Judge overrules Jury in Greenpeace Case

[northzax]

Judge overrules jury in Greenpeace case

CONVICTIONS SET ASIDE: District Court ruling says the evidence didn't back verdicts.

By MEGAN HOLLAND
Anchorage Daily News

Published: August 2nd, 2005
Last Modified: August 2nd, 2005 at 02:09 AM

A Ketchikan judge on Monday set aside guilty verdicts returned by a jury against the activist group Greenpeace and the captain of its boat for violating state environmental regulations during a 2004 visit to Alaska.

District Court Judge Kevin Miller provided little reason for his unusual order acquitting the Greenpeace defendants except that, in his judgment, the evidence did not support the guilty verdicts.

"The decision to remove these verdicts from the province of the jury is one that this court does not take lightly," Miller wrote.

Read more at the Anchorage Daily News

edited to fix title.

[madinmaryland]

1. Here's the link

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/6773730p-6662693c.html

[tk2kewl]

2. Guess this judje didn't get the memo.

[MindPilot]

3. Gotta stop those uppity citizens legislating from the jury box.

This time it looks like it came out in our favor, but I sure don't like the idea of a judge overturning a jury. Next time it may be a judge deciding that the jury was just flat wrong when they failed to convict that pot-smoking AIDS patient.

But then I ain't no lawyer, just a citizen.

[northzax]

4. a judge can't convict someone that a jury acquits

but, in certain cases, the judge can overrule a conviction. Juries, as people, can be swayed by other emotions to convict based on flimsy evidence.

[ElectricHermit]

5. Then

Why bother having a jury at all?

[northzax]

7. cause it's in the Constitution?

it's just one more protection for the defendant. Imagine if a black man faced a white jury for raping a white woman, in say, 1960 Mississippi. That jury might convict him based on unreasonable evidence, not unfair evidence, but unreasonable evidence. The judge can set him free based on the lack of real evidence, the jury never would.

[ElectricHermit]

8. I don't think

Your example is not a good one when compared with this case. In this case the law was clear. It is similiar to driving laws. You must have a license to drive, if you don't you have broken the law.

[northzax]

10. ahh, true, but

if everyone else is given a warning, and this boat, for political reasons, was prosecuted, then you can argue that it's a malicious prosecution.

it's illegal to drive 66 in a 65, but if the only people who get ticketed have Kerry/Edwards stickers on their cars, it's unfair enforcement.

[Indy Lurker]

16. What's the legal term for that?

Is there a legal term for when a law is selectively enforced against a small portion of the population?

[patcox2]

18. Selective enforcement

It never works as a defense, never. If it did, almost all federal crimes would be found to be selectively eonforced.

[Indy Lurker]

20. I was just wondering.

I though tit might some how fall under the "equal protection" clause.

[patcox2]

21. You'd think it would.

I only mentioned it never works as a criticism of our legal system, not of you.

[Orangepeel]

11. the system is set up to err on the side of protecting the accused

it's the whole innocent until proven guilty thing.

[1932]

13. Unlike a jury acquital, one by a judge can be appealed, and if the appeals

court disagrees with the trial court judge, the guilty verdict is reinstated.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

25. Juries? what about a congress? even more useless.

Just what this group of neo conmen are doing.

[MindPilot]

6. Thanks for the information...

I didn't know that.

[jaxx]

9. I didn't know about this either.

Does it happen very often?

[xxqqqzme]

15. more often than U can imagine

In the lawsuit for the auto accident that left me disabled, the jury used evidence that was NOT even mentioned during the trial - my attorneys interviewed the jury afterwards - to decide I wasn't really injured that much. Nevermind my left side was left paralyzed; a torn diaphragm has left me w/ about 50% breath support or the rods in my back from the vertabrae repair that impair my movement.

Yes, it happens all the time.

[damntexdem]

12. Yeah, I'd be outraged by this if it didn't come out the way it did.

Still, what's a judge to do if she or he judges that the evidence doesn't support a conviction? What appears to support bringing an indictment and holding a trial may not, after the trial, support a conviction.

[gratuitous]

14. Kind of weird timing

Certainly it's within a judge's purview to render a judgment notwithstanding the verdict (in legal parlance, a Judgment NOV), but it's rather unusual in any event. At the conclusion of a trial where a judge doesn't think the evidence has warranted a verdict for the plaintiff, he or she will signal the defendants at the conclusion of the case in chief that the court will "entertain any motions the parties wish to make at this time." That cues the defense attorney to move for a dismissal, and the judge will grant it before going through the tedium of sifting through the jury instructions, charging the jury, and sending them off to deliberate.

But in this case, it appears that the jury found the Greenpeace vessel to be in violation of a technical requirement of the law for certain vessels of a certain minimum size when it entered Alaskan waters, but not guilty of that same requirement when it left two days later. The verdict itself appears inconsistent, and the court may have decided to toss the whole thing rather than go through a retrial of what looks to be the maritime equivalent of not carrying proof of insurance.

[Puzzler]

17. Forgive my legal ignorrance...

... but if the evidence did not support the guilty verdicts, then why didn't the judge dismiss the case before it even went to the jury? Or am I missing some fine legal point here?

-P

[patcox2]

19. Very Good Question

I tend to think Judges in that situation are hoping the jury will see it and acquit. They prefer not to ovveride a jury, so he was probably letting it go to the jury in the hope they'd acquit so he wouldn't have to.

[craychek]

22. Answer

You do need some evidence to go to trial, but if that evidence is excluded or rebuted during the trial then it's usless.

Example:

Man is arrested and goes to trial for murder because he had an argument with the victim earlier and some of the victim's blood is found in his car.

Now if a witness comes up and says that the blood is from a cut the victim had recieved when she accidently got her hand caught in the car door last week, and that is corroborated by evidence or another credible witness then that blood is no longer evidence of a crime. If the blood is out there is no longer enough to convict. If the jury convicts anyways based on the arguement the judge can reserve to the right to set aside the verdict since the arguement is really enough evidence to convict the guy.


I hope this helps somewhat

[sintax]

23. Ignorance of what's just

is no excuse for obeying the law.

The laws of the land are there to protect the bankers.

[donheld]

24. I'm greatful for judges like this

:yourock: