Sen. Frank Nicely (R-Strawberry Plains) filed Senate Bill (SB369) on Jan. 30. Rep. Martin Daniel (R-Knoxville) filed a companion bill (HB368) the following day. Under the proposed law, courts would be required to fully inform jurors of their rights at the request of a defendant’s attorney using the following language. "If you have a reasonable doubt as to whether the state has proven any one (1) or more of the elements of the crime charged, you must find the defendant not guilty. However, if you find that the state has proven all the elements of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt, you should find the defendant guilty. Even if you find that the state has proven all of the elements of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt, you may still find that based upon the facts of this case, a guilty verdict will yield an unjust result, and you may find the defendant not guilty."
The bolded text is where it's at. This fits the original intentions of the courts to have the juries follow the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of the law. It is important to allow juries to temper the will of the state, and be the final voice as to whether or not a particular law should be applied in a particular case. It is the jury itself that should serve the purpose of squelching tyranny.
This new legislation proposal
is the first time I have heard of anyone at the state level make a
proposal to return the courts to functioning as they should. There is
more on this topic HERE,
they say it with more detail but my take on this is in agreement, and
is based on an "old school" education from the public school system,
which used to teach this. Clearly they don't anymore.
Jimstone
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