Juries are almost always told that it is their job to judge the facts of the case before them and it is only up to the judge to interpret the law. But that is wrong. Juries can judge both the facts and the law and have the right to acquit someone of a crime if they feel that the law under which the person was convicted is an unjust one, even if the facts of the case clearly show that the person is guilty. Such a result is known as ‘jury nullification’. [Read more…]

A former federal prosecutor calls upon people, if they serve on a jury, to use nullification as a means to change marijuana laws. He uses the case of Julian P. Heicklen, which I have discussed before.

If you are ever on a jury in a marijuana case, I recommend that you vote “not guilty” — even if you think the defendant actually smoked pot, or sold it to another consenting adult. As a juror, you have this power under the Bill of Rights; if you exercise it, you become part of a proud tradition of American jurors who helped make our laws fairer.
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Jury nullification is not new; its proponents have included John Hancock and John Adams.

The doctrine is premised on the idea that ordinary citizens, not government officials, should have the final say as to whether a person should be punished. As Adams put it, it is each juror’s “duty” to vote based on his or her “own best understanding, judgment and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.”

He points out that, “How one feels about jury nullification ultimately depends on how much confidence one has in the jury system. Based on my experience, I trust jurors a lot.”

I agree with him.

I have written before about the important practice of jury nullification, in which juries exercise their option to be the ultimate judges of the validity of laws and have the right, if they think that the law itself is unjust, to acquit someone of a charge even if the person is clearly guilty of violating the law. (See here and here)

Juries have this right because they, not the legislators, are the ultimate judges of a whether a law is just and are the ultimate bulwark against governments that can manipulate the system to pass laws that are not in the public interest. Judges and prosecutors often oppose sharing information about this right with juries, another example of the desire of the elites to prevent ordinary people from exercising any power. Judges want to preserve their right to be the sole interpreters of the law while prosecutors do not want to allow another mechanism for acquittal.
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I have written before (here and here) about how few people know about ‘jury nullification’, which is the right of juries to acquit some one even if there is no doubt that the law had been broken, if they think that the law used to convict is itself unjust. It is thanks to jury nullification that we now have constitutional protections of freedom of the press and association and assembly.

Although the right of juries to nullify is well established, judges and prosecutors tend to not like it to be well known, the former because it means that juries have the right to ignore their instructions and the latter because they want juries to convict.

Now there is a case where a retired Penn Sate chemistry professor standing outside a courthouse handing out leaflets informing potential juries of their right to nullify has been arrested and charged with jury tampering.

Scott Horton also talks about the case and the history of jury nullification. Sam Smith also discusses the case.

I have written before about ‘jury nullification’, the right of juries to decide that a law is wrong and refuse to convict someone of a crime even if the facts are clear that that person is guilty. (See here and here.)

I said last year (see the post script to this) that drug laws against minor offenses such as possession of marijuana in small amounts are the most likely to be nullified and recently there was another example of this.

The fourth time I was empanelled was for a criminal case involving charges of felonious assault where the defense said that it would argue self-defense. Once again, there was an oral voir dire, which included questions about whether we had ever been involved in any physical altercation.

It was during the voir dire that I ran into a problem. One of the prosecuting counsel asked if the jurors would be willing to convict a person on the facts of the case even if they felt the law under which the person was being prosecuted was unjust. It was clear that he expected you to answer ‘yes’ to this question. We have all seen at least some courtroom dramas where the judge instructs the jury on the law to be applied and the jury is asked to judge based only on the facts of the case, and not to judge the validity of the law itself.
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By a coincidence, while writing and posting my series on the law and religion in public schools, I was also called for jury service and spent the better part of the week of November 5, 2007 in the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in downtown Cleveland.

I feel strongly that the jury system is one of the greatest inventions of modern society and has been the foundation for democracy and creating and preserving freedoms. So I feel that to serve on a jury is a privilege and do not resent doing my time on the jury though it does involve some minor inconveniences and disruptions in work and home routine.

This was the third time I have been called for jury duty but I have yet to actually sit in on a case. For those not familiar with how it works, at least in Cuyahoga County where I live, when you are called for jury duty to the Common Pleas Court, it is not for a particular case but to be part of a large pool of jurors that serve many courts. So much of the time is spent waiting until your name is randomly called as needed if a case cannot be settled and should need to go to trial.
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