פרסומים אחרונים במדור "תרבות והיסטוריה"

jury nullification

By the way: the Scottish jury system has an option for "maybe" - which is not a hung jury ,but can be a unanimous outcome.

nope - I think it's called "undecided"; the defendant walks free, but a shade of stigma still hovers around.

(actually, when I think of it, several people found 'not guilty' are in a similar siatuaion)

About two years ago I worked as a teaching assistant in a Sociology of Law class. The teacher, Prof. Lauren Edelman, found an amazing documentary called "inside the jury room".

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/inf...

In this documentary, the filmmakers got permission to film the deliberations of a jury in a case in which there was enough evidence to find a defendant guilty, but that would lead to extremely unjust consequences. The jury eventually decides to vote "not guilty".

What's interesting about this movie is how the jury deliberates. One can agree, or disagree, with questions of how much they should adhere to law; but it was very evident that there was good, interesting discussion, and that different perspectives, stemming from the jury's different backgrounds, were evident. I guess it's just like Yarden says: both supporters and opponents of the jury system would find these cases supportive.

I have left to recommend Sidney Lumet's fabulous film Twelve Angry Men (starring the magnificent Henry Fonda), and to thank Uri for a very well-written and thought-provoking article. I learned something new today, and for a very high-quality source; thanks!

Well, in this case Ironimus' opinion is supported by the Israeli criminal law, which establishes an identical penalty on premeditated murder. However, even the Israeli law has been amended in recent years to allow for a possibility of diminished responsibility and less than life imprisonment.

Other countries have other systems. In the US, punishment is defined by degrees, between a maximum and a minimum, depending on parole board decisions; this allows for a more complex, but more constrained, system of plea bargaining.

The big question is, of course, whether a social "justification" of a murder should be among the mitigating circumstances; I suppose the bondary between what is "justified" and what accounts for a "clinical problem" are not very clear, particularly when law meets psychology.

Boundaries, not bondary... sorry, folks.