I'm reading "Surprise verdict reached in case involving LI mom who allegedly ran over son’s teen bully: 'Happy with the outcome'" (NY Post).
This looks like jury nullification.
September 27, 2023
"A notorious Long Island mom charged with repeatedly running over her teen son’s reputed bully was sensationally acquitted of attempted murder Tuesday...."
"Jennifer Nelson, 36, had faced up to 25 years in prison for repeatedly ramming her Honda Passport into a 15-year-old boy she believed had stolen her child’s Adidas Ye slides last October.
But it took a Suffolk County jury less than four hours to clear her of the top rap, and instead opt for a lesser conviction of leaving the scene of an accident with serious injuries.... The violent confrontation came two hours after Nelson was captured on cell phone camera pulling a knife on a group of teens she believed had just beaten and robbed her son.... Nelson said she only wanted to scare the assailants when she had threatened them with a blade."
I'm reading "Surprise verdict reached in case involving LI mom who allegedly ran over son’s teen bully: 'Happy with the outcome'" (NY Post).
The comments over there are very supportive of the woman: "Good for her," "You go, Mama Bear! Congratulations!," "When bullies aren’t prosecuted street justice is required," My new Hero, you go girl!"....
I'm reading "Surprise verdict reached in case involving LI mom who allegedly ran over son’s teen bully: 'Happy with the outcome'" (NY Post).
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So -- did that kid actually steal the shoes? That's never answered in the article.
Anyway, at some point her son is going to marry. That spouse better be ever-vigilant.
Those of us who are fans of traditional justice would have preferred a prosecution of the young thief but the new rules prevented it...
This looks like jury nullification.
Preferable to prosecutor nullification.
Not jury nullification, this looks like the rise of lynch mobs and vigilantism on the left.
Ever since George Floyd and the mostly peaceful summer of 2020, more than a few people have hold that violence is justified per 'structural inequities.'
Add in a $1 billion jury verdict for a simple negligent truck crash:
https://www.enjuris.com/blog/fl/billion-dollar-truck-verdict/
Add in WOKE LEFT TARGET closing stores for rampant theft in San Francisco:
https://sfstandard.com/2023/09/26/target-closing-san-francisco-bay-area-stores/
The USA is (1) in the process of severe cultural collapse, and (2) setting itself up for a moral and ethical reconstruction to function at all. For all I know this might resemble South African or Brazilian style neighborhood warlords rather than general community police, but something different must and will happen.
You will note that in this story the racial composition of the jury is concealed.
That's how you know.
Article doesn't say whether the kid actually stole the Adidas. Did he? That's very overpriced, valuable property in some communities. Jury might have understood that.
I don't know what to think, but whatever.
White guy would have been convicted if he did the same.
Only wanted to scare them, then hit them with a car? The notion that there was a lack of footage is silly. She didn't deny being there and the 15 yr old had serious injuries. She just denied knowing she hit anyone. I guess vigilantism is supported by the jurors of Long Island. I guess there was quality video of the alleged bully stealing the son's stuff.
This is what happens when you defund the police.
Thank you fot for mentioning "jury nullification" we need to educate people more about this.
One of the lawyers can explain it better but it is basically the absolute right of a juror to acquit even if they believe the defendant did what they are accused of.
John Henry
Not necessarily defending the mother and nullificin this case.
I might or might not if I knew more about what really happened.
But I dony
John Henry
"This looks like jury nullification."
We need more jury nullification. Not less.
I suppose it would be useful to know if she had the right perps.
It's not surprising. Self-defense is the legal version of "f*ck around and find out." This woman had a reasonable fear of imminent harm (or was facing an unreasonable amount of force). Why should she let these young men kill her or her child? Remember this bullsh*t --
"A Maryland father was brutally beaten to death outside his home while protecting his children from a group of teenagers and adults who wanted to finish a fight that started at school, according to the man’s family."
https://nypost.com/2023/05/23/maryland-dad-beaten-to-death-after-group-attacks-him-over-middle-school-fight/
" ... jury nullification [is] Preferable to prosecutor nullification."
Agreed. I extend my preference that juries are empowered, and ought to employ that power, to check and balance prosecutor's amplification -- where charges are stacked up.
I think people are what Soros DAs are doing and they want in on the action. I can't blame them too much.
Version of this just happened in Ohio where three teens got off on beating a white boy to death because he insulted them and shot them with a play gun.
I guess she's a tiger mom. Although, her cub should have fought his own battles.
