I’ve been reading a lot about jury nullification, and I get that jurors have the power to acquit someone even if the law technically says they’re guilty. But what I don’t get is—why is this something that exists, yet courts don’t allow it to be talked about during a trial?
If it’s a legitimate part of the legal system, why is it treated like a secret? Would a juror get in trouble for mentioning it during deliberations? And what would happen if someone brought it up during jury selection?
I’m just curious how this all works in practice. If jurors can ultimately do whatever they want, what stops them from using nullification all the time?
I actually do feel it was intended and is part of why the founding fathers felt a jury of the peers was important. I think they intended it as the ultimate check on the system in that if despite everything some crazy laws are passed they could be kept from being enforced.
That doesn’t really check out.
In the US the constitution defines how a court is supposed to be run. It’s more or less identical to the English system, which was never defined in a constitution but just evolved over a millennia.
There were no founding fathers who wrote a document to include this “ultimate check”.
Additionally, if this were an intended “ultimate check” it would become “the way” that court cases are resolved. A judge would merely be a steward conducting proceedings and a jury would just mete out justice based on the vibe of the matters before them.
The far more obvious reason jury nullification is possible is what I’ve already said - jurors need to be able to make a finding of guilt or innocence free from retribution. The deleterious side effect of this freedom is that jurors can say “this whole system stinks and we find the defendant to be purple”, without any consequence.
“We The People”. The first three words establish the philosophical model of the constitution. “We The People” willed it into existence.
The 6th Amendment guarantees the right to a trial by a jury of the accused’s peers. Not the judicial branch of the government. Not the government in general. It guarantees the right of the accused to take the case directly to a quorum of 12 members of “We The People”.
The founding fathers did write a document that included this ultimate check.
They do. Generally, the “vibe” is that legislated law is just and proper, and the jury should apply it as written. Generally, jury nullification is not a factor.
But we are contemplating the special case. Here, we are not constrained to the general case. Here, we are considerong the conditions under which the law itself is determined to be unjust, such as the “Fugitive Slave Laws” we actually had on our books. Here, we can consider a corrupt legislature enacting unjust laws.
Are we forced to jail an abolitionist for aiding and abetting a former slave in escaping his “owner”? Are We The People truly compelled to abide by the evil acts of a reprehensible legislature?
We are not.
The fact that justice won’t always be done is not in any way a justification for rendering the unjust verdict demanded by a corrupt legislature.
Its an opinion. There is no way to know what the intention of the peer jury system is as there is nothing they said in either direction for it. I actually think it was intended even before the us but in some historical context it was an elite who was allowed to be on the jury and not ever voting citizen. In the same way they could control the enforcement of the law.
Some opinions are more poorly considered than others.
I 100% agree.