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.
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The judge only wants the jury to decide the case based on the evidence presented and their own reasonable judgement of the truth. That is their job, and doing anything else would pervert the course of justice.
If the judge reasonable believed that the jury were going to pervert the course of justice, either intentionally or through incompetence, they would declare a mistrial.
If a sneaky lawyer wanted to get a mistrial (to avoid a verdict that would lose the case) they might sneakily try to tip off the jury about jury nullification in their closing argument. This would not be illegal per se but they would effectively be forcing the judge to declare a mistrial.
However, when the judge has ordered the lawyer not to inform the jury of jury nullification, the lawyer would be in contempt of court if they did, and this would lead to **very** serious consequences.
Trial is a very careful and elaborate procedure and mistakes often can’t be undone, which means it’s very easy to have a mistrial if you aren’t careful. Mistrials are a huge waste of time and money because it means having to redo the whole trial again. To avoid a mistrial due to sneaky lawyering, they are very clear with their instructions to lawyers.
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