Comedian *does not* sing a ranchy, lewd song in front of a class of children...

[Andara Bledin]

It's possible that removal of the video was part of the plea.

Also, jury duty is a lot harder to get out of than it used to be. Of course, I know far too much about how the legal system actually works to ever be on one. For instance, I know that a jury doesn't have to find a person guilty even if they know the person did it - they can choose to find them not guilty if they think the person was justified in their actions. Also, how the jury finds isn't a given verdict - it's merely a very strong suggestion. The judge can ignore it entirely if he so chose. I don't actually know of any cases where that has happened, however.

^-.-^

[DrFaroohk]

The extent of my criminal law knowledge comes from Matlock and The Practice. Which I don't believe necessarily discounts EVERYTHING I've heard on there lol...but I remember on The Practice they used something called "Jury nullification" once or twice, which sounds like what you described. They tell the jury "Yeah, my guy killed him, but he had a good reason."

[Andara Bledin]

Yup, that's what jury nullification is, all right - where the jury decides that the law and evidence can be hanged because the person being tried shouldn't end up punished for doing what they did.

I had an awesome teacher in my legal terminology class, and he'd spin stories of how the legal system really worked for a good portion of at least one of the classes each week. It went far beyond merely the terminology, though he was good at giving the words real meanings that would make them easier to remember.

^-.-^

[insertNameHere]

It's possible that removal of the video was part of the plea.



^-.-^

I watched the twenty some minute interview with the song writer, he voluntarily took it down when this all started. It had like 1000 views up from the 400 when he found out people had a problem with it and before that it was at 80.

[draco664]

The extent of my criminal law knowledge comes from Matlock and The Practice. Which I don't believe necessarily discounts EVERYTHING I've heard on there lol...but I remember on The Practice they used something called "Jury nullification" once or twice, which sounds like what you described. They tell the jury "Yeah, my guy killed him, but he had a good reason."

Yup, jury nullification is one of the most powerful methods of preventing a rampant government. The more people who know about it the better, IMO.

[draco664]

But ignorance of the law doesn't excuse you from following it.

It does if you're a lawyer or a cop. They can break the law, claim they didn't know, and get away with it.

[Mr. Anubite]

A few months ago, I saw a documentary on Netflix Instant called "Witch Hunt". I recommend you all go and watch it if you can. It's very similar to this situation.

Basically, dozens of couples had their children taken away and went to jail for years before being found innocent, as a Salem-style hysteria went through the town over imaginary child molestations. Obviously, that's a little more serious than this case (One of those couples spent something like 12 years, but I'm hazy on the exact number), but it paints an accurate picture of the state of our legal system.

[HYHYBT]

Whether something is legally child pornography does not depend on whether actual children were even *involved,* much less with their experience. I don't know whether this video qualifies or not (and without seeing it (and no thanks) I can't even say whether I think it *ought* to or not), but if it does, that the children didn't really hear the song the viewer does changes nothing from that perspective. It ought, at least, to get a lighter sentence.... and he has one.

I don't think they should impose things like that 500-foot limit on ANYONE not shown to be a threat, though

[NateSean]

I think it is bullshit he became a convicted felon over this. There are people who easily get away with raping children, he made a joke video and his life is fucked.

The funny thing is that I went through something very similar.

When I was a junior in high school, Columbine had just happened literally six months earlier followed by the copy cat bomb threats. A classmate in my agricultural science class had a camcorder and we were joking around. He asked me to record my "hitlist".

Well, unfortunately the AV teacher saw it a little later and I spent all day in the principal's office explaining that I did not in fact have a hitlist. And even though I only went through twenty-four hours of that excrutiating BS and I came out all right, imagine if a kid had done that post 9/11. Oh wait, a kid at my old high school made a comment.

He said the terrorists knew how to hit the tower because it's exactly what he would have done. And unlike me almost three years earlier, that kid actually got a trip to the police station for something that someone took out of context.

Again, he was lucky that the Vermont Police weren't holding the idiot ball that day, but the point is there are just some lines you can't cross. There are risks we take in life and there's a chance that they will fuck us up even more than they will benefit us. So if you take that risk and you get burned, you have no one to blame but yourself.

