The legal system aims to reduce crime by discouraging it. Juries should have a third option beyond "guilty" and "not guilty": to rule that a crime occurred due to unusual pressures (health, money) and order the government to address and alleviate that specific pressure for the individual.

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u/Bounty66 20d ago

Nullification. Juries must select and vote for it. No lawyer or judge will inform the juries that such an option exists.

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u/theedgeofoblivious 20d ago

It would need to be mandatory to inform the juries of that.

4

u/Bounty66 20d ago

Define mandatory. 😂 The lead juror could request from the group nullification. But that’s very arbitrary.

So informing jurors before deliberation (not by lawyers and judges) the option of nullification is possible and can be advised.

6

u/theedgeofoblivious 19d ago

You probably haven't gone through law school, and yet you're aware that "guilty" and "not guilty" are options in a trial.

Your argument makes the claim that adding a third option would be difficult to make clear to everyone if it was done in a blanket manner.

There's no reason to believe if making a third option universally available that it could somehow be hidden or unknown to people on a jury.

3

u/Healter-Skelter 19d ago

The main reason we all know about guilty and not guilty I think is thanks to media. Movies and shows depicting the legal system. Not to argue with you, but just to say that it would take some time for it to penetrate the public domain of knowledge

2

u/theedgeofoblivious 19d ago

I'm not disagreeing with that, but it would be a valid change and a useful change, and people would learn about it.

1

u/Healter-Skelter 19d ago

I agree but the reason it won’t happen is because this rule serves to change the status quo and the establishment who sets the rules exists to protect the status quo.

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u/AttentionOre 20d ago

There is a third option for juries similar to that, they don’t get to order the government around, but yea

5

u/stealthdawg 19d ago

Can you provide an example? I'm trying to see how this would actually play out differently than the current system.

A verdict is simply determining "did or did they not perform the crime accused."

The judge's entire role in sentencing is to weigh the why of the defendant's action along with the harm done, the need for rehabilitation, what needs to be done to reduce recidivism, etc.

Why would a jury be the one deciding this?

5

u/theedgeofoblivious 19d ago

Juries should absolutely be the ones making this kind of decision, because leaving it to a judge would inherently politicize the process.

The role of the jury here wouldn’t just be to decide guilt. They’d also determine if, while the person technically committed the actions in question, those actions were reasonable given the circumstances. If so, the jury could mandate that the government address the root causes of those circumstances and take action to prevent similar situations in the future.

Right now, the government’s role is focused on prosecuting violations of its laws. This change would empower juries to go beyond that by saying, "Yes, the law was broken, but the circumstances that led to this were created by systemic issues in society (or the government itself). Instead of punishing this individual, we’re requiring the government to address and resolve those systemic issues."

It’s like jury nullification, but it goes further—it wouldn’t just stop punishment; it would actively require the government to take steps to fix the underlying problems.

3

u/irondragon2 18d ago

The justice system is one place where a single person's direct action can send a message. The changes are seen right before your eyes. If more people were educated on their own country's civic duty there would probably be more jury nullifications.

2

u/Illfury 17d ago

But that would mess with private prison profits. Gotta get more inmates!!!

2

u/FrodoCraggins 18d ago edited 18d ago

We have that here in Canada, except that the government has ruled that the factor is 'race'. The government’s official stance is that certain races are just more likely to commit crimes and should be punished less than others for the same crimes.

Have a read through their roadmap of planned changes to the justice system: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/cbjs-scjn/ns-pe.html

One of their primary goals is to set a hard racial quota for prisoners based on their race's percentage of the overall national population. This means releasing all convicted prisoners above that quota and not sentencing any new ones to prison for crimes they commit:

Decarceration: Canada must aim to reduce the overall current rate of persons incarcerated relative to the population by 30% by 2034, and given levels of overrepresentation, incarceration rates for Black and Indigenous people must be reduced by 50% of the current rate, relative to their proportion of the population, in this time. We take a broad view of decarceration to mean not only the release of people who are currently in custody, but also to reduce the number of people entering custodial facilities in the first place.

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u/NeedScienceProof 19d ago

There is such a thing and it's called jury nullification.

1

u/theedgeofoblivious 19d ago

Jury nullification doesn't cause the government to alleviate the specific pressure on the individual.

1

u/karatekid430 19d ago

I prefer full communism, but sure.

1

u/[deleted] 18d ago

It's called Just Culture.

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u/SubzeroCola 20d ago

But why should the government be held liable for that individual person's problems? How is that the government's fault?

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u/Canvaverbalist 19d ago

It's a collective of the people in service of the people, what the fuck is the point otherwise if it's not exactly to solve problems.

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u/SubzeroCola 19d ago

Its to build infrastructure and provide public services. It makes sense that the money it takes (from citizens) benefits society as a whole (rather than individuals). So it makes sense for the government to solve public problems but not personal problems.

5

u/theedgeofoblivious 19d ago

No, that makes zero sense.

As it is, we have a society which causes personal problems for huge numbers of individuals, for the benefit of the extremely wealthy, and although other societies have very easily solved or addressed those problems, our society lies and pretends that there's no way to solve them.

No, we live in a problematic society where they pretend that the goals of the wealthy are everyone's concern and the problems of everyone else are personal failings.

It's literally insulting to tell that to someone and expect them to believe that.

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u/SubzeroCola 19d ago

You're being very vague here. Can you specify how this is occuring?

Whenever someone causes someone else personal problems, they go to the police. And the police help them out.

How is society causing someone personal problems?

4

u/theedgeofoblivious 19d ago

I'm not being vague here.

Look around you.

Look. Around. You.

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u/SubzeroCola 19d ago

Great more vagueness. I really hope you're trolling.

6

u/theedgeofoblivious 19d ago

There's not a word of vagueness in my responses.

You're making a false claim of vagueness in order to direct the conversation away from the actual issues affecting society onto your own personal desire to put yourself as judge about whether it is.

I'm not playing that game.

Toodles.

1

u/TanAndTallLady 17d ago

Are you living in American society? Respectfully, you sound like you live under a rock

0

u/TBK_Winbar 15d ago

This is why the crime of killing a human being has several different charges. Murder, manslaughter etc. It's why we can plead to lesser charges in certain situations.

Why should the government have to alleviate specific pressures on an individual? We're not children.

1

u/theedgeofoblivious 15d ago

The government exists to alleviate pressures.

That is the reason for government's existence.

0

u/TBK_Winbar 15d ago

The government exists to ensure the country functions at a level that allows people to manage themselves.

1

u/theedgeofoblivious 15d ago

So you mean the government exists to alleviate pressures?

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u/very-fine-hatching 16d ago

So if I have an “unusual pressure”, I am incentivised to go commit a crime because then a jury will rule that the government should give me shit?

Are you actually regarded?

2

u/theedgeofoblivious 16d ago

I already pointed out that while this might appear to incentivize crime at the individual level, it leads to whatever circumstances existed for that individual being addressed so that said circumstances no longer exist for others in society.

Plus, committing a crime still risks being found guilty if the jury didn't believe your crime came from your circumstances.

So this has the opposite effect of what you said.

And if you're going to call someone "retarded" at least have the guts to do it.