Jury nullification is when a jury acquits a defendant who has broken the law, but the jury disagrees with the law. It can be a powerful tool for citizens to express their views on the law, but it is controversial and can be abused. It was originally the purpose of juries to prevent strict interpretation of the law and ensure it reflected its constitutional origins. Famous examples include Prohibition and abolitionist cases. Concerns exist that it could be used for racist or bigoted ends.
Jury nullity is the name given to a jury act in acquitting a defendant, despite the fact that they have actually broken the letter of the law to the satisfaction of the jury. As a result, the defendant is found innocent, although without a writ of jury nullification they would have been found guilty. In general, jury nullification is undertaken by a jury that disagrees with a law, as a way of demonstrating their objection to the law and their choice not to punish the person who broke that law. Jury nullification is a powerful tool that citizens can use to make their views on the law clear, and over time, it can have the effect of helping move the laws themselves.
Technically, cases have to be decided based on the actual wording of the law or the letter of the law. A judge can often remind a jury that the question at hand is not whether something is bad or wrong, but whether the defendant actually committed the crime described. In reality, however, juries have a right, and some would argue a responsibility, to use their own judgment in deciding their own verdict. It is, in fact, this introduction of human thought that is so central to the jury trial. Jury nullification has often been responsible for many powerful rebuttals of unjust laws, but at the same time it is open to abuses that could be seen as a threat to fundamental rights.
Indeed, juries were originally designed largely to ensure that people delivering the final verdict on a person’s innocence or guilt were not respected by outside interests, including strict interpretation of the law. It was thought that over time the law could drift away from its constitutional origins, becoming too entangled in bureaucratic intricacies to truly reflect its original intent. Jury nullification, therefore, can be seen as the original purpose of juries, as exemplified in a statement to Thomas Jefferson by Thomas Jefferson in which he noted: ‘man by which a government may be held to the principles of its constitution.” The first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay, put it even more sharply when he said, “The jury has the right to judge both the law and the disputed fact.”
There are many famous examples of jury nullification in history, typically in cases where the law in question was widely perceived to be unfair or had a large faction of dissent. For example, during Prohibition, many jurors exercised their right to jury nullification by finding those accused of bootlegging innocent, even if the facts proved they had committed the crime. Similarly, abolitionist sympathizers would often find a defendant innocent in cases of harboring escaped slaves, even if evidence shows that they harbored escaped slaves.
There is a great deal of controversy surrounding jury nullification, however, and many people are expressing concern that it could be used for racist or bigoted ends. For example, in theory a racist jury could find a defendant innocent in a case where they killed a minority victim, even if the evidence shows they had committed the crime. There is, today, some question as to whether a judge can remove a juror for cause if he attempts to use jury nullity, and whether he can even punish those who do not apply the law as written in a case.
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