I’ve bee watching the Brooks vs state trial, and before he makes his closing argument, the judge tells him NOT to inform the jury of their power to nullify the law.
In: 20
The concept is made easier when given an example. Back in the days around the civil war and just before, slaves were free in the north but being a runaway slave was still a “crime”. As such, while someone could undoubtedly be “guilty” of being a runaway slave, northern juries would still find them to be “not guilty”.
This is in essence what jury nullification is. A group of your peers finding that even though the “law” says you’re guilty, the circumstances should forgive that entirely. You can sometimes see the same thing when a jury finds a father not guilty of beating their child’s abuser to death.
Now here’s a question for those who know more than me: when a jury rule’s “not guilty” by virtue of jury nullification, do they need to notify the court that this is why they reached that decision? I know in civil court a judge can step in if the jury reaches a verdict wholly unsupported by the evidence, but I imagine in a criminal context that power would be limited only to usurping a “guilty” verdict rather than a “not guilty” one.
Latest Answers