Jury Nullification

Jury nullification means that a jury finds a defendant innocent because the law itself is unjust, or is unjust in a particular application, and so should not be applied. So really what this means is that no mater what the law says the jury will pretty much have the right to choose weather the person is going to be guilty or innocent and that is kind of ok in some cases but then again its not in others so we should not expect our juries to judge our laws only the case that person is being tried in and they should only judge that person on all of the facts given.

Amendment VI

This is the sixth amendment and this tells you about what juries can do in cases of law. "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense." What all of this means is that everyone that gets convicted of a crime gets all of the same benefits weather its a misdemeanor, felony, or capital crime. Everyone get the rights to a speedy trial and an impartial jury.

Some of the people in the world always ask themselves this question when in the court room " WHY DID OUR FOUNDING FATHERS EXPECT CITIZEN JURIES TO JUDGE OUR LAWS AS WELL AS THE GUILT OF THE INDIVIDUAL ?" Well the answer is really simple its Because: "If a juror accepts as the law that which the judge states then that juror has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and right that once was the citizen's safeguard of liberty." (1788) (2 Elliots Debates, 94, Bancroft, History of the Constitution, 267) "Jury nullification of law", as it is sometimes called, is a traditional American right defended by the Founding Fathers. Those Patriots intended the jury serve as one of the tests a law must pass before it assumes enough popular authority to be enforced. Thus the Constitution provides five separate tribunals with veto power -- representatives, senate, executive, judges and jury -- that each enactment of law must pass before it gains the authority to punish those who choose to violate it. Thomas Jefferson said, "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." The power of the jury to judge the justice of the law and to hold laws invalid by a finding of "not guilty" for any law a juror felt was unjust or oppressive dates back to the Magna Carta, in 1215. At the time King John could pass any laws any time he pleased. Judges and executive officers, appointed and removed at his whim, were no more than servants of the king. The oppression became so great that the nation rose against the ruler and the barons of England compelled their king to pledge that no freeman would be punished for a violation of any laws without the consent of his peers. King John violently protested when the Magna Carta was shown to him, "and with a solemn oath protested, that he would never grant such liberties as would make himself a slave." Afterwards, fearing seizure of his castle and the loss of his throne, he granted the Magna Carta to the people, placing the liberties of the people in their own safekeeping. (Echard's History of England, p. 1067.) The Magna Carta was a gift reluctantly bestowed upon his subjects by the Its sole means of enforcement, the jury, often met with hostility from the Crown. By 1664 English juries were routinely fined for acquitting a defendant. Such was the case in the 1670 political trial of William Penn for preaching Quakerism to an unlawful assembly. Four of the twelve jurors voted to acquit and continued to acquit even after being imprisoned and starved for four days. The jurors were fined and imprisoned until they paid the fines. One juror, Edward Bushell, refused to pay the fine and brought his case before the Court of Common Pleas. Chief Justice Vaughan held that jurors could not be punished for their verdicts. Bushell's Case (1670) was one of the most important developments in the common law history of the jury. Jurors exercised their power of nullification in 18th century England in trials of defendants charged with sedition and in mitigating death penalty cases. In the American Colonies jurors refused to enforce forfeitures under the English Navigation Acts. The Colonial jurors' veto power prompted England to extend the jurisdiction of the non-jury admiralty courts in America beyond their ancient limits of sea-going vessels. Depriving "the defendant of the right to be tried by a jury which was almost certain not to convict him [became] ... the most effective, and therefore most disliked" of all the methods used to enforce the acts of trade. (Holdsworth, A History of English Law (1938) Xl, 110) John Hancock, "the wealthy Massachusetts patriot and smuggler who as President of the Continental Congress affixed the familiar bold signature which adorns the parchment Declaration of Independence" (United States Court of Appeals, 1980, 618 F.2d 453), was prosecuted through this admiralty jurisdiction in 1768 for a fine of 9,000 pounds -- triple the value of the goods aboard his sloop "Liberty" which had been previously forfeited. John Adams eloquently argued the case, chastising Parliament for depriving Americans of their right to trial by jury. Adams later said of 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." (Yale Law Journal, 1964:173.) Earlier in America jury nullification had decided the celebrated seditious libel trial of John Peter Zenger (Zenger's Case, 1735). His newspaper had criticized the royal governor of New York. The law made it a crime to publish any statement, true or false, criticizing public officials, laws or government. The jury was only to decide if the material in question had been published; the judge was to decide if the material was in violation of the statute. The defense asked the jury to make use of their own consciences and although the judge ruled that the truth was no defense, the jury acquitted Zenger. The jury's nullification in this case is praised in history textbooks as a hallmark of freedom of the press in the United States. At the time of the American revolution, the jury was considered the judge of both law and fact. In a case involving the civil forfeiture of private