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
Jury nullification exists because of two principles at work. One, a jury cannot be punished for their verdicts. The jury is meant to decide the truth of the matter and it is assumed that they will do so. Punishing them for a verdict the judge doesn’t like would taint the justice system.
Two: double jeopardy. In many systems of law, a person cannot be tried again for the same crime if a Not Guilty verdict is rendered. The US gets around that in a way because, at any given moment, there are at least three governments in charge of you: county, state, and federal. Usually, there’s a local or city government as well, so all four could charge you with the same crime, but usually only one or two will take a stab at it.
If a person cannot be tried again, and no one will be arrested for handing down a verdict, you have four possible outcomes in a trial. The Jury knows you’re guilty, so they render Guilty. The jury knows you’re not guilty, so they render Not Guilty. The jury could also know you commited the crime, but render a Not Guilty verdict for any number of reasons (sympathy with the victim, disagreement with the law, unreasonable distrust of the system, or even racism or sexism). The jury could also be unsure if you commited the crime or be certain you’re innocent, and still hand down a Guilty verdict, maybe due to some bias against the accused or “well, she must have done *something*!” Then, assuming the judge doesn’t have good reason to believe the jury is tainted, the person walks free or goes to jail to wait for their appeal.
The most famous cases of jury nullification in the US came during the run-up to the Civil War. In 1850, the South managed to get a Federal law passed that said escaped slaves had to be returned to their owners. Bounty hunters from the south would arrest escaped slaves, or free black people who they just called escaped slaves, and take them to court, demanding they be extradicted to the South. Abolitionists on the juries would vote Not Guilty because they felt the law was unjust. Slavery supporters would vote Guilty, no matter whether the bounty hunter had proof that the person accused was a runaway slave or not.
All in all, it’s a really dangerous tool that the general public can wield to determine how the law is applied. That’s why juries are instructed at the start of the trial that they are to only decide based on the evidence presented and the law as they are told about. If it gets out that a jury is likely to try nullifcation, a mistrial can be declared and a new jury selected.
Latest Answers