There were multiple French petitions against the age of sexual majority

[Leucosticte]

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/frances-existential-crisis-over-sexual-harassment-laws/550700/

After May 1968, French intellectuals would challenge the state’s authority to protect minors from sexual abuse. In one prominent example, on January 26, 1977, Le Monde, a French newspaper, published a petition signed by the era’s most prominent intellectuals—including Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes, Philippe Sollers, André Glucksmann and Louis Aragon—in defense of three men on trial for engaging in sexual acts with minors. “French law recognizes in 13- and 14-year-olds a capacity for discernment that it can judge and punish,” the petition stated, “But it rejects such a capacity when the child's emotional and sexual life is concerned.” Furthermore, the signatories argued, children and adolescents have the right to a sexual life: “If a 13-year-old girl has the right to take the pill, what is it for?” It’s unclear what impact, if any, the petition had. The defendants were sentenced to five years in prison, but did not serve their full sentences.

In 1979, Liberation published another petition, this time in support of Gérard R., a man on trial for having sex with girls between the ages of six and 12. It was signed by 63 people, many of them well-known intellectuals like Christiane Rochefort and Pascal Bruckner. It argued that the girls in question were “happy” with the situation. “The love of children is also the love of their bodies,” they wrote. “Desire and sexual games have their place in the relationship between children and adults. This is what Gérard R. thought and experienced with [the] girls … whose fulfillment proved to everyone, including their parents, the happiness they found with him.”

The English Wikipedia speaks of a petition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_of_consent_laws

The French Wikipedia makes clear that there were multiple petitions: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pétitions_en_France_concernant_la_majorité_sexuelle

Of course, if people really cared about keeping young girls from getting fucked, they wouldn't let them run around feral.

 

[Admin]

All petitions do is to demonstrate you as a voter care about it but it tends to be very ineffective because the politicians will just view the signers as a small minority they can ignore.

What actually works is the yellow est strategy where you block traffic and disturb society in other ways, this will create a far stronger incentive for politicians to cave since a lot of people want to essentially return to normal and they will be ok with some minor appeasement.

Jury nullification is more effective in United States.

 

[Leucosticte]

All petitions do is to demonstrate you as a voter care about it but it tends to be very ineffective because the politicians will just view the signers as a small minority they can ignore.

See also https://cf.geekdo-images.com/original/img/lrIdAFvLr7WCyEqEQVHp-1HyXq0=/0x0/pic222788.jpg

Jury nullification is more effective in United States.

Most people will choose not to get a jury trial, unless they think for some reason that the jury will be sympathetic. But if there are only a few people in the jury pool who seem likely to be sympathetic, the prosecutor will probably realize who they are and strike them.

Most people are not going to take the case to trial unless they're on trial for murder or something and have nothing to lose. Usually you're going to get double the amount of prison time if you take your case to trial and lose, than you would have gotten if you'd made a deal.

 

[Admin]

Most people will choose not to get a jury trial, unless they think for some reason that the jury will be sympathetic. But if there are only a few people in the jury pool who seem likely to be sympathetic, the prosecutor will probably realize who they are and strike them.

For jury nullification to be successful people exercising it has to shut up about it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu08TKhWzLs

Most people are not going to take the case to trial unless they're on trial for murder or something and have nothing to lose. Usually you're going to get double the amount of prison time if you take your case to trial and lose, than you would have gotten if you'd made a deal.

The deal you get when accepting a plea bargain will depend on the expected outcome of the trail, if more people get acquitted people will be able to get off easier.

 

[Leucosticte]

For jury nullification to be successful people exercising it has to shut up about it

It's not just a matter of bringing up jury nullification explicitly; they're going to take a look at your demeanor and appearance and ask a bunch of questions that you have to answer under oath, to try to figure out if you fit the profile of someone who's likely to acquit. https://fija.org/file_download/inline/cf38da2e-bbb0-4941-b4e3-27df1e18e72d

Just seeming too smart could be enough to get you struck.

I was called once for jury duty, and I didn't have a working car at the time, so I simply didn't go. That's another way they can weed out dissidents; just wreck your life to the point where you end up not doing basic stuff, like getting an ID (necessary for voting in some jurisdictions) or getting a car to drive to jury duty with.

 

[Admin]

It's not just a matter of bringing up jury nullification explicitly; they're going to take a look at your demeanor and appearance and ask a bunch of questions that you have to answer under oath, to try to figure out if you fit the profile of someone who's likely to acquit. https://fija.org/file_download/inline/cf38da2e-bbb0-4941-b4e3-27df1e18e72d

Thats a great link. Will be included in version 22 of the vintologi bible.

Just seeming too smart could be enough to get you struck.

It's an insane system, a better solution would be to drop the requirement that the jurors have to be unanimous.

I was called once for jury duty, and I didn't have a working car at the time, so I simply didn't go. That's another way they can weed out dissidents; just wreck your life to the point where you end up not doing basic stuff, like getting an ID (necessary for voting in some jurisdictions) or getting a car to drive to jury duty with.

The republicans have also done large scale purging of voter rolls.

 

[Leucosticte]

It's an insane system, a better solution would be to drop the requirement that the jurors have to be unanimous.

What usually happens when they only require, say, a 9-3 vote, is that if they get to the jury room and it's 9 votes in favor of conviction, they just immediately report to the judge that they have a verdict, rather than listening to what the dissenting three jurors have to say. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/20/839101826/supreme-court-guarantees-right-to-unanimous-verdict-in-serious-criminal-trials

 

[Admin]

What usually happens when they only require, say, a 9-3 vote, is that if they get to the jury room and it's 9 votes in favor of conviction, they just immediately report to the judge that they have a verdict, rather than listening to what the dissenting three jurors have to say.

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/20/839101826/supreme-court-guarantees-right-to-unanimous-verdict-in-serious-criminal-trials

It would make jury nullification in the other direction easier since you could just ignore people who are not onboard with it.

Would also allow for quicker trial and people could speak freely about whether or not the law worked well in this case (since you cannot get struck as a juror).

 

[Leucosticte]

I had a case once where I was appealing my misdemeanor conviction for pot possession, and at the preliminary hearing or whatever, the judge gave a speech to the crowd of people who were appealing their misdemeanor cases, in which he said that statistically, juries aren't any more lenient than judges, and that if we got a jury trial and lost, we'd have to pay an extra $400 or something. So he encouraged us to waive our jury rights, which I think most people there did, including me.

What ended up happening, though, was that I paid $2,500 for a lawyer, and then the lawyer ended up saying, "You should have requested a jury trial, because the judge is going to take the side of the cop. Now you have to take a plea deal or you're going to lose." So I ended up taking the same plea that I could've taken to begin with in the lower court, except that taking it in the circuit court cost me that extra $2,500 for the lawyer.

So basically to save $400 I ended up throwing away $2,500, plus I ended up with that charge on my record, which came back to haunt me later since it counted as part of my criminal history. The problem was, I didn't get the lawyer till after I'd already waived my jury rights.