Senator Menéndez is on the line. Wants to know more about these jurors.
Says he wasn’t getting anywhere googling them. He’s trying to figure out how much they might be worth.
Yes, it looks like jury nullification by people tired of young criminals and bullies getting away with crime. I expect more of this in the future.
Vigilantism is going to be supported by many in the coming years. As criminals are freed without consequences and illegal aliens invade especially lower income jobs and neighborhoods.
And since the fbi nor the police are much trusted anymore, juries will side with the “criminals” in these cases, I would.
Sometimes the MSM accidentally slips and reveals just enough of the pertinent facts to explain a lot more than they have been conditioned to. In this case, the minute it slipped out that this mom "pull(ed) a knife on a group of teens", one pretty much knew the cast of characters, the relevance of the theft of a pair of over-priced sneakers as the motivation for the homicide, the probable makeup of the jury, and the decision to acquit.
RideSpaceMountain said...
"This looks like jury nullification."
We need more jury nullification. Not less.
--------------------
Jury nullification works both ways. What if you were the victim of an assault or attempted murder? What if the facts and the law indicated that the defendant was guilty? But the jury acquitted because they thought you provoked the fight, or that the defendant has a troubled and disturbed childhood and shouldn't be held accountable (or fill in the blanks with any other extenuating circumstances). I would much rather have my case decided according to the facts and the law, and not the personal beliefs (and prejudices) of the members of the jury.
"When bullies aren’t prosecuted street justice is required," a comment reads, in the NY Post.
Has such a comment ever been submitted, or been allowed to appear, in the NY Times, or would the explosions of readers' heads be avoided by not stating such an obvious truth?
I suspect the police would have done nothing. And the jury thought the same thing. And people are getting a little fed up with all the crime going on.
Damn good! Serves them right... the bullies should be the ones in jail.
We need some jury nullification for Trump.
A kid got stomped to death on a basketball court in Ohio, and his killers have gotten a slap on the wrist. Jury Nullification. In another case, in some Eastern city, a man was murdered and his killers got a "involuntary manslaughter" charge and 2 year sentence. Jury nullification. Just a year ago a retired man was murdered during a carjacking in SC, and the jury let that killer go too.
And then you have the opposite with the J6 cases, almost 1000 now, where the 94 percent Democrat DC juries convict without fail every single one of the accused on the most serious charges.
You can't trust leftwing juries to execute their responsibility toward the law.
Shouldn't it be "Surprise verdict reached in case involving LI mom who [ ] ran over son’s alleged teen bully"?
If this boy really was bullying her son, I might acquit as well, but the Post description makes her sound dangerously mentally ill, running around and threatening every person she imagines wronged her family.
If the authorities do not enforce the law the people will do it.
We are going to see a lot more of this.
"Justice is an intervention to prompt vengeance," they say.
Vengeance is the base state that "reform" is bringing us to.
Somewhere, Charles Bronson is smiling...
One of the lawyers can explain it better but it is basically the absolute right of a juror to acquit even if they believe the defendant did what they are accused of.
John Henry
The function of the jury is to act as the last bastion of liberty against an overbearing government--no matter how determined they are to get you, they have to go through 12 of your fellow citizens first. As such, the jury doesn't just sit in judgment of the defendant, it also sits in judgment of the law.
But their case was hampered by a lack of footage of the incident.
==============
so how did 'authorities' know who[m?] to arrest?
notorious mom >> how and why and for what? is she gang mama?
How about some facts here? I can't draw any conclusions from this scrap of "reporting." (I can guess; I can suspect; but it's all waaaay out there.)
I suppose it would be useful to know if she had the right perps.
@Richard, details, details.
"Gamez suffered a broken pelvis, a punctured lung and several broken ribs."
So, has he stolen any sneakers lately?
The question of who's a criminal - in a country many citizens consider criminal - is being wiped away.
"Prosecutors presented cellphone and surveillance video of the attack on Nelson's son in addition to her confronting the teens afterward."
So, actually, sounds like the verdict was "Guilty as charged, and sentenced to broken pelvis served." But they didn't make him pay for the damage to her car, so I guess he got off lightly.
"Nelson's son testified at trial that he never got back his Adidas Ye slides, popular designer footwear, and an AirPod taken from him the morning of the attack. He said he suffered a broken nose and concussion as he was punched and kicked by the group of five or six classmates who attacked him shortly after 7 a.m."
Five or six of 'em, huh. 7 AM. I didn't think they got up that early.
