Just say no to marijuana convictions BaltimoreSun / Tony Newman / 12,27,2011 Should juries vote "not guilty" on low-level marijuana charges to send a message about our country's insane marijuana arrest policy? Jury nullification is a constitutional doctrine that allows juries to acquit defendants who are technically guilty but who don't deserve punishment. As Paul Butler wrote recently in The New York Times, juries have the right and power to use jury nullification to protest unjust laws. Mr. Butler points out that nullification was credited with ending our country's disastrous alcohol Prohiion as more and more jurors refused to send their neighbors to jail for a law they didn't believe in. He says we need to do the same with today's marijuana arrests. There is growing recognition that today's drug laws are ineffective and unfair. For the first time, a recent Gallup Poll found that 50 percent of Americans want to legalize the use of marijuana. Despite half of our country wanting to end marijuana prohiion, the war on marijuana users is as vicious as ever. There were more than 750,000 arrests last year for possession. In New York City, marijuana possession was the No. 1 reason people were arrested last year, making up 15 percent of all arrests. People hoping for change should not expect it to come from our "leaders" in Washington. While most of our elected officials know in their hearts that our drug war is an utter failure that fills our prisons while doing nothing to help people struggling with addiction, there is deafening silence when it comes to offering alternatives to the war on drugs. Democrats and Republicans are both cowardly and opportunistic and don't want to give up their "tough on crime" credentials. Here is where jury nullification comes in. If our leaders aren't going to stop the madness, maybe it is up to our peers to say enough is enough. In Montana last year, a group of five prospective jurors said they had a problem with someone receiving a felony for a small amount of marijuana. The prosecutors, freaked out about the "Mutiny in Montana," feared they would not be able convince12 jurors in the state to convict. The judge was reported in the Times as saying, "I've never seen this large a number of people express this large a number of reservations," adding, "it does raise a question about the next case." Perhaps the highest-profile call for jury nullification for drug offenses is from the creators of the HBO hit series "The Wire." Former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon and the other creators of "The Wire" wrote a passionate piece in Time magazine in which they called on Americans to join them in the use of jury nullification as a strategy to slow the drug war machine. From the article: "'A long ha of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right,' wrote Thomas Paine when he called for civil disobedience against monarchy - the flawed national policy of his day. In a similar spirit, we offer a small idea that is, perhaps, no small idea. It will not solve the drug problem, nor will it heal all civic wounds. … It doesn't resolve the myriad complexities that a retreat from war to sanity will require. All it does is open a range of intricate, paradoxical issues. 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." Forty years after President Richard Nixon launched the "war on drugs" the casualties continue to mount with no end in sight. We need to step up our efforts to end this war at home and stop sending our loved ones to cages because they have a drug problem. We have more power than we realize. If the people lead, the leaders will follow. Tony Newman is the director of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance (Drug Policy Alliance ). His email is tnewman@drugpolicy.org. When this happens several times it will force congress to address the laws,especially if it happens in a Federal court.
Jury nullification is so important for our cause. It may very well be the thing that brings the drug war to a screeching halt. Anyone who does not know what jury nullification is should take the time to read up on it. Don't wait until you've been asked to sit on a jury to try to figure it out. Judges are under no obligation to explain it to you, and won't. It is a prosecutor's worst nightmare.
If everyone would simply start refusing to convict marijuana offenders you can bet it would bring about change. That's one of the things that brought the end of alcohol prohibition.
I will never make it to the jury box,,DA's strike any person that has had an indictment,especially on a drug charge,,they don't want people knowledgeable about trials,police tactics or law. But if you are ever on a marijuana trial and your fellow jurors refuse to nullify,,you refuse to convict,lock the jury up and cause a mistrial,they cannot make you convict. Unless they have a large seizure case riding on the conviction,the DA will probably not try the person again.
Very true. You gotta utilize your rights even if everyone else is against you. If you feel what your doing is right, ya gotta do it.
Damn, I got charge so many times because I didn't know the law. And I got caught with small amounts each time. If only I opted for a jury, then perhaps I would not have needed to spend so much money on a lawyer!
If I ever get picked for jury duty in a marijuana trial, you know I'll refuse to give a guilty vote unless there's more to the crime than simply someone that wanted to smoke a bowl. Wish more people would do so.