OH YEAH THEYRE TALKING ABOUT IT NOW
Please do not remove mods, really sorry for the Google AMP link, but this is a “subscribers only” blocked article on CNN that for some reason AMP just straight up bypasses and opens fine.
Direct link: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/10/us/jury-nullification-luigi-mangione-defense/index.html.
Edit 1: updated title, CNN changed it on me
Jury nullification is an important logical conclusion of American jurist rules. This post will stay up.
Based
Jury nullification doesn’t really exist. It’s just an attempt to label something the jury decides that you believe goes against the law. The fact is, the jury is part of the law, and the jury can decide what parts of it are relevant, are enforceable in the case, and which need special considerations. Complaining about “jury nullification” is complaining about one of the fewest democratic elements in the judicial system, a system that on its own is almost completely autocratic and as such that much more susceptible to the formation of oligarchies and nepotism from within.
It’s actually the conclusion of 2 things:
- Double Jeopardy means your cannot try someone twice for the same crime
- A juror cannot be held accountable for a decision they make
If both hold true, then logically, a jury can make a decision against legal precedent, without fear of repercussion - unless they are paid/coerced to come to that conclusion, and the defendant - once cleared by by a jury - cannot be tried again.
This means that legally, a jury can say GTFO to jury instructions set by judges.
The salient question is not whether it exists, but whether it’s a feature or a bug.
If jurors are intended to resolve questions of law, then judges really have no purpose. Just let jurors decide based on how much they like the defendant.
You may as well just do trial by combat instead - equally as just but far more entertaining.
This means that legally, a jury can say GTFO to jury instructions set by judges.
Only when it comes to convictions though, which aren’t appealable. Those decisions can and will be reversed in civil cases or if people convict inappropriately. You mentioned as much by noting double Jeopardy but I still think it’s an important distinction that makes it irregular.
the whole point of a jury is to allow the people to decide the law on individual cases. There are many problems with juries, but complaining about jury nullification just means you don’t like the good parts of having a jury.
Let’s not forget, maybe, just maybe, this guy is absolutely innocent, was nowhere near the crime at the time, and had nothing to do with it.
And the cops, in their over zeal to catch someone, anyone, found a poor unlucky person who looks like the guy in the crime scene photos and handily fabricated the rest of the physical evidence. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
Seriously, a written statement admitting guilt? How likely is that? Anyway, this is what I think is happening. And I doubt the real truth will ever be known, sadly.
Yeah, they were pretty quick to say some random guy in a hoodie was also this same random guy in a hoodie getting coffee. Where is this excellent police work in all the other crimes?
I truly am going to laugh so fucking hard if it is really not him and there is evidence putting him in a completely different location but still near by. They will have spent all this time focusing on the wrong person while the actual killer has made a complete getaway.
All the other crimes didn’t involve the owner class.
Or a judge’s weed wacker.
Not guilty of a crime as stated by a jury of his peers. Has the legal ramification of nullifying laws that a jury says are unjust. It is literally THE last bastion of hope US citizens have for undoing criminal laws.
He’s not guilty of murder. These people just can’t wrap their head around a jury NOT convicting someone with a lot of evidence but never seem to care about convicting people WITHOUT much evidence. Clutch your pearls all you want, if he is found not guilty there are gonna be more not-guilty people.
He’s not guilty of murder.
And how could you possibly know that?
That’s the point of the article. He’s “not guilty.”
Really hope this is fully televised.
Please, please, god don’t put me on the jury. I would hate to hold a murderer accountable for getting in the way of an innocent man’s bullets.
I’ve been on a jury in the last little place I lived and you better believe they made sure it was all employed older white people against a young black man. I was the youngest on at 28. What they did to me is made me sit in a room with these, some probably decent, people, while one guy just talked and talked and lied and told fake stories like long discredited shit while a bunch were like oh yeah and I remember.