Attempted murder requires the specific intent to kill. In other words, the prosecution had to prove that she intended to kill her victim. It is not sufficient to have the intent to mess someone up real bad. Thus, the verdict is not surprising. She should have been convicted of a lesser offense of assault with a deadly weapon.
Now had the victim died, then the element of intent to kill is satisfied by a doctrine known as implied malice. This applies to a death resulting from an action that displayed a depraved indifference to human life.
What shoddy reporting of facts. You learn literally nothing about this other than the mother ran over the boy "repeatedly". It is that included word that leads me to conclude this was jury nullification because it is difficult to reasonably believe someone could accidentally run over something multiple times and not know it.
To fully figure out what is going on in this case, you really do need to know the ethnicities of all the parties involved in the bullying/theft and the hit and run.
I guess I will have to wait for Steve Sailer to find and disclose all the missing details.
"notorious", huh. For what? The Post had better watch their ass, that's defamatory.
A week in the stocks spilling themselves and the degradation from their neighbors would be a good start to bullies and thieves. Also a good Singaporean caning while in stocks would do wonders in stopping bullies, thuggery and thieving.
I'll trade two police officers and two two public defence lawyers for two stocks, a Stockman and bamboo cane.
Bullies? They sound more like muggers. Death Wish with a female protagonist. Interesting.
Yeah, too much about the whole situation is too obscure for me to have an opinion about the jury's decision, but what the hell is it about shoes?
At some point in the 70s(?), among the primitives, shoes became a talisman of power and status.
I have a distinct memory of our maid (weekly cleaning lady, in our case someone who had worked for my grandparents also) expressing dismay that one of her sons in high school (she had seven kids) had spent $80.00 (eighty dollars American) on a pair of shoes. This would have been about 1970.
$80 was more than I spent on a pair of shoes until I got a real job and had to look nice--in the late '80s probably, and most of my footwear costed much less.
Everyone here for jury nullification until Hunter successfully uses it to escape justice.
That's the whole purpose of juries. Government prosecutors don't represent "the people." Juries do. Government prosecutors represent the government. Period. And the people, represented by juries, have a say when they think government has gone too far.
“The question of who's a criminal - in a country many citizens consider criminal - is being wiped away.“
This country is the BEST thing that ever happened to ANY of us.
Did the bully have a preexisting progressive condition (e.g. Fentanyl) that would result in a self-abortion? Was he a bully or a social justice activist pursuing the miscarriage of Diversity (e.g. [economic] classicism), Inequity. Exclusion (DIE), with a side of neighborhood incursion? There are legal and social precedents for some, select [black] lives matter.
This is perhaps an unfair observation on the mother, but she looks more like the mother of a bully than of a victim. Anyway, she definitely doesn't look like someone I'd want to get on the bad side of....I disapprove of everyone in this case and everything about it.
It's unfortunate it's come to this, but if the law is not enforced by the police/prosecutors it's going to be enforced by the people. Thanks, progressives, you racist gits.
"Witnesses told investigators they saw Nelson speed up toward accused bully James Gamez in a parking lot as he tried to take cover inside a bagel shop.
Passing drivers said they saw her strike the teen once before crashing into him a second time and then leaving the scene.
In building their case, prosecutors noted Nelson traded in her vehicle that same day in an attempt to conceal the alleged crime.
But their case was hampered by a lack of footage of the incident.
Gamez suffered a broken pelvis, a punctured lung and several broken rib
estifying in her own defense, Nelson said she was unaware she had stuck anyone and did not intend to injure the boy.
“I would have called the police if I knew I hit someone,” said Nelson, the outlet reported.
The violent confrontation came two hours after Nelson was captured on cell phone camera pulling a knife on a group of teens she believed had just beaten and robbed her son."
No way to know, given the coverage, whether the vigilante rage was justified or just another case of 'I Feel Like It', in an environment where a certain demographic can embrace that life philosophy without any consequences. Thank you, Soros-backed prosecutors; Thank you.
Not even enough to know whether the jury nullified the prosecutor's case because they sympathized with the mother's and child's plight - or whether they were just showing a little demographic solidarity.
Too bad, but when you squander the citizen's right to justice, nobody wins in the end.
@lonejustice
"When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil."
- Thomas Jefferson
The headline ignores the facts as determined by the Jury
The woke left forgets, a key aspect of the police, is to protect the criminals from the people.
Narr @ 11:01: "...At some point in the 70s(?), among the primitives, shoes became a talisman of power and status...."
