Social Security Number scam - I can't believe that people would fall for this, but there are people out there sending an E-mail that says the four major credit bureaus are planning on releasing credit information to anyone that asks them for it. And if you don't want that to happen you can opt out, but guess what number you have to give them? You guessed it. The kind soul who sends the E-mail concludes by offering: "I received their paperwork in the mail confirming my 'opting out'' within less than one week of making the call." Yeah, and I'll bet credit cards and other information is accessed by wrongdoers in less than a week.
11:37:36 AM
Jury Nullification - this is not something I have dealt with in my practice, being a civil lawyer. Basically, jury nullification is the power of a jury to refuse to convict someone even though the evidence supports a conviction. Howard Bashman has a good post on this, and Glenn Reynolds has some comments too. I have to admit that when I first learned of this power I was shocked and didn't believe that juries should have such power. But, as professor Reynolds points out, prosecutors have tremendous discretion to not seek an indictment in cases that they deem it appropriate. And God knows that prosecutors have, along the way, used their tremendous power to seek indictments in cases where good judgment dictated otherwise.
I guess I'd have to study the cases where juries used this power (which apparently they are never informed that they possess, so it's not likely to have been used in many cases) to feel comfortable rendering an opinion. But my inclination is that it is probably a power that has been used for more good than bad. I agree with professor Reynolds that the O.J. Simpson case has nothing to do with jury nullification; that was a case where the prosecution made serious mistakes, and the judge didn't properly control the proceedings (and the media hype didn't help either). I'll bet that if you study the true "nullification" cases you'll find a few where the defendant was guilty of some crime in a technical sense, but there were extenuating circumstances that militated in favor of acquital and the jury did just that. In such cases I think that jury nullification serves an important purpose. The jury, after all, is there to assess the facts not robotically, but with a proper frame of mind: free of bias and passion, but guided by the conscience of the community in which they live.
8:12:34 AM
