Bad headline: “State Codifies by Statute Right of Jurors to Question Law,” would have been better.
The right of a jury to return a verdict in the face of both the law and the facts if they believe it will serve justice is a permanent feature of trial by jury. The fact that prosecutors and judges don’t like it, and try to hide the fact from jurors doesn’t change the fact. A conviction returned in the face of the law and the facts will be overturned on appeal. An acquittal the state just has to suffer with.
That is why the jury box is listed between the ballot box and the cartridge box in the old list of the boxes that defend liberty: soap, ballot, jury, cartridge.
I agree. They should apply it to the George Zimmerman trial.When the technical application of the law in light of the facts of a particular case could produce a result that a reasonable person could consider a grevious injustice then the jury should have the right to consider nullification.
...the court shall permit the defense...
1. So "the government" (the court) disallowed jurors (the fellow citizens of those judges ) from being informed and prosecutors counted on "the courts" (read judges) to maintain that ignorance.
...its right to judge the facts and the application of the law...
The ignorant pass judgement and that's okay as long as it keeps the money flowing into the coffers and people into "the system".
The best cure for the lunacy that is “jury nullification” is jury nullifiction! May all lunatics believing the doctrine be tried for their lives, liberty and property by a jury composed of twelve slugs each thinking their individual concept of the law is better than any other person on earth.
Actually (said the Prosecutor), juries have always been able to do this ... they just didn’t know it.