I am resolved to put some of my down time here at "the Point" to constructive use by drafting an article on the need for a plea of Not Guilty by Reason of Civil Disobedience in American jurisprudence.
I haven't done any research on this thesis as of yet, but I plan to hit the Perryvilled Community Library next Saturday. I'll post later on my progress.
Below are my tentative arguments for establing a please of Not Guilty by Reason of Civili Disobedience.
I haven't done any research on this thesis as of yet, but I plan to hit the Perryvilled Community Library next Saturday. I'll post later on my progress.
Below are my tentative arguments for establing a please of Not Guilty by Reason of Civili Disobedience.
- It is generally accepted that what is lawful and what is just are not always one in the same.
- The United States has a tradition of venerating those who engage in nonviolent civil disobedience in order to push the letter and spirit of the law toward greater justice.
- The jury box is the most direct, law-abiding means a citizen has to decide whether or not a law and its application are just.
- Juries already make determinations about the motivations and mental states of defendants. Why, then, would they be unable to weigh in on a person's moral convictions and the law the defendant considers unjust?
4 comments:
This is super interesting. I've been researching this as well. I'm not finding too much on the subject. I've found a couple different people saying that the legal system is becoming more tolerant of civil disobedience (when practised by idealists), but I'm not finding an specific examples of this. Someone once told my roommate that he would still be able to practice law if he was convicted of a crime but he claimed civil disobedience, but that sounded like bullshit to me. Let's talk about this soon.
I'm waiting on some books to come into the Perryville Community library before I give you a call. Hopefully this weekend.
john rawls, the only philosopher to have been cited by the supreme court, says this of civil disobedience, "In a democratic society...it is recognized that each citizen is responsible for his interpretation of the principles of justice and for his conduct in light of them. There can be no legally or socially approved rendering of these principles that we are always morally bound to accept." "The civilly disobedient appeal in a special way to (the electorate)." "If justified civil disobedience seems to threaten civic concord, the responsiblity falls not upon those who protest but upon those whose abuse of authority and power justigies such opposition."
-A Theory of Justice, subsection 59
I believe as a member of a jury you are allowed to make decisions based on whatever criteria you deem appropriate. If that means you find a law unjust, then you stick to the not guilty verdict. I'm pretty sure that's what the founders intended with the right to trial by jury. It's the people's only check on the laws our representatives make.
Lawyers simply do a good job of weeding out the truly civil minded (those who would judge a laws justness from the jury box) during the selection process.
To Floo - the supreme court has only cited one philosopher?
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