen to get assigned to a drug case, I guess I’ll vote to acquit.
It’s only slacker activism if it’s the only thing you’re doing. And even then, it’s far more of a personal commitment and risk than writing letters to your congressman, especially if you lie.
Ack–long comment caught in spam queue, dammit.
As an addendum: I actually don’t think juries should have the legal power of nullification. I think juries should do it, but I don’t think the law should encourage or condone it–it’s subversive, and it should stay that way. If there were no consequences for it or discouragement against it, then people probably would do it all the time for frivolous reasons. Because it’s subversive and frowned on, I think people generally do it only if they think the case is a serious miscarriage of justice, which is how it should be.
My bad. I forgot that it is absolutely, 100% impossible to lobby politicians to get them to vote differently. It is equally impossible to band together with like-minded citizens to change the laws. And you know that politicans and drug laws are enforced exactly the same everywhere in America, and every single politician is gung-ho in favor of the war on drugs. Plus, we know from experience that there is absolutely no way for a determined group of people to create change. The law is what it is and why fucking bother doing a thing about it? Better to let people be harassed, arrested and put on trial. We’ll wait until we get called up for jury service to lift a finger.
Lobbying is not impossible. But in the many decades it could take to get common sense to take hold on this, how many people innocent of *real* crimes should be sentenced unfairly to be raped repeatedly in a prison and turned into even harder criminals? And lobbying the politicians would be a lot more effective (see: abortion legalization) if people actually show some resistance, instead of rolling over and doing things like sending people to jail for drug possession. To be raped, may I remind you, as often as not.
Not on my conscience, if I can help it.
Funny you mention abortion legalization, because your argument works just great for anti-choicers. In the many decades it could take to get common sense to take hold and for everyone to see that abortion is the murder of precious babies, many protesters and pro-life activists will be sentenced unfairly to be RAPED! IN! PRISON! therefore pro-life jurors should perjure themselves, lie to get on juries and acquit people accused of setting fire to abortion clinics or harassing women who seek abortions.
The bottom line is that jury nullification is an end-run around our system of enacting laws and our system of testing laws for Constitutionality. Any one person willing to decide for themselves what the law should be can negate the laws as enacted by a majority of everybody else by refusing to convict a person accused of breaking those laws.
Think of how many more people you could save from unjust prosecution by actually engaging in political action to end the war on drugs. “Well offer me a candidate and I’ll vote for her, oh well I don’t see one”–Jesus, Amanda, you wouldn’t put up with that for a second as an excuse for supporting reproductive justice or human rights.
Serafina, jury nullification is not a neutral tool, like protest or campaigning. It’s an individual’s decision that their opinion trumps our entire civic process of enacting laws. All you’re saying is that the end justifies the means, again, but it’s for your conscience so that makes it pretty.
But in the many decades it could take to get common sense to take hold on this, how many people innocent of *real* crimes should be sentenced unfairly to be raped repeatedly in a prison and turned into even harder criminals?
Define “a real crime”. That might go a long way to claryifying the, well, not disagreement but uneasiness we have with the idea of jury nullification.
You know, go with your conscience. I’m very much outside of the William F. Buckley “the law is everything” school of thought. Once abortion is illegal in my state, I’ll still feel that a woman should get one even though it’s against the law. Sorry. *shrug* I’m not going to say to her, “Gosh, maybe while you’re gestating a baby you and I know you simply can’t have, you should start petitioning your lawmakers.” That doesn’t do a lot to help her.
Also, I’m 100% unconvinced that using jury nullification to help spring just one person that’s facing unjust punishment for an unjust drug law will somehow help the anti-choice cause. I actually believe those people don’t give a shit about what I do.
Meanwhile, I can’t in my heart say that the vast majority of people I know—since the vast majority of people dip into an illegal substance at some point in their lives—should cool it in jail and have their entire lives ruined for it, lest we send the wrong signal about the importance of enforcing every law, no matter how stupid. Nor do I think, when abortion is a crime again, that women and doctors should go to jail. I promise, that would that day come, I’d nullify on those juries as well.
Will you vote guilty against women and doctors when abortion is a crime again?
