Notebook per
The Duty to Disregard the Law
Citation (APA): Huemer, M. (2015). The Duty to Disregard the Law [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com
Parte introduttiva
Nota - Posizione 2
Nullification: rifiuto di applicare la legge da parte della giuria x questioni morali, una specie di obiezione di coscienza. Oggi si tende a contestare esiti del genere ma gli argomenti contro la n. sono molto deboli... Un caso di n.: Zengler criticò aspramente un politico ma, nonostante le accuse fossero vere, venne condannato perchè minava la pubblica fede (reato previsto). La giuria lo assolse adducendo che la norma fosse eticamente scorretta. Nacque così la libertà di stampa... Prima della guerra civile molte giurie e molti giudici si rifiutarono di condannare chi ospitava fuggiaschi di colore. È nato anche così l'antischiavismo... Nell'era proibizionista molti produttori clandestini vennero assolti in barba alle leggi vigenti... Recentemente registriamo assoluzioni in materia di eutanasia e droghe, anche in presenza di leggi proibizioniste... L'opinione giuridica sulla n. è chiara e charamente avversa ma qui affrontiamo il tema da un punto di vista etico... Tutti ammettono l'esistenza di leggi ingiuste, ci si chiede se si possa (o si debba) violarle... Lo stato dell'arte: il diritto/dovere dell'obiezone sta diventando la posizione ortodossa. Anche chi postula un dovere di obbedienza lo postula solo prima facie... Caso concreto: passeggi x la strada con un amico drag queen quando t'imbatti in un'inquitante gang di bulli omofobi che ti chiedono se il tuo amico è frocio, dal che capisci le loro intuizioni punitive... @@@@ da qui in poi prosegue su Caplan e Somin@@@
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 2
The Duty to Disregard the Law
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 5
I argue that, pursuant to the general ethical duty to avoid causing unjust harms to others, jurors are often morally obligated to disregard the law.
Nota - Posizione 6
TESI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 6
1. The Question of Nullification
Nota - Posizione 6
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 10
The prosecutor had argued that the factual accuracy of Zenger’s allegations was irrelevant to the charge of libel; indeed, it was worse to publish accurate criticisms of public officials than false ones, because accurate criticisms were more likely to undermine public confidence in the government. The judge instructed the jury that the prosecutor was correct as to the law: British law did not recognize truth as a defense to a charge of libel. Therefore, the judge all but ordered the jury to find the defendant guilty. But the jury defied the judge and the law and returned a verdict of not guilty. Zenger was freed, and the American tradition of freedom of the press was born.
Nota - Posizione 15
IL CASO ZENGER. AVEVA CRITICATO UN GOVERNATORE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 16
jury chooses to disregard the law and vote on the basis of their conscience. Sometimes, the jury considers the law itself unjust;
Nota - Posizione 17
LEGGI INGIUSTE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 19
Before the American Civil War, northern juries frequently voted to acquit defendants who were prosecuted for assisting runaway slaves. During the Prohibition era, juries frequently acquitted defendants for alcohol crimes. More recently, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was acquitted three times of charges of assisted suicide.
Nota - Posizione 20
PRECEDENTI
Nota - Posizione 21
TRE CASI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 22
Judicial opinion, however, tends to be aggressively opposed to the practice of jury nullification.
Nota - Posizione 23
GIURISTI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 30
2. Nullification and Duties of Justice
Nota - Posizione 30
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 30
2.1. Some Illegal Acts Are Morally Blameless
Nota - Posizione 30
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 30
The kind of jury nullification with which I am concerned occurs when a defendant is prosecuted for an act that was illegal but morally blameless. Almost everyone admits that there are such acts.
Nota - Posizione 32
ESISTENZA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 32
German citizens illegally hid Jews
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 32
In the pre-Civil War era, some Americans illegally helped slaves
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 33
During the 1960’ s, some Americans illegally burned their draft cards in protest of the Vietnam War.
Nota - Posizione 34
CASI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 39
Philosophers attempting to defend a general duty to obey the law have found the task extremely difficult, and the most influential traditional account of this duty, the social contract theory, is now widely recognized as untenable.
Nota - Posizione 40
TEORIE DEL CONTRATTO SOCIALE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 43
even those who defend the notion of a general duty to obey the law defend only a prima facie duty, and not one that appears extremely strong. The duty to obey the law has been said, for example, to arise out of an obligation to avoid free riding, to treat other citizens as equals, or to promote just institutions in one’s society.
