Jury Nullification A Constitutional Right

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In a trial by jury, the judge's job is to referee the trial and provide neutral legal advice to the jury, beginning with a full and truthful explanation of a juror's rights and responsibilities.

But judges rarely "fully inform" jurors of their rights, especially their power to judge the law itself and to vote on the verdict according to conscience. Instead, they end up assisting the prosecution by dismissing any prospective juror who will admit to knowing about this right, starting with anyone who also admits having qualms with any specific law.

In fact, if you have doubts about the fairness of a law, you have the right and obligation to find someone innocent even though they have actually broken the law! John Adams, our second president, had this to say about the juror: "It is not only his right but his duty...to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court."

It was normal procedure in the early days of our country to inform juries of their right to judge the law and the defendant. And if the judge didn't tell them, the defense attorney very often would. The nation's Founders understood that trials by juries of ordinary citizens, fully informed of their powers as jurors, would confine the government to its proper role as the servant, not the master, of the people.

Juries are charged today with the responsibility of reaching a verdict based on the facts of a case within the law as it is explained by the trial judge. Almost since the beginning of the jury in England, however, jurors have engaged in "nullification," where the jury exercises its discretion "in favor of a defendant whom the jury nonetheless believes to have committed the act with which he is charged"



THE JAILHOUSE LAWYER
http://www.angelfire.com/az/sthurston/

Pro Se Self-Help & Legal Research Center
http://www.angelfire.com/az/sthurston...

Jury Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0890...

Empowering the jury as the fourth branch of government
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000...

Jury Nullification Volume I: Featuring a Reprint of Lysander Spooner's Classic Work; An Essay on the Trial By Jury
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000...

Fully Informed Jury Association
http://www.fija.org/

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