Jury nullification is when a jury acquits a defendant who violated the law, but the jury disagrees with the law. It can be a powerful tool for citizens to express their views on the law and has been used to rebut unjust laws. However, it is controversial and can be abused for racist or bigoted purposes.
Jury nullification is the name given to the act of a jury in acquitting a defendant even though he actually violated the letter of the law to the satisfaction of the jury. As a result, the defendant is found not guilty, even though without an act of jury nullification, they would be found guilty. Generally, a jury nullification is performed 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 violated that law. Jury nullification is a powerful tool that citizens can use to make their views clear about the law and, over time, can have the effect of helping to change the laws themselves.
Technically, cases must be decided according to the actual wording of the law or the letter of the law. A judge can often remind a jury that the issue at hand is not whether something is bad or wrong or not, but whether the defendant actually committed the crime described. In fact, however, juries have a right, and some would argue a responsibility, to use their own judgment in deciding their verdict. Indeed, it is this introduction of human thought that is so central to the jury process. Jury nullification has often been responsible for many powerful rebuttals of unjust laws, but at the same time it is open to abuse that can be seen as detrimental to fundamental rights.
Indeed, grand juries were originally devised in large part to ensure that those who rendered the final verdict on a person’s innocence or guilt were not served by outside interests, including a strict interpretation of the law. It was thought that, over time, the law might drift away from its constitutional origins, becoming too mired in bureaucratic intricacies to truly reflect its original intent. Jury nullification, therefore, can be seen as the original purpose of juries, as is exemplified in a statement to Thomas Paine by Thomas Jefferson, in which he remarked: “I regard trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man by which a government can be maintained according to the principles of its constitution. ” The first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay, said even more: when the jury has the right to decide both the law and the fact of controversy.
There are many famous examples of jury nullification in history, usually in cases where the law in question was widely seen as unjust or had a wide faction of dissent. For example, during Prohibition, many jurors exercised their right to overturn the jury by finding those accused of smuggling not guilty, even if the facts showed that they had committed the crime. Likewise, abolitionist sympathizers often found a defendant innocent in cases of harboring escaped slaves, even if the evidence showed that they harbored the escaped slaves.
There is a lot of controversy surrounding jury nullification, however, and many people express concerns that it could be used for racist or bigoted purposes. For example, in theory, a racist jury could find a defendant not guilty in a case where they killed minority victims, even if the evidence showed that they had committed the crime. Today, there is some question about whether a judge can remove a juror for cause if they try to overturn the jury, and whether they can even punish those who fail to apply the law as written in a case.
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