Jury Nullification-I wrote a piece for a local news outlet on jury nullification. I’ll post a link when it runs.
Here is the short version-
JN is the power of juries to acquit to prevent injustice. JN allows juries to determine if a law should apply or be enforced.
Judges and prosecutors who feel threatened by JN should realize that fighting injustice is the ultimate reasonable doubt. Why would a prosecutor not want juries to acquit to fight injustice?
If a prosecutor is seeking convictions, and not justice, then jurors have the right and the duty to return a not guilty verdict.
Finally, JN recognizes that Texas laws are not perfect. Therefore they should not be enforced for every violation.
I-45 Speed Trap
I live in Ennis and spend a lot of time driving up Interstate 45 to Dallas. There is hardly a worse speed trap in Dallas than I-45 South of 20. I hate watching these local cops harass motorists. The Ferris and Palmer police seemingly have no purpose beyond raising ticket revenue.
I want to do some open records work to exploit this nonsense. However, I am unsure of what to ask for? Merely asking for a copy of tickets won’t help. I doubt a written policy exists that states “write more ticket we need the money” etc. Any ideas?
DMN Letter
The Dallas Morning News Published a letter I submitted. It is a heavily edited version of the recent entry on the Editorial Board’s Drug War Formula. I was hoping they would publish my immigration letter also, but that hasn’t happened yet.