The abortion example also shows that jury nullification is not mutually exclusive from lobbying and protest.
Amanda writes’ “But at the end of the day, you lock up a dealer, he’s immediately replaced by someone else. The net result is that the problem hasn’t gone away,…”
So we’re suppose to do nothing until we have the perfect social policy (around drugs) or some utopian economy. I’m not going for that logic nor are the vast majority of Americans.
Chicago, NYC and LA are having 35-40 year lows in the rate of homicide. I’ll take a guess that arresting street drug dealers has been part of their strategy to reduce violence. While arresting large numbers of people for drug offenses may not be an enlightened criminal policy, to say it has no effect on lowering crime rates is false.
Note: I have no moral objection to drug use and I’m for legalization. But in the meantime until that happens I’m not willing to turn the neighborhood over to dealers and addicts. Locally I’ll be supporting political candidates who are going to be aggressive about street violence, which is has become by far the top city wide issue here in Oakland.
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Serafina, jury nullification is not a neutral tool, like protest or campaigning.
I don’t think protest or campaigning is neutral. I do think it’s indirect, and often ineffective, but that doesn’t make it neutral.
It’s an individual’s decision that their opinion trumps our entire civic process of enacting laws.
Well, sometimes it does, depending on what the opinion is and what the civic process is and what the law is. And if someone votes to convict a drug addict, they’re putting their opinion that the Law is the overriding consideration over the drug addict’s freedom, sanity, health and possibly life. It always does come down to your opinion–there’s no way of getting out of that responsibility.
All you’re saying is that the end justifies the means, again, but it’s for your conscience so that makes it pretty.
The ends sometimes do justify the means. Acting outside the law for conscience is sometimes necessary, as no one has really denied on this thread. Does this mean I have to be okay with pro-lifers nullifying verdicts of abortion terrorists? No, because I disagree with their ends. It’s not their means that bug me. It’s perfectly valid to condemn or criticize people because of their ends. Their means are not the only legitimate targets of criticism.
But having endorsed such an action, you don’t have the option of saying it is “wrong” when other people do it simply because you find the moral reasoning motivating them unappealing. You have subordinated the legitimacy of the law to your personal morality, and can’t complain when others do the same.
Sure I can, if I disagree with their “personal morality.” I can’t criticize their decision to subordinate the law to morality, but I certainly can criticize and complain about what that morality is. Your argument assumes that what you call “ethics” is the only legitimate subject for criticism, while what you call “morality” is purely a matter of personal taste and can’t be criticized. I don’t see why that should be so: it goes back to what I said above about criticizing ends as well as means.
There are lots of times when I’m fine with people’s means but can’t stand their ends: when right-wingers boycott Brokeback Mountain, for instance, or when they protest outside abortion clinics. I don’t see that it’s hypocritical for me to criticize those protesters–so long as I’m careful to criticize their goals and not just the mere fact that they’re protesting. In the same way, I don’t see why I shouldn’t condemn a jury that lets a lyncher off: not because they practiced jury nullification, but because of why they did it and the sort of goals and the sort of society they just upheld.
I was unaware “perfect” was the bar that had to be cleared. I’d think “better” would be enough to choose one option over another. Throwing the hypothetical defendant in jail accomplishes zero good, in that there are no less drugs or violence on the street. But it does minimize harm. In lieu of doing good, I will choose to minimize harm. It’s not perfect, no. But I do believe that choosing to make the world a worse place because you can’t make it perfect is a bad option. Choices: worse, not as bad, perfect. The last is impossible, sure, but that doesn’t mean that you should pick the first over the second.
I think it’s appropriate and actually a little charming that some of the posters in this thread whose work relates to the justice system are so enamored of the law. Just as I’ve always disapproved of even talented academics who treat their subject matter with contempt or indifference, I really do think judges and lawyers ought to be a little outraged at the idea of jury nullification.
The bottom line is that jury nullification is an end-run around our system of enacting laws and our system of testing laws for Constitutionality.
Hardly; not any more than the President’s veto constitutes an “end-run” around Congress. Jury nullification is a planned, intentional feature of having trials judged by 12 human beings instead of 12 lawbooks. It’s the check the community places on the legislative power of distant entities.