[conspire] [Off-topic] Always a bridesmaid...

[Rick Moen]

Quoting jim stockford (jim at well.com):

> * seems a code of ethics and/or morality is necessarily
> bound to society. 

Judges nearly uniformly abhor even the possibility of jurors deciding
to apply their own standards, whether for moral/ethics or any other
reason, and do their best to prevent and discourage not only the act,
but also attempt to prevent jurors' awareness of their opportunity to do
so.  Many US courts even require jurors to swear under penalty of perjury
that they will apply without question the law exactly as explained to
them by the judge.

Pressed on the matter, the same judges will (angrily) concede that
jurors inherently have a de-facto _ability_ to vote their consciences
and ignore the law.

Most people have a limited number of occasions when their choices make a
huge difference to others' lives.  One of those might be when you end up
having one vote out of twelve on a jury -- or were a candidate for being 
one of the twelve.  If, say, you were one of those and the judge made
clear during jury selection that the court expected you to enforce a law
you regarded as unjust, what would _you_ do?