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What if I promise to serve upon but screw up a jury?

Asked by soethe6 (537points) August 20th, 2007

OK so basically I'm an anarchist. I believe in destabilizing the socio-political system instead of, say, (a) voting for change or (b) engaging in some ridiculous liberal half-measure. But..

But what if I get called for jury duty? I mean let's say a trial for stealing or whatever. I'd love to be completely honest with the lawyers and the judge and whatnot while I'm being questioned about my suitability for the trial. Also, like everybody else, I'd love to get out of jury duty...but that's secondary. So clearly if I said, like a normal citizen, to the judge, "Look, I refuse to work on this jury. I'm too busy with work."...well, then I'd be fined for contempt of court or whatever...for failing to do my duty as a citizen. But what if I say to the judge "I am happy to take the time to do my duty as a citizen. But I feel the my duty as a citizen is to refuse under any circumstances to convict the accused."? Or what if I say, like a real anarchist, "I vow to do my duty as a citizen by staying on this jury and then by voting contrary to the rest of the jury's consensus."? I mean, as an anarchist, I am in this country entitled to express my views and to do everything legal to actualize them, including voting on a jury. So what does a judge do with such a threat? And this isn't that crazy an idea. For example, what if I'm called up on a drug-possession case? There are plenty of non-anarchists who are completely against the drug war...who think that drugs should be legal or that anti-drug prosecution is crazy. So what if I simply say "I don't care what this person was selling and I don't care what the law is because I'm against the drug war; I will under no circumstances convict."? What happens then? Clearly I can't be held in contempt, since I'm happy to serve in good faith on the jury...but at the same time I'm being forthright about the fact that I have a problem with the law generally and will do everything I can, as a juror, to fight it. Thoughts?

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