D.C. jurors are bucking the U.S. attorney. That's patriotism in action. - Butler WaPo

D.C. residents have less right to self-government than citizens in the 50 states, but here’s a shout-out to my fellow Washingtonians on the federal grand jury. When they got a little power, they used it to resist the Trump’s administration’s attempted takeover of our criminal legal system.

(snip)

In August, a video went viral of a D.C. man named Sean Dunn calling federal police officers “fascists” and throwing a sandwich at one of them near the corner of 14th and U streets NW. Dunn was arrested, and the feds seem to have decided to make an example out of him. Attorney General Pam Bondi called Dunn, who worked as a Justice Department paralegal, part of “the Deep State” and “FIRED” him (the caps are hers). A few days later, 20 officers in riot gear, accompanied by a White House film crew, rearrested Dunn at his home. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for D.C., posted on X: “Stick your Subway sandwich somewhere else.”

Pirro said “we charged him with a felony,” but in D.C., under the U.S. Constitution, only a grand jury can formally do that. Probable cause, the requirement for bringing charges, is the lowest burden of proof in the U.S. legal system. Unlike the unanimous verdict required for criminal conviction, a grand jury, which consist of 16 to 23 people, needs just 12 votes to indict. Prosecutors couldn’t get them.

(snip)

Roger Fairfax, dean of the Howard University School of Law, has warned about the potential abuse of nullification — for example, to prevent brutal police officers from being brought to justice. The prospect of nullification can evoke concerns about irresponsible or biased jurors trying to take the law into their own hands. But it also presents a powerful tool for slapping down politicized criminal justice. Fairfax also notes that nullification is consistent with the framer’s vision of juries as a check on oppression by an overreaching state, arguing that nullification, when done right, “allows for direct community guidance of law enforcement and prosecutorial resource allocation.” Without that hurdle — the need to convince a group of citizens that a prosecution is valid and a case proved — the power of government officials to punish dissent could run wild.

More..

https://wapo.st/4m1wWFu

free