[FArchivist]

The extent of my criminal law knowledge comes from Matlock and The Practice. Which I don't believe necessarily discounts EVERYTHING I've heard on there lol...but I remember on The Practice they used something called "Jury nullification" once or twice, which sounds like what you described. They tell the jury "Yeah, my guy killed him, but he had a good reason."

Which in practice, the moment you mention jury nullification in the courtroom your ass gets beat down by the judge. Especially if you're a defense attorney who tries to use it.

Yup, jury nullification is one of the most powerful methods of preventing a rampant government. The more people who know about it the better, IMO.

And abusive as well.

I'm sorry, but the historical use of jury nullification is not savory. Far from being a tool of freedom, it's main use here in the USA has been to get people off of lynchings, murders, and racketeering. Especially here in the Deep South. If you wonder black people put up for so long with Jim Crow down here, it was because if you protested against it the following sequence would be followed:

1) Person of color doing the protesting gets lynched. Or murdered. Or both.
2) People who did the murder/lynching get charged.
3) Jury nullifies. Evil people go free.

And it wasn't just the KKK or the Knights of Southern Justice. It was also the Dixie Mafia who used jury nullification so well. And that's why I'm glad that the hammer has been brought down on it since the 1960s. A powerful tool that too often and too handily is abused badly.

It does if you're a lawyer or a cop. They can break the law, claim they didn't know, and get away with it.

And that's just plain not true. I don't know where you get it from, but that's false.

[draco664]

And that's just plain not true. I don't know where you get it from, but that's false.

John Thompson was convicted and sentenced to death in a trial where prosecutors repeatedly neglected to hand over excupatory evidence to the defense. He was on death row for 14 years, and just weeks from execution before the evidence surfaced and he was found innocent.

He sued the prosecutors (Harry Connick Snr - the crooner's father) and won a $14million judgement.

The US Supreme Court basically nullified the judgement by finding that the prosecutors could not be sued even if they didn't know the Brady Rule.

So yes, the old mantra "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" *is* in fact an excuse for lawyers.

Edit: Link to judgement

[DrFaroohk]

Actually it's an excuse for anyone with power. I never get to use it, but judges, lawyers, cops, bosses, parents, school principals all get to use it.

I wish I got to duck responsibility for all the shit "I didn't know". Like at my old job - "I didn't know" I was close to my limit on absences. But I got written up anyway. But it wasn't my job to keep track of my absences, it's the HR lady who writes people up. "Well," I asked, "Why didn't I get the warning first I was supposed to get?"

"Oh," they said. "I didn't know." They didn't know I was at my limit, so its not there fault. Even though it's their job to keep track of it. I didn't know I was at my limit. Because its not my job to. guess who still got wriiten up.

[FArchivist]

The US Supreme Court basically nullified the judgement by finding that the prosecutors could not be sued even if they didn't know the Brady Rule.

That's not why the decision of the District Court was overturned. The prosecutor's office in this case failed to follow the Brady rule, but it was not out of ignorance. As the summary states unequivocally, Here, the prosecutors were familiar with the general Brady rule. Thus, Thompson cannot rely on the lack of an ability to cope with constitutional situations that underlies the Canton hypothetical, but must assert that prosecutors were not trained about particular Brady evidence or the specific scenario related to the violation in his case. That sort of nuance simply cannot support an inference of deliberate indifference here. It's made quite plain in the footnote on page 6 that it was not failure to train but a deliberate suppression of evidence, for which Detective Deegan and Asst. DA Riehlmann were summarily disciplined. At any rate, the opinion goes on to state that the Brady was not followed, but the district's opinion of a need for obvious training was incorrect because no pattern of Brady violations had been established. In the words of the opinion, Because we conclude that Thompson failed to prove deliberate indifference, we need not reach causation. Thus, we do not address whether the alleged training deficiency, or some other cause, was the “moving force".

So no, ignorance was not the reason. If you don't believe me, check with an attorney.