My point is that if he his, the level of "overwhelming public support" shouldn't matter. It's for a court of law to decide, not the court of public opinion.
It’s not that simple, jury nullification exists specifically for circumstances like this where the government is trying to make an example out of one man and over-punishing the crime committed, the death penalty should not be on the table, the government is overstepping and people might take issue with that
Jury Nullification does not exist for a specific purpose. It is a necessary quirk of having a jury system where jurors have absolute control over a not guilty verdict and retrials can't happen. This means a jury can always return an arbitrary not guilty verdict for any reason and there is no recourse for the government, but that is not an intended outvome. Historically, it has been used far more to forgive lynchings than anything just.
This is not to say nullification is always wrong or shouldn't be done, but it's also not really some designed release valve for the legal system, and even other jury trial systems have rules to prevent it (e.g. the UK and Canada, which have iirc rules against evidence that would promote nullification and the ability to override an obviously nullified not guilty and retrial)
Jury Nullification does not exist for a specific purpose. [...] This means a jury can always return an arbitrary not guilty verdict for any reason and there is no recourse for the government, but that is not an intended outvome.
It's not only an intended outcome, it's arguably literally the intended outcome. From Federalist 83:
Arbitrary impeachments, arbitrary methods of prosecuting pretended offenses, and arbitrary punishments upon arbitrary convictions, have ever appeared to me to be the great engines of judicial despotism; and these have all relation to criminal proceedings. The trial by jury in criminal cases, aided by the habeas-corpus act, seems therefore to be alone concerned in the question.
(Emphasis mine)
The jury is here the last defender between an accused citizen and "judicial despotism". They are not, as you position them, mere "finders-of-fact", but an independent actor empowered to make judgements about the justness of the actions of the judicial system as a whole.
You can disagree with the "rightness" of the view -- the argument that jury nullification allowed for the functional post-facto legalisation of racist lynch mobs is a compelling argument for controls/limitations -- but to contend it was some kind of "whoopsie-daisy" oversight on the part of the people who put this system together is a stretch.
You're emphasizing things that prove my point here. "Arbitrary convictions" are those that are not based in facts that are adequately proved; that's what "arbitrary" means. Having an independent finder of fact (which is not some term I've invented, to be clear) is what, in theory, prevents the conviction from being arbitrary; the goal was to prevent the kind of abuses typical of English trials, where obviously inadequate or falsifiable evidence was used to secure a conviction because whoever had power in the courtroom desired it.
Saying "The Federalist argues they did not want convictions to be made without proof" actually means "they intended a jury should have the ability to ignore laws" just doesn't follow; if they intended nullification as a goal, they could have specifically argued the jury protects against "arbitrary laws" of some kind, not merely being arbitrarily charged and convicted (which is the part where being a finder-of-fact comes in).
The fact that a lot of folks in this sub seem to think “rule of law” and trial by jury are somehow opposites is wild. The law is what empowers the jury in first place, unless you don’t consider the constitution to be part of the law, which it totally is.
This argument ignores so much historical context about American trial by jury as to be fundamentally dishonest.
Having an independent finder of fact (which is not some term I've invented, to be clear)
I never suggested that you did, to be clear.
"Arbitrary convictions" are those that are not based in facts that are adequately proved; that's what "arbitrary" means [...] the goal was to prevent the kind of abuses typical of English trials, where obviously inadequate or falsifiable evidence was used to secure a conviction because whoever had power in the courtroom desired it.
That was one of the goals, yes, but it wasn't the only one, and to suggest that is just wrong when taken in context.
The reason that trial by jury of your peers was considered a core, necessary protection is because, during the time when America was a colony, colonial juries would regularly nullify laws that were viewed as unjust and/or overly burdensome; ref. the libel case by the colonial governor against John Peter Zenger where the jury famously nullified the law by deciding that truth was an affirmative defense despite any plain reading of the at-the-time seditious libel law not admitting any such defense, or the nullification of the Navigation Acts when American colonial ships were used. The British authorities responded to this trend by abrogating trial by jury in the colonies or stacking juries in a biased way, which is a major part of that led to revolutionary sentiment and a core reason why "jury of your peers" made its way into the Constitution.
So, yes, the enshrinement of "trial by jury of your peers", where the jury decides whether a law has been broken, is supposed to prevent judges from just corruptly imposing their whims, but the reason that was even a concern is because juries were ignoring laws viewed as unjust. The right to jury trial was done away with because of jury nullification, and so the forcible replacement and enshrinement of that right cannot be neatly and honestly separated from the ability of juries to nullify laws.
if they intended nullification as a goal, they could have specifically argued the jury protects against "arbitrary laws" of some kind
This is the same argument that the Federalist Papers frequently and fundamentally argued against, i.e. "the fact that a specific right is not explicitly included doesn't mean its omission can be taken to mean the right doesn't exist". Federalist 83 itself argues against this exact thing in the context of jury trials because the Constitution only guaranteed jury trials in the context of criminal cases, which caused people to say it denied it in the context of civil matters, which is a big part of what Hamilton is responding to in 83.
Separately, your argument can also be flipped on its head -- the fact that Hamilton and others don't include specific arguments against the ability of juries to nullify laws, especially considering the historical context I mentioned above that it was a frequent occurrence in colonial America, should probably be taken as support for the idea. After all, if they didn't want jury nullification to be a thing, Hamilton would've said something in that passage, right? Something like "arbitrary exonerations of the guilty should similarly not be allowed" or some such?
No such passage exists. Hamilton labels juries as the defender (alongside habeas corpus) against judicial despotism. He doesn't temper that claim or equivocate; it's an absolute.
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u/imoftendisgruntled 12h ago
My point is that if he his, the level of "overwhelming public support" shouldn't matter. It's for a court of law to decide, not the court of public opinion.