People v. Williams
People v. Williams|
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By now, many of us have doubtless read several accounts of the California Supreme Court's decision in People v. Williams, where Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Paul Teilh's decision to replace a juror who told him he was not willing to follow the law was affirmed--as a duty of the court, no less. One such report appeared in the May 8 Daily Journal, in "High Court Rejects 'Jury Nullification'", by Peter Blumberg. In that same piece, Blumberg also reports on the Court's decision in People v. Cleveland, which held that a hold-out juror should not have been replaced simply because he disagreed with all other jurors about the facts. As Blumberg notes, "Taken together, the two rulings made clear that jurors cannot be removed simply for disagreeing over the evidence, but that they must be removed when they are unwilling to follow the law." But perhaps the prize for summarizing the combined effect of these two decisions in a buzz-phrase has to go to legal affairs writer Claire Cooper of the Sacramento Bee, who said that the Court had "adopted what amounts to a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy on jury nullification." Unfortunately, none of the reports I've read, including Harriet Chiang's story in the San Francisco Chronicle, goes beyond giving the meat of the matter more than a passing glance. The meat, for those to whom the power of the jury to say "no" to bad law represents the last peaceful defense against tyranny, is that this decision, with others of its ilk (such as the 2nd Circuit's decision in U.S. v. Thomas), has nibbled away another piece of the Sixth Amendment. To wit, our nation's founders expected juries to perform an indispensable role in maintaining citizen control of government. Jury verdicts were to constitute a form of public commentary on the law, which would, expectably, differ from information supplied by special interest groups. But every time precedent is set which limits the political role of the jury as the final quality check upon the laws enacted by our elected lawmakers, we move farther away from government of, by, and for the people. Blumberg notes, but does not develop, this issue, when he says ".judges have long denounced jury nullification, which was imported into American jurisprudence from English law as a means of protesting unjust laws." And by golly, it works! In England, in the American colonies, and then later in these United States, juries have demonstrated and still demonstrate a remarkable ability to identify and reject unjust laws. Examples include rejection of laws against freedom of religion in the William Penn trial in 1670, in London; against witchcraft--by over 50 consecutive juries--in Salem, Massachusetts, in the 1690's; against freedom of the press, via the exoneration of John Peter Zenger in New York, in 1735; against human freedom, as northern juries many times rejected the Fugitive Slave Act in the 1850's; against workers organizing into labor unions in the late 1800's; against manufacturing and distributing alcohol in the 1920's and 30's; against draft dodging and protesting by anti-war activists in the 1960's and 70's; and soon, it may be anticipated, against medical and industrial manufacture and use of hemp. It is noteworthy that we nowadays enjoy much more freedom than would have been the case if juries had not come to the aid of our rights, voting the conscience of the community instead of the letter of the law. And despite insistence to the contrary by many a judge and prosecutor, including California Deputy Attorney General Karl Mayer, we do not today enjoy any significant protection from unjust laws other than jury nullification: no other credible "safeguards" against overzealous prosecution exist. Predictably, to justify its latest infringement on the right to trial by jury, the California Supreme Court dragged out the usual whipping boy--bigoted juries which acquitted a number of white defendants of atrocities against blacks in the South during the 1960's. These few aberrations are inevitably dusted off and presented as proof positive that one cannot "allow a defendant's fate to depend upon the whims of a particular jury, rather than upon the equal application of settled rules of law," as Chief Justice Ronald George put it. Conveniently, his pronouncement ignores research which shows that jury verdicts around the nation are more consistent than those of judges, and that juries are very protective of their communities. Also ignored is the fact that the southern juries in question were not only composed entirely of white men, seated without challenge by prosecutors or judges, but were given oaths and the usual "you must follow the law, agree with it or not" instruction. That brings up a final point, made by Prof. Alan Scheflin when he said, "All the court did is say that people should lie to the court." The problem with the bigoted southern juries, in which those who were empaneled clearly lied when asked if they would "fairly and truly" judge the case, will now get worse than ever. For instance, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided there is no medical value to marijuana, and California is still wrestling with prosecutions of those growing and/or marketing it for medical usage under Prop. 215, it's a sure bet that a large percentage of those empaneled on juries for either federal or state prosecutions of marijuana cases are going to say whatever it takes to get on--and stay on--the juries hearing those cases. But perhaps this is to be welcomed, not feared. Why? Precisely because the track record of juries which have chosen to reject the law, and bring in verdicts according to conscience, is so impressive. When the government cannot consistently get convictions under a given law, savvy lawmakers inevitably take note. Their re-election chances depend upon it. It's called democratic process, and no institution (certainly not the electorate) can deliver messages from the citizenry to the legislators with such clarity--and teeth--as the criminal trial jury.
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