A Time to Kill Scenario

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Imagine this situation....

For those of you who've read John Grisham's 'A Time to Kill', you'll be familiar with the scenario I'll bring up here.

A man rapes a young girl. The girl's father tracks him down, and blows his head off, and is subsequently arrested. Imagine that you are on the jury which will either release him, or sentence him to death. What would be your decision?

Having made your decision, explain it with regards to the law, which says premeditated murder is punishable by death. Would you or would you not follow exactly what the law says? If so, why?

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Well, you could set him free, but then you'd have to do the same for the rapist's brother, who was a good man who killed the father of the girl as revenge. This would go on and on. (If adding to the scenario is allowed Smile

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I'd have to say abide by the law. He'd probably plead insanity in the moment. I'd say that in order to kill you'd need to be insane, so that is a given.

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I'd release him.
Don't know much about the particular laws you are referring to: but I find them ridiculous. And I'm not exactly a good law-abiding citizen anyhow.

Death penalty for killing a man who raped your daughter?! That is insane to me.

What can I say; except I don't respect those laws one iota. They have proven they don't work.

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I would vote "not guilty." The law makes "premeditated" murder a capital offense. I would argue that the crime was not premeditated in any meaningful sense of the word. It was simply a reflex, a knee-jerk reaction, to the tragedy of his daughter having been raped. What the father did involved no premeditation; in fact, it involved no thought of any kind. It was a reflex, pure and simple, like lifting an arm to ward off a blow which you see coming.

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The father "tracks down" the rapist and kills him: that sounds like premeditation to me. I'd have no trouble whatsoever voting to convict someone in those circumstances of murder. I wouldn't vote for the death penalty, but that's a different matter.

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joefromchicago wrote:

The father "tracks down" the rapist and kills him: that sounds like premeditation to me. I'd have no trouble whatsoever voting to convict someone in those circumstances of murder. I wouldn't vote for the death penalty, but that's a different matter.

The trick, counselor, is in convincing the jury of the meaning of "premeditation." (Providing Hizzonor doesn't derail you, of course.)

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Well, our laws allow for jury nullification of a law. A jury can look at a specific case and say that, although the letter of the law indicates that the murderer (the father) should be put to death, that the law is not adequate to deal with a father protecting his family and declare him innocent, nullifying the law.

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this is a dilemma. a serious crime shouldn't go unpunished, but the punishment shouldn't be excessive. if i were a juror, i'd try to get a mistrial, by getting disqualified along with other like-minded jurors, then hope that in a retrial the charge will be something less than first degree murder.

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AliceInWonderland wrote:

Well, our laws allow for jury nullification of a law. A jury can look at a specific case and say that, although the letter of the law indicates that the murderer (the father) should be put to death, that the law is not adequate to deal with a father protecting his family and declare him innocent, nullifying the law.

Jury nullification usually goes by another name: lawlessness. A jury is permitted to determine only the facts, not the law. If a jury decides that a guilty defendant should go free just because it doesn't like the law, then the jury has acted improperly and the jurors have violated their oaths.

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I agree with Joe on that. I also think that yitwail's solution is a copout. Intentionally hanging a jury is acting irresponsibly. If you believe the man is innocent as charged, stick to your guns, yes, but do so with the hope of convincing the other members of the panel, not the intent of getting a hung jury.

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good point MA, i vote for acquital then. a hung jury would still trigger a mistrial, however, in which case we perhaps achieve the intended result, retrying on a lesser charge.

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Oooo. Forgive me. I didn't read the question properly.
What would I do if on the jury? Any lawyer would go with an insanity plea, no doubt, and I would vote yes, that the parent was definitely insane at the time of the killing. Now, that parent may not have been clinically insane but if someone rapes your child, as in that story, most parents are pretty much crazed and seeing red until justice is served.

One very important aspect to that story, well at least, the movie, was that the little girl that was raped was black and her attackers were white. The story took place in a small town in Mississippi. The little girls' father felt certain that her attackers would go free and knowing how likely that was drove him to do what he did. Perhaps it was different in the book?

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My logical decision finds him guilty...however in deliberation I would twist the law anyway I could with my fellow jurors to find him not guilty and get him released.

I've said "f --- the law" for far less.

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Merry Andrew wrote:

I would vote "not guilty." The law makes "premeditated" murder a capital offense. I would argue that the crime was not premeditated in any meaningful sense of the word. It was simply a reflex, a knee-jerk reaction, to the tragedy of his daughter having been raped. What the father did involved no premeditation; in fact, it involved no thought of any kind. It was a reflex, pure and simple, like lifting an arm to ward off a blow which you see coming.

I think that would be a tough one to sell.

Seems like there is premeditation to me...though I like the fact that you would try to get him off.

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Cyracuz wrote:

Well, you could set him free, but then you'd have to do the same for the rapist's brother, who was a good man who killed the father of the girl as revenge. This would go on and on. (If adding to the scenario is allowed )

I'd have to say abide by the law. He'd probably plead insanity in the moment. I'd say that in order to kill you'd need to be insane, so that is a given.

Good point...but I'd risk it.

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joefromchicago wrote:

Jury nullification usually goes by another name: lawlessness. A jury is permitted to determine only the facts, not the law. If a jury decides that a guilty defendant should go free just because it doesn't like the law, then the jury has acted improperly and the jurors have violated their oaths.

The law is one thing, justice is another. I would certainly not be above circumventing the law for what I consider justice. Maybe I've seen too many Charles Bronson movies.

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joefromchicago wrote:

Jury nullification usually goes by another name: lawlessness. A jury is permitted to determine only the facts, not the law. If a jury decides that a guilty defendant should go free just because it doesn't like the law, then the jury has acted improperly and the jurors have violated their oaths.

What about Blackstone's description of the "pious perjury" of the jury?
It must have been repealed Very Happy

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goodfielder wrote:

What about Blackstone's description of the "pious perjury" of the jury?
It must have been repealed

I don't deny that jury nullification still takes place. But even Blackstone, over two hundred years ago, recognized that it constituted perjury. It still does, since it involves the breaking of an oath.

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CerealKiller wrote:

The law is one thing, justice is another. I would certainly not be above circumventing the law for what I consider justice. Maybe I've seen too many Charles Bronson movies.

Your talk of "justice" is just so much rubbish. When you are chosen to serve on a jury, you are required to take an oath. For you, CerealKiller, the Rhode Island (.pdf file) juror's oath is this:

You swear (or, affirm) that you will well and truly try and true deliverance make between the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and the prisoner (or, defendant) at the bar according to law and the evidence given you: So help you God.In Michigan, it looks like this:

Does each of you solemnly swear or affirm that, in this case now before the court, you will justly decide the questions submitted to you, that, unless you are discharged by the court from further deliberation, you will render a true verdict, and that you will render your verdict only on the evidence introduced and in accordance with the instructions of the court, so help you God?Other states have oaths that are similar. All the oaths require jurors to render a verdict according to the law. Note, that doesn't mean the juror should render a verdict according to the law as he wishes it was, but as the law actually is. Any deviation from that duty is a breach of the juror's oath; it is an illegal and lawless act.

I'm not sure how anyone can defend such an act on the grounds that it constitutes "justice." If a juror, after being empanelled, suddenly realizes that he or she cannot render a verdict according to the law and the evidence, then that juror's duty is clear: s/he must inform the judge and resign from the jury. Staying on the jury just so that one can render a verdict that contradicts the law is not only illegal, it is immoral. One cannot serve the cause of justice by committing an unjust act.

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A Time to Kill Scenario

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