A jury refused to convict on any Federal charges in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge case last year. This year,
on a different set of charges, the jury came to a split decision. The decision is a little strange, but at least one felony conviction came back against each participant -- even though the minor players seem to have gotten off worse than the leaders, and people who plainly did the same things were sometimes convicted and sometimes not.
Imagine the Founders reaction to acquittal, followed by new trial after new trial until a guilty verdict finally came in. They would likely put something in writing to forbid the practice.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem as if there are an awful lot of laws being applied to one set of actions. And it is interesting that they elected to space it out over several juries.
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