While this is certainly true, prosecutors are also subject to economic warfare. Prosecutorial budgets are limited, there are plenty of actual crimes to pursue, leadership is political, and often elected, and wasting budgets on unwinnable cases enforcing unpopular laws while letting actual, serious crimes fall by the wayside is a great way to get budgets cut, get careers stunted, and lose the public’s respect and support.
My father was a prosecuting attorney, and he would agree with @Kii and Sheriff Salazar’s statements.
There is a much better use of time and resources than enforcing useless, punitive laws.
To the extent that people supporting the overturn have thought about the matter, I think it’s assumed that anti-abortion laws mostly won’t be enforced, like anti-loitering laws or any other law against an activity that huge segments of the population participate in. Charges brought occasionally by true believers or panderers will serve to harass the defendants and frighten everybody else.
Agreed. Total bullshit question. Mercy is supposed to be part of our law system because the point is supposed to be justice. Sometimes justice is letting someone get away with breaking the law. Like someone who stole food because their family needed it or actual unjust laws!
IANAL, but aren´’t those also part of the law making it possible to answer ‘no,’ but having a more broad interpretation of what counts as an insignificant crime or an excessive punishment?
I’m also not from us, so i might be mixing what i already heard of yours judicial system with mine.
Unfortunately the concept of justice has been really weakened in the US legal system. For too many people, it’s about punishment and the letter of the law. Just like the concept of police serving and protecting the public has been removed from policing.
Exactly. Those who have the means will be able to get around the law, and most everybody else won’t be able to afford the cost or the risk. And providing abortions will be a high-risk activity.
Exactly. Even before Dobbs this was playing out in Texas. Medical providers afraid of the consequences altering care plans away from best practices. The fear of being prosecuted or sued is a big goal for these laws, because it translates directly into lack of care
I have this sense that no matter what a jury decides, the judge can overrule it. It’s the judge’s prerogative. Is that true? Or not? If true, then it really makes me want to just avoid jury duty entirely because, why waste my time if it doesn’t really mean anything?
FWIW: One of the times I had jury duty, a lawyer brought this up during voir dire. (A little later the defendant pled guilty so we all got sent home anyway, before the trial actually started. In the 3 times I’ve been called up since then, I’ve never even made it that far.)
I actually wondered if JN was really a thing, or more like Sovereign Citizenship.
During the aforementioned voir dire one juror described that he thought it should be this way (i.e. let professional jurists decide, not some random laypersons drawn from a lottery). He was dismissed (before the rest of us were)…
Again, this is not my area so I could be wrong.
In certain very rare circumstances a judge can overrule a jury. Usually only seen in civil trial, like the judge thinks the award is too little or too much.
A judge cannot judge a criminal defendant guilty after a jury acquits. More info
Well, that assumes that they don’t charge, try to convince the victim/defendant to take a plea (which happens almost all the time now), and then just drop the charges if they actually have to go to trial.
See the recent SCOTUS decision that even if you’re on death row and you find evidence conclusively proving your innocence, you can’t use it in an appeal unless there were procedural problems with your previous trial(s).
Again, I think the thesis was (and not saying I agree or not- I don’t have any idea) that the threat of trial will be enough to prevent many charges sticking on these laws. The PD can say “screw your plea, we’re taking this to trial and you know you’ll lose because 60% of the jury is totally against this law”. The DA knows the PD will say that, so they don’t bother charging. DAs offer pleas to get convictions when they know the defendant doesn’t want to go trial, or after they’ve charge-stacked enough to scare them away from trial. The unique situation here is that possibly nothing can scare people away from a trial because the jury is virtually guaranteed to be on your side.
Again, not saying I think this will happen. I’m just interpreting the OP since a lot of folks seem to be glossing over the point here.