Fucking makes me sick. Sick at myself that I was such a little shit at that age that I didn’t tell the old prick to shut the fuck up and stop lying. But what really makes me sick was after sitting in a room for hours with these people is the state’s house slave walks in with cops and says we just walked the guy by, showed him who was going to convict him, and he took the plea deal. Fucking gross. Don’t believe your fucking TV this is how most cases go.
Jury nullification is the term for when a jury declines to convict a defendant despite overwhelming evidence of guilt. This can be a form of civil disobedience, a political statement against a specific law, or a show of empathy and support to the defendant.
“It’s not a legal defense sanctioned under the law,” said Cheryl Bader, associate professor of law at Fordham School of Law. “It’s a reaction by the jury to a legal result that they feel would be so unjust or morally wrong that they refuse to impose it, despite what the law says.”
Over the centuries, American juries have nullified cases related to controversial topics like fugitive slave laws, Prohibition and, in recent decades, the war on drugs.
Giggity.
Jury nullification is also why cops who murder people and klansmen get acquitted. It’s not necessarily a good thing, just a quirk of the system.
Oh it’s definitely a good thing. But sometimes people are bigots. Fortunately most people dont want to let Klansman get aquited.
Juries also have acquitted some abused women who killed or attacked their husbands, such as Francine Hughes, leading to a wider recognition of what’s known as battered woman syndrome.
“Juries recognized that before the law did,” Conrad said. “The law is slow to change. Sometimes society changes much more quickly than the law, and that is when jury nullification should come in … We don’t need to have 18th-century law governing 21st-century behavior, and the jury can say so.”
New phrase added to the American lexicon in 2025 - battered patient syndrome.
All the best to Luigi. Good luck to him.
The jury nullification toolkit:
https://beyondcourts.org/sites/default/files/2022-07/Jury-Nullification-Toolkit-English_0.pdf
“This is not a case of (Mangione) like throwing blood on this guy as he’s walking into the convention,” Bader said, referring to the scene of the shooting outside an investors’ conference in Midtown Manhattan. “If the jury finds that there’s evidence that he ended this man’s life in cold blood, I don’t see the result being an acquittal because of anger toward the health insurance system.”
Dumbass
I don’t see the result being acquittal because of the anger toward the health insurance system.
Feels like Mr. Bader himself might be a little out of touch with just how bad the health insurance system is.
Its hard for rich people to understand. I have no sympathy for their predicament
Why the hell is CNN charging a subscription now? Are people really stupid enough to pay it?
Press the button that makes all that stuff go away so you can just read the article…
do you prefer ads?
Yes, because they can be blocked.
Keeping in mind that I am not debating the merits of CNN specifically — unfortunately in a reality where there are no subscription or similar means to pay for professional journalism, and everyone is blocking ads, these services die. Both the ones you approve of, and the ones you don’t.
I prefer quality journalism, not paying for the shit CNN generally churns out. Are you really suggesting it’s worth paying for CNN? We’re not exactly talking about Deutsche Welle here in terms of journalistic integrity and serious reporting just because they have the occasional decent article.
I think it’s a reasonable response to the ‘why the hell they’re charging a subscription now’ part of your question. Probably not a question you actually wanted an answer to, but regardless of opinions about the quality of their journalism I think it’s important that publishers are investigating alternate ways to monetize their work — publishers want to rely on ads for revenue about as much as readers want to see them. A fragmented subscription model across the whole industry being the right answer seems doubtful, but at least it gives them a revenue stream which doesn’t come with advertiser strings attached. And who knows, maybe it will positively change the content they put out if they garner enough subscribers with high enough expectations to pay.
CNN still has ads.
I am going to cross fingers for it, but wouldn’t the state just resue in a higher court?
I really don’t think that even a dem controlled supreme court would allow it, but a republican one? We will be lucky if Luigi isn’t yahoo-ed
It’s not a law suit. It’s a criminal trial. The principal of double jeopardy says that an acquittal by a jury is final. The defendant can’t be charged over the same crime again. They go free and clear.
Which is why it’s a little crazy that they’re hitting him with both 1st degree murder and 2nd degree murder in one go. If he goes free, wouldn’t this mean they couldn’t try charging him under 1st or 2nd?