Good point, that. Makes me think that an enterprising products liability lawyer could cook up a cause of action against, say, Nike and (for extra marquee power) Michael Jordan, for having contributed to this blind lust for shoes which led, foreseeably and inevitably, to these beat-downs on hapless purchasers in order to gain ownership of their (overpriced, overpromoted) footwear.
Just a thought. It's not much; it's pretty dated; but with enough money attached to the possible outcomes, it's maybe worth pursuit.
Iman said...
"This country is the BEST thing that ever happened to ANY of us."
A homeless woman got eaten by an alligator yesterday as she slept on a Florida riverbank.
I don't know what country you guys live in, but I know it worships money, and thinks anyone who has it is a god.
RideSpaceMountain said...
"When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil."
- Thomas Jefferson
Once America reneged on 20 acres and a mule, the die was cast,...
Iman said...
“This country is the BEST thing that ever happened to ANY of us."
As Daniel Tosh says, "How Do 90% of Americans Have Jobs?"
It's misleading to refer to assault and robbery as "bullying."
Yes, probably jury nullification. We have been seeing a lot of that recently in both directions.
The courts ensure your rights. If the courts cannot be trusted, that will end badly.
"preempt" not "prompt". Yeesh.
The police are there to protect criminals from citizens.
Juries are starting to understand this. I assume we will see more and more of the Texas Defense "He needed killing" as civilization fall apart.
No, this is "if the gov't won't enforce the law, then We the People will"
Apparently the jury felt she hit and threatened the correct people
lonejustice said...
Jury nullification works both ways.
right now, Soros DA nullification works only one way: to protect the criminals
So FOAD. If this problem is going to be fixed, what's going to have to happen is large numbers of criminals getting killed by the people they want to victimize. Enough so that the left accepts that it's better to throw them in jail, and consitently do so.
Now, the better result would be every single Soros DA, and their supporters, becoming "crime victims". But the first result is going to be vigilante justice.
And yes, vigilantes hurting / killing criminals that the State refuses to prosecute and put in jail iS justice
This does look like Jury Nullification. Just like the acquittal of Sussman in the case Durham brought against him was Jury Nullification. This is opposed to the acquittals of of Rittenhouse and George Zimmerman which seemed to be just cases of acquittal and more emotionally and politically invested observers ignoring pertinent facts of the case-ification. But for people who say this is what you get when prosecutors don't do their job and punish the deserving, what happens when juries don't do their job and convict the deserving?
Mark said...
"Everyone here for jury nullification until Hunter successfully uses it to escape justice."
So you think he's guilty too.
You do a lot of projection of what you think people here stand for.
The thieves left her son with a broken nose and a concussion. She wasn't reacting to just the theft.
After jury nullification comes vigilante justice, which won't be punished thanks to jury nullification.
Craig Mc said "After jury nullification comes vigilante justice, which won't be punished thanks to jury nullification."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
For many of us, our decades-long investments in fully automatic weapons, cleverly-crafted IEDs, and ultralight pilot certifications won't be for nothing.
Cool. Party. Bonus.
This looks like jury nullification.
This sentence has been bugging me all day, and I think I know why. I suppose that legal scholars like Professor Althouse can argue that it’s an example jury nullification, but I think it’s equally a case of people being pushed past their fed-up point.
@Crsig Mc, do you agree that this already is a case of vigilante justice, with the jury agreeing with the woman’s actions? What is the one, indispensable, totally necessary, condition for committees of vigilance? The perception that the law cannot — or will not — mete out justice.
LLR lonejustice demonstrating, once again, why LLR-democratical C**** had to send out the Bat Signal to try and get a more effective LLR, LLR Rich, up and running to serve the New Soviet democraticals rhetorical purposes at Althouse blog.
Something tells me that failure to deliver is likely a common theme over the years for LLR lonejustice.
The words "she believed" are carrying a lot of weight here. Did the kid she ran down with her car and the kids she threatened with a knife actually harm her kid?
Either way, she seems like an unstable violent maniac.
The Gramscian revolutionaries imagined that once they captured an institution, then that meant they had the power of that institution at their beck and call.
What they failed to work out was that they'd necessarily destroy that power by taking over and bending the institution to their desires. You have the "justice system"? Fine; once it no longer functions so as to provide "justice" as the general public recognizes it, then that institution will be routed around and it will become irrelevant.