Nota - Posizione 45
PRIMA FACIE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 48
2.2. The Duty to Refrain from Causing Unjust Harm
Nota - Posizione 48
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 48
Imagine that you are walking down a public street with a flamboyantly-dressed friend, when you are accosted by a gang of gaybashing hoodlums. The leader of the gang asks you whether your friend is gay. You have three alternatives: you may answer yes, refuse to answer, or answer no. You are convinced that either of the first two choices will result in a beating for your friend. However, you also know that your friend is in fact gay. Therefore, how should you respond? This is hardly an ethical dilemma. Clearly, you should answer no.
Nota - Posizione 51
ESEMPIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 55
The case illustrates a simple and uncontroversial ethical principle: it is prima facie wrong to cause another person to suffer serious undeserved harms.
Nota - Posizione 56
PRINCIPIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 57
The duty to avoid contributing to serious, unjust harms may perhaps be overridden in extreme cases, but it is not easily overridden.
Nota - Posizione 58
OVERWHELMING
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 60
2.3. The Simple Argument for Nullification
Nota - Posizione 60
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 70
there is a simple and obvious argument for jury nullification: 1. It is prima facie wrong to cause unjust harm to others. 2. To convict a defendant for a morally blameless violation of law is to cause unjust harm to that defendant, for: a. To convict a defendant is to cause the defendant to be punished. b. One does not deserve punishment for a morally blameless act. c. Undeserved punishment is an unjust harm. 3. Therefore, it is prima facie wrong to convict a defendant for a morally blameless violation of law. This argument establishes not only an entitlement but a duty of jury nullification in cases of blameless law-violations.
Nota - Posizione 73
ARGOMENTO X NN RISPETTARE LA LEGGE
Nota - Posizione 74
DOVERE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 77
3. The Rickety Case against Nullification
Nota - Posizione 77
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 85
3.1. Violation of the Juror’s Oath
Nota - Posizione 85
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 85
In the United States, jurors are usually required to swear an oath promising to apply the law as given them by the judge. Jury nullification violates that oath.
Nota - Posizione 86
VIOLAZIONE DELLA PROMESSA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 88
To begin with, it is normally permissible to break a promise when necessary to prevent serious and undeserved harms to another person.
Nota - Posizione 89
QUANDO È GIUYSTIFICATO VIOLARE LA PROMESSA? DANNI A TERZI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 89
suppose you have promised to pick a friend up from the airport, but on the way, you encounter an injured accident victim in need of medical assistance. It would be permissible, if not obligatory, to assist the accident victim,
Nota - Posizione 91
ESEMPIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 92
Second, a promise prompted by a threat of unjust coercion is typically not ethically binding. 10 If a gunman threatens to shoot you unless you promise to pay him $ 1,000, that promise will have no moral force.
Nota - Posizione 93
PROMESSA FON MINACCIA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 96
even when a promise is initially valid, it is permissible to break the promise if doing so is necessary to forestall a threat of unjust harm from the person to whom the promise was made.
Nota - Posizione 98
DANNI A TERZI INDIRETTI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 99
suppose I have voluntarily promised to lend you my rifle next weekend. Before the week-end arrives, you credibly inform me that you intend to use the rifle to murder several people.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 114
Imagine that the gang leader not only asks whether your friend is gay but also asks you to swear that your answer on this point will be truthful.
Nota - Posizione 115
VARIAZIONE SULL ESEMPIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 124
3.2. Against the Rule of Law
Nota - Posizione 125
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 125
The most common charge against jury nullification is that the practice is “lawless” or violates “the rule of law.”
Nota - Posizione 125
ACCUSA: VIOLATA LA LEGGE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 132
Jury nullification decreases the predictability of trial outcomes, and it results in some defendants being treated unequally:
Nota - Posizione 133
INCRRTEZZA DEL DIRITTO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 139
When a juror is faced with a defendant prosecuted for blameless lawbreaking, it is very difficult to sympathize with the idea that the juror should vote to inflict unjust harm on this individual in order to ensure uniformity
Nota - Posizione 140
COMPRENSIONE DIFFICILE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 141
the justice system is rife with both unpredictability and subjective judgment, quite apart from jury nullification.
Nota - Posizione 142
PRIMA DELLE TRE RAGIONO VS ARG. RULE OF LAW. LE INCERTEZZE RESTEREBBERO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 148
it is absurd to prefer that all members of some group suffer severe and unjust harms rather than that only some do, merely on the grounds that the uniform imposition of injustice is more predictable or egalitarian than nonuniform injustice.