He’s got parallel New York state and federal charges going at the same time. Under double jeopardy rules, those are two separate cases, and if he wins one, he can still lose the other.
On the state case, at least, both 1st and second degree are charged. The jury doesn’t decide on 2nd degree unless and until they decide not guilty on 1st degree. The process is:
- Decide 1st degree charge.
- if not guilty on 1st, consider and decide on 2nd degree.
- is not guilty on 2nd degree, consider manslaughter or anything else on the charge sheet…
- etc.
All of that happens after one trial, and it’s all in one deliberation session. If the jury gets through all of that with a not guilty on everything, then the state can’t try again, and they can’t appeal.
Note: I don’t think we have a whole lot of evidence saying that the elite in this case will abide by double jeopardy laws anyway.
Since we’re already in a time where there are two justice systems, there’s nothing to say they can’t charge him in the Court Above and make it legal.
We have watched a man get off completely free and become president despite felonies and breaking the law. What’s to say the court needs to follow that law too?
I really think the elite have no idea how much fire they are playing with here, and we’re about to see it go down, one way or the other. We are in an era of no winners.
Ok this one needs explaining to me as a non American isn’t there different criteria for 1st and second degree?
The charges for murder vary by State. Here’s a New York lawyer explaining Murder 1 vs Murder 2 as it relates to New York State law. Murder 2 is regular premeditated murder. Murder 1 is murder with the intent of influencing or intimidating government ie. Terrorism. The lawyer in this interview suggests the Terrorism charge is, ironically, politically motivated, but it will be difficult to actually prove beyond a doubt that Luigi’s intentions were to change government policies and not just get even with someone he disliked.
In most places murder 1 is premeditated murder and murder 2 is manslaughter. Murder 1 in New York is different.
Wow never heard of m1 being used as terrorism thank you
The jury makes a decision on both separately.
Charging with both gives the jury 2 options. If they don’t think it was premeditated and planned enough to convict on 1st degree, they can choose to convict on 2nd degree instead.If the prosecution only charged him with 1st degree, the jury wouldn’t have any other option. And if acquitted on 1st, he couldn’t be tried again under 2nd degree.
Wouldn’t the state have to present its case for each charge? Like wouldn’t presenting evidence and testimony to show its murder 1 undermine a murder 2 charge?
Typically the higher grades of the same charge incorporate all the elements of the grade below and then some. So if you can prove 1st degree to the jury, 2nd degree is a given.
Sometimes it is the case that different counts need to be proven individually.
In Trumps bribery case, they had to prove 39 instances of falsifying documents. “This is how this individual document was falsified.” x39 times.
So time/money saving excersize? Don’t get 1st saves doing the whole circus again for 2nd
Thanks
wouldn’t the state just resue in a higher court?
No, because the constitution prohibits double jeopardy.
Pls correct me, but you can challenge a ruling for mistrials, can’t you?
And the higher court decides the legitimacy of the prev ruling, right?
Jury nullification means acquittal, and you cannot retry someone after acquittal.
Also prosecutors generally cannot appeal an acquittal.
Non-lawyer but…
If a jury comes to a conclusion then the defendant is not guilty then it’s game over. A mistrial had to be called before deliberation happen, and that would have to have some material misconduct during the trial, not just ‘I think we gonna lose’. A guilty verdict could be appealed but that appeal is only to decide if the case was conducted fairly (for a retrial request) or to assess the validity of a sentence.
Basing it off some time I did a lot of legal/court adjacent work for a few years, but I’m pretty sure that’s right.
Mistrials and appeals only work for a guilty verdict. They aren’t an option for a not guilty verdict.
Assuming the trial results in a hung jury the state can refile the case over and over again - but if the outcome isn’t viewed as a fluke then it’s just a huge waste of money.
To clarify a hung jury and jury nullification are different things. The most likely outcome is probably a hung jury and I’d rate a non-guilty declaration as more likely than a guilty declaration.
