Is it contempt of court to indicate in voir dire you will never find someone guilty of a drug crime In a trial involving drug charges During voir dire a juror volunteered the statement “I believe criminalizing drugs is morally wrong and will never convict someone of drug crimes.” Is this contempt of court? What if a lawyer asked “is there a reason you would be biased in this case about a drug dealer?” Does this change the answer. Assume all charges are non-violent drug related charges.
Contempt of court is when you refuse to do what the court (judge) orders you to do. Actually, you have been instructed by the judge to answer questions truthfully, so if asked, you are supposed to state your beliefs. Volunteering an unwillingness to apply the law as instructed is always an option, and will get you excused from that jury for cause.
The question of double jeopardy is not for a jury to consider. It is a question of law that is decided by the judge. In this case, Rittenhouse is charged, among other counts, with first-degree reckless homicide. If he is found guilty on a lesser charge, he will have been acquitted of first-degree reckless homicide, and he will not be able to be retried on that charge by the state of Wisconsin. (If the trial is invalidated to the extent that jeopardy never &quot;attached,&quot; for example if it is found that the judge had been bribed to prevent conviction, then a new trial could be brought.) Once jeopardy attaches, there can be no additional trials for the same crime, and any subsequent attempts at prosecution should be dismissed by the court long before a jury is selected. By contrast, if a court determines that a trial does not constitute double jeopardy and a jury is seated, the jury will not consider the possible existence of double jeopardy; the only way to challenge a trial judge's decision on that question would be through the appeals process. If the trial jury in the original trial cannot decide unanimously to acquit on a particular charge then it is a hung jury,and indeed that may result in a mistrial on only those counts on which the jury has deadlocked. From Wikipedia, quoting the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure: If the jury cannot agree on a verdict on one or more counts, the court may declare a mistrial on those counts. A hung jury does not imply either the defendant's guilt or innocence. The government may retry any defendant on any count on which the jury could not agree. States, however, may approach this slightly differently.
I have encountered this problem in Pennsylvania. The PA Code requires a District Attorney to approve all private criminal complaints. If the DA declines to prosecute, then an affiant can petition the Court of Common Pleas to review the decision. However the affiant bears the burden of convincing the court that the DA abused his descretion in declining to prosecute, which is a pretty high hurdle. In the United States the only other legal appeal I am aware of is through federal courts under broad federal laws like 18 USC 242 or 42 USC 1983.
Yes, there is a good chance. Ordinarily, the law as written is what is enforced. On occasion, the wording of the law is actually ambiguous, or vague, which means that the jury will need an instruction as to how to interpret the law. In fact, juries are not literally read the statute, they are given a set of decision-making instructions so that they can decide "If we find X, we must acquit; if we find Y we may convict". Your attorney will, if he is diligent, note the problem and strive for an instruction that favors the client. (The prosecution will of course object). Eventually, on appeal, a court will decide what the law "really means", and that decision might be strictly based on the letter of the law, or it might be based on a supposed spirit of the law, i.e. what the legislature "originally intended". That outcome is determined in part by the jurisprudential ideology of the prevailing justices of the appeals court. Usually, letter of the law prevails until a higher court rules that a particular "spirit" is what was originally intended.
Yes. This is legal. See, e.g. SPARF v.U.S. 156 U.S. 51 (1895); U.S. vs Moylan, 417 F 2d 1002, 1006 (4th Cir. 1969); U.S. v. Krzyske, 836 F.2d 1013 (6th Cir. 1988) (&quot;the jury asked the judge about jury nullification. The judge responded, &quot;There is no such thing as valid jury nullification.&quot; The jury convicted the defendant. On appeal, the majority and the dissent agreed that the trial judge's instruction was untrue, but the majority held that this false representation was not a reversible error.&quot;). Indeed, procedurally, the system is specifically designed to prevent courts from even considering such a question. See also, e.g. People v. Iannicelli, 2019 CO 80, § 2 (Colo. 2019) (holding no crime was committed) (&quot;Defendants Mark Iannicelli and Eric Brandt stood in the plaza square adjacent to the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse in Denver and asked people entering the courthouse whether they were reporting for jury duty. If any of these people answered affirmatively, then Iannicelli and Brandt would hand them one or more brochures discussing the concept of jury nullification, which the brochures defined as the process by which a jury in a criminal case acquits the defendant regardless of whether he or she has broken the law in question. As a result of this conduct, the People charged Iannicelli and Brandt with multiple counts of jury tampering&quot;) This is deeply entwined with the U.S. law interpretation of the Fifth Amendment Double Jeopardy Clause's protections, which prohibit a retrial or appeal following a judgment of acquittal, which have been incorporated by the U.S. Supreme Court as applicable in state courts as well.
I do not believe that Idaho has such a law. This is not the end of the analysis, however. It isn't clear that saying you do not have a conviction, when in fact, you have a conviction that was dismissed, is a permissible ground for an Idaho employer to, for example, justify the termination of your employment for an improper reasons (e.g. national origin) when the employer, after the fact, discovers that you have a conviction that you did not disclose because it was dismissed. An Idaho court could easily rule that the non-disclosure of a conviction which was dismissed was not a material fact upon which an Idaho employer could justify terminating your employment when it was discovered after the fact. Likewise, fraud prosecutions generally require a misrepresentation to be made regarding a &quot;material&quot; fact, and not just any fact. In the same vein, while misstating your middle name might be a misrepresentation, it might not be an actionable misrepresentation of a material fact.
A lawyer for either party can claim, during argument, that an adverse witness is not credible, for any reason or none. Often the lawyer will point to matters disclosed during cross-examination, claiming that they are contradictions, show bias, or otherwise indicate lack of credibility. Or the lawyer could point to elements of the primary testimony which the lawyer claims are implausible. If there has be evidence of a prior conviction, the lawyer could refer to this. A lawyer may in general ask a witness about prior convictions. Criminal convictions are generally matters of public record, and can be researched. It is not usual to present reputation or credibility witnesses for any person except the defendant, and failure to do so, even for the defendant, does not lead to any automatic assumption of lack of credibility. Not does the appearance of such a witness grant an automatic assumption of credibility. But a lawyer may point out reasons for thinking a witness not credible. Ultimately it is up to the finder of fact, often a jury, to decide what weight to give the testimony of each and every witness, based on the impression that testimony made, as well as any argument from the lawyer. This is one reason why courts are reluctant to overturn factual assessments by a jury: the reviewing court does not see and hear the manner of a witness and what it may indicate about credibility.
It is certainly not the case that all accused plead not guilty. Some plead guilty, often as part of a plea bargain. Some plead &quot;no contest&quot; meaning that the accused does not admit guilt, but will not argue the point in court. For many purposes this has the same effect as a guilty plea, but may matter later when the accused can truthfully say that no guilt was ever admitted. I think there are some other less common pleas available as well. It is not uncommon for an accused to plead not-guilty at first, and later complete an agreement with the prosecutor and change the plea to guilty, perhaps on only one accusation or some subset of accusations. This would often be in connection with some sort of plea bargain. In general, if there is any doubt about wanting to contest the accusation, an initial plea of not-guilty will be made by the accused, because this is fairly easy to change to a plea of guilty later, while changing a plea of guilty to not-guilty is much harder, and is not always allowed. I do not know what reasons there might be in the specific case mentioned, but I caution that news reports on such matters are not always accurate.