Nota - Posizione 150
NN È CORRETTO COLPIRE L INNOCENTE X BENEFICIARE ALRI CON LA CCFERTEZZA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 150
Suppose you know from recent newspaper reports that several gay people have already been beaten by homophobic hoodlums. When you encounter the gaybashing gang, should you instruct the gang to beat your friend, so as to ensure uniformity of treatment?
Nota - Posizione 151
ANALOGIA GANG
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 156
The function of a criminal trial is to do justice by that defendant– that is, to punish the defendant in the case at hand if and only if he has done something that deserves punishment.
Nota - Posizione 158
FUNZIONE DEL PROCESSO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 160
suppose you also believe that, for whatever reason, most other juries, in similar circumstances, would vote to convict the defendant. No one would argue that in such a situation, you should vote to convict the apparently innocent defendant so as to ensure greater predictability or uniformity in the criminal justice system as a whole.
Nota - Posizione 162
ANALOHIA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 167
3.3. The Potential for Abuse
Nota - Posizione 167
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 168
During America’s more racist past, southern juries, out of sympathy for the defendants, sometimes voted to acquit those guilty of hate crimes.
Nota - Posizione 169
ESEMPIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 178
Consider again the example of the gang of hoodlums. Suppose that you are just about to lie to the gang, when it occurs to you that many people have lied for bad reasons. In fact, surely there have been more cases of corrupt lying in human history than there have of morally justified lying.
Nota - Posizione 179
ANALOGIA GANG
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 181
A closely related objection to nullification holds that, if juries may nullify the law to the benefit of the defendant, they may also nullify the law to the detriment of the defendant– for instance, a jury may decide to convict a defendant because of personal antipathy
Nota - Posizione 183
OBIEZIONE SPECULARE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 185
the logic of this argument is very difficult to make out.
Nota - Posizione 185
LOGICA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 187
@ If one may lie to save a friend from unjust violence, then one may also lie to defraud innocent people of their savings.
Nota - Posizione 187
ESEMPIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 193
3.4. Alternative Remedies
Nota - Posizione 193
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 193
Some critics, while acknowledging that unjust laws exist, argue that the proper remedy is to change the law
Nota - Posizione 194
CAMBIARE LA LEGGE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 195
the recommendation of attempting to change the law through political activism is a non sequitur, since political activism and jury nullification are mutually compatible.
Nota - Posizione 196
COMPATIBILITÀ
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 200
an individual jury member’s probability of successfully changing public policy is approximately zero.
Nota - Posizione 200
VOTO ZERO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 203
even if an individual juror had the option of repealing the law, that repeal would come too late for the particular defendant
Nota - Posizione 204
TROPPO TARDI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 226
3.6. The Undemocratic Nature of the Jury
Nota - Posizione 226
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 228
Critics, however, complain that juries are often unrepresentative of the community, that they are accountable to no one, and that their decisions are unreviewable.
Nota - Posizione 229
TROPPO POTERE X UN ORGANO NN DEMO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 231
the naive assumption that legislation invariably represents shared values simply in virtue of the existence of democratic elections ignores the extensive literature in public choice theory.
Nota - Posizione 232
LA DEMO NN RAPPRESENTA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 236
Second, even when the law reflects public opinion in general, the great mass of the public is ignorant of the specifics of any given criminal case.
Nota - Posizione 237
SE RAPPRESENTA RAPPR UNA MASSA DI IGNOR
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 239
Third, the requirement of unanimity among twelve individuals all familiar with the facts of a given case provides a far more rigorous check against unjust punishments than a simple principle of majority rule.
Nota - Posizione 241
QUALITÀ DEL CONTROLLO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 248
Fourth and most importantly, majority will does not make an unjust act just. The historical examples of grave injustices carried out with the imprimatur of the majority are too well-known to require enumeration here.
Nota - Posizione 249
LA MAGGIORSNZAVNN FS ILVGIUSTO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 256
The fact that juries in general may be unreliable at determining what is just, if indeed they are, is likewise irrelevant. What is relevant to the ethical duty of the individual juror is whether this defendant has done wrong for which he deserves to be punished.
Nota - Posizione 258
IL PROBLEMAXETICO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 261
4. Conclusion
Nota - Posizione 261
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 281
I have focused herein on the question of individual ethics, setting aside the political question of to what extent the state ought to encourage or discourage jury nullification. In closing, I want to briefly remark on that political question. It seems to me that, once we recognize the moral duty in certain cases to disregard the law, it is very difficult to maintain that public institutions ought to officially oppose jury nullification.
Nota - Posizione 284
LAZQUESTIONE POLITICA
