Jury nullification
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Jury nullification is an American constitionally protected right that few people have ever heard of. Jury nullification occurs when a jury decides to acquit a defendant it believes to be guilty of the crime he has been charged with committing. In returning a not-guilty verdict, the jury willfully ignores the facts of the case as well as the judgeÆs instructions regarding the proper procedure and the law and in effect votes its conscience. Jury nullification can occur for a variety of reasons, including because the jurors found the defendant to be an attractive or elpathetic figure, because they were members of the same race or harbored hatred towards the victimÆs race, or sometimes just because the jury was tired of deliberating and being sequestered for an extended period of time. By far the most common reason today, however, is the fact that some Black juries in the inner city are unwilling to convict a Black defendant of a crime. This paper will analyze the phenomenon of jury nullification and its use today by the Black community to empower themselves in the face of a criminal justice system they often believe to be inherently racist and unjust. First, we will examine the constitutional protections afforded jury nullification. Then, we will explore how the nationÆs appellate courts have attempted to handle jury nullification in light of these protections. Lastly, we will examine the reasons behind the seemingly widespread support for jury nullification
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r unique power to disregard the law and nullify their verdict? If so, how much should the jury be told about this power and what would be the mechanism by which it would be done?
Theory and Debate Regarding Jury Nullification
This question would seem to lie very near the absolute core of the legal justice system, and has indeed been intensely debated within and without the legal community. And while the debate has raged over the issue of whether juries should be told about nullification, the courts have been monolithically unanimous in their verdict: absolutely not. No state or federal court in many decades has ruled that a trial judge is permitted, much less required, to inform the jury explicitly of their power to return a verdict which is against the facts of the case but which they believe to serve the interests of justice. This is remarkable, especially in light of the iron-clad constitutional protection that juries have vis-a-vis nullification (Duane, 3).
Indeed, not only is the judge not permitted to mention nullification, the defendantÆs lawyers are also constrained in their arguments. The appellate courts have ruled that the defense is forbidden from presenting evidence that is relevant to none of the facts in t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 4240
Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page)
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