So, too, with everything else the Gramscians captured: You've taken the news media? Good; nobody takes a thing they say at face value any more. Indeed, most ignore it as irretrievably compromised for the liberal-left side of things.
What they've actually done here is destroyed the very thing they wanted: Legitimacy. Across the board. Everywhere they have the writ, these days.
The raw fact is that once you've successfully suborned these institutions, they cease to have the power and authority they had before you had your way with them. This fact is something that the Gramscians missed; you have to continue to provide good value to the mass of the public, or the institution dies. Sure, you've got that interregnum where people aren't yet fully cognizant that the takeover has occurred, but once they figure it all out? Good luck getting that trust back; when people cease calling 911 and asking for the police, and instead call the local Mexican Mafia or Joe Bob the Rednecked Terror? That's when you're screwed, and you're going to have to face the fact that your cunning little Gramscian plan isn't going to work. In fact, odds are rather good that it has instead opened you up to those self-organized organs of order and justice that are likely to take a dim view of your efforts...
Lotta lynched prosecutors and officials in our future, I fear. If I were one of the people who had a hand in releasing that serial rapist in Baltimore, right now? My neck would be itching something terrible...
Newton's laws don't just work in the physical world; they work the same way in society: For every action, an equal and opposite reaction. Difference being that those reactions are a hell of a lot less predictable in society than they are in your physics textbooks...
Private citizens do not have jails or prisons, so if police won't impose any penalty on a criminal, it may become necessary for the citizen to do it. That penalty is likely to be bloody or fatal.
"When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil."
- Thomas Jefferson
=====
Tommy Jeff speaketh truly >>> enshrining slavery was the corruption ab initio for this country
so did he attempt to remove corruption and restore principle?
"When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil."
- Thomas Jefferson
=====
Tommy Jeff speaketh truly >>> enshrining slavery was the corruption ab initio for this country
so did he attempt to remove corruption and restore principle?
What Defunders of Police are too uninformed to know, is that the function of the Police is to protect accused criminals in the face of the public's rage at their bloody violent acts.
3-7-77 Vigilantes are an often revered part of Montana's history.
We can chose between
Jury nullification can move the law (although probably not in this Long Island case.) Dr. Henry Morgentaler of Québec made no secret of the fact that he was doing abortions in his clinic in defiance of Canadian law that (at the time) required they be done in a hospital after approval of the hospital's Therapeutic Abortion Committee (which I know from experience was a rubber stamp.) He was arrested and charged with a criminal offence. He pled not guilty. The evidence that he did abortions in his clinic was not contested. The jury acquitted him. The Crown appealed -- it can do that in Canada. The appeal court disallowed the jury acquittal (on the grounds of nullification) and substituted a verdict of guilty (which it could do at the time.) Dr. Morgantaler went to prison.
Eventually after many twists and turns the Canadian Supreme Court upheld a second jury acquittal in another case against Dr. Morgentaler in Ontario that the abortion law violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Morgentaler was freed. And that's why we have no abortion law in Canada. It all started with jury nullification.
Really late to this thread so, maybe hostess can explain "bullying" today. For most of my adolescent, and beyond, life, I was a scrawny, emaciated youth. Small ninth grade, 1956, Santa Cruz Jr. High was class President, my nickname was muscles. Soon after moved to urban hi-school, 1,300 freshman class. While never achieving small school notoriety, remaining scrawny, afflicted with acme & railroad track braces, was never once "bullied". Dunno, maybe Freshman early Sophomore time working after school in laundry, co-workers were all AA athletes helping their families, was a bonus? Weren't friends but, throughout hi-school days (1956-1960), were friendly acquaintances.
"The law of the jungle" (also called jungle law) is an expression that has come to describe a scenario where "anything goes". The Oxford English Dictionary defines the Law of the Jungle as "the code of survival in jungle life, now usually with reference to the superiority of brute force or self-interest in the struggle for survival"
Yeah, Rusty. No projection about what Democrats think going on here at all.
Perhaps you should discuss this with your comrades here.
the abortion law violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Human rites.
takirks @ 8:35: eloquent! I hope your analysis is not too optimistic. I worry that a generalized regime of self-help will produce so much collateral damage that we lose everything. The Gramscian parasites require poison so powerful that it will kill the host.
Mark said...
"Yeah, Rusty. No projection about what Democrats think going on here at all.
Perhaps you should discuss this with your comrades here."
You do a lot of projection of what you imagine what people on this blog stand for.
Have you met Inga? Or hpuddin'?
I never studied law - Bug Bunny
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