What does “Jury Nullification” mean?

Question

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

Answer 1

Jury nullification is the act of nullifying the law by finding a person not guilty despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary.

You can arrange a jury’s beliefs and it’s decisions around a four field matrix. The jury can either believe that the defendant is guilty, or they can believe that he is not guilty. And they can either decide that he is guilty, or they can decide that he is not guilty.

This gives four possible outcomes. A jury is supposed to only yield two outcomes; finding the defendant guilty when they believe he is guilty, and finding the defendant not guilty when they believe he is not guilty.

However, they *can* also decide to find a defendant guilty even though they don’t believe he is, or find him not guilty even though the believe he is. There are legal mechanisms to handle that first scenario, mistrials, appeals, etc, intended to make sure that wrongfully convicted people are swiftly cleared. However, there are *no* legal mechanisms to deal with the last scenario, where a jury acquits a defendant even though they believe he is guilty. That’s jury nullification.

It exists because the law states that a jury member cannot be held accountable or punished for a delivering a decision that turns out to be wrong, and because once acquitted a suspect cannot be charged for the same crime again. If jurors figure realize this, they can disregard the law, which is what the courts want them to consider, and start factoring in their opinions about a crime into the verdict. For example, a desperate man stealing medication for his dying child could be acquitted of the theft if the jury members sympathize with him and are aware that they can get away with letting him get away.

So, what’s the harm in making the judicial process a bit more humane? Well, jury nullification can be used for good or for bad. For example, it was frequently used in southern states in the 19th century to acquit lynchers who assaulted or even killed black people.

Since courts are in the business of upholding the law as accurately as possible, they prefer people being unaware of this option, and that’s probably why the judge in the trial you watched told the defendant to *not* inform the jury of this possibility.