andrel wrote:
> Is that anything more than a theory? Is something being a bad law 
> discussed as such within the jury?

Yes. Not often, mind. Mostly drug stuff, or things like interracial marriage 
being illegal. There was probably more of it back in the early days, or 
during times of great upheaval and unpopular laws.

> BTW overthrowing bad laws is very difficult here. Judges are not allowed 
> to test laws against the constitution. In the end they often find a more 
> subtle way.

Yeah. There's nothing in our constitution that says the judges can declare 
something unconstitutional either. On the other hand, it's those judges 
making the decision, too. :-)

>>> It is probably a good way to get a judge angry when you meet him in 
>>> private to suggest that because they are paid by the government that 
>>> they will do what the government wants.
>>
>> So, if you accused the judge of upholding the law because that's what 
>> he's paid for, he'd be upset? 
> 
> I was more thinking of convicting based on weak evidence or sentencing 
> harder because the politicians demand a firmer stand.

Yeah. That's something you don't have to worry about with a jury.

>> Do you have judges that refuse to enforce certain laws because they 
>> don't think the laws are good laws?
> 
> No, they can't. At least not individually.

That's one of the reasons we have juries here. Not that it always works, but 
if you look at the writings of the people writing the constitution, they put 
juries on the list as a balance against the government's power to convict 
people based on bad laws.

> It should not matter if you 
> get judge A or judge B. If two judges or groups of judges in different 
> parts of the country differ to much, that is a reason for an investigation.

Same here.  If two peer judges disagree about how a law should be enforced, 
it gets bumped up to the next level. That's where you see things about "the 
ninth federal circuit passing cases to the supreme court" kind of thing.

>> Of course they do. We do that here too. The judges don't have to 
>> justify their decisions to keep their jobs.
> 
> I though that also judges were elected or am I mistaken?

Some are, some aren't. The federal supreme court judges are appointed for 
life by the president of the USA. State judges are all over. Usually trial 
judges are just hired by the appropriate part of the government, I think. 
It's only the judges that make binding precidents that get elected, if at 
all.  (For example, I voted for one judge in the last election here, so some 
get elected, but clearly not all.)

Note that laws don't change meaning here unless an appeal is filed.  If you 
get off for crime X in the first trial, it means nothing for me going into a 
trial for the same crime. But if you appeal something, and the appeal judge 
makes a decision, every trial judge that appeals to the same judge is 
supposed to follow that same decisions. That's the precident. Which I'm 
spelling wrong. :-)

> So the police could safely report back that 
> there was actually no problem.

I'd *still* rather have that than having the chief of police say "Oh, we 
stop and question all black teenagers we see, because we want them to be 
afraid of us." :-)

> At least you now knew where they learned to talk like that.

Exactly. It was the whole casualness of the stream of cusswords that was 
amusing. Not that it bothers me in the least, but it was amusing.

>>> 'we know it is illegal, but as long as the council has not appointed 
>>> a place for him to park we won't do anything about it. 
>>
>> I'd think you'd need some civil way (as in, not involving the police) 
>> to enforce that sort of thing, then.
> 
> Our police is very civil. It is the normal next step to prevent 
> something like this to escalate.

Sorry. The word "civil" in legal situations here doesn't mean "nice", it 
means "person to person."  So if the police arrest you, it's "criminal." If 
you sue someone for slander, it's "civil".

> And you get a number of funny programs of everything that went wrong as 
> a bonus. It might even make a small profit for the police departments if 
> they sell it at the right prize.

Heh!

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no
   CD I knoooow!

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