It was originally used on a free speech case. It was used repeatedly by people to refuse to prosecute underground railroaders.
It was used quite a bit during prohibition.
Up until the 1920’s every judge was compelled to tell the jury of their rights to judge both the law and the facts.
Good historical information. What I personally heard was how the communists in the anti-Vietnam movement was going to destroy the jury and court system with the Oakland 7 case being the test case for the Chicago 7 trial.
Got this directly from William Kunstler.
I have no doubt that their jury nullification was just a modern update of the instances you cite, but for internal security researchers, it marked the emergence of a smarter leftist attack on the judicial system.
Soon after that, they started to attack the grand jury system, creating a National Lawyers Guild (CP front) group known as the “Campaign to Abolish Grand Jury Abuse”, again led by Kunstler and his group with a few left-liberals thrown in for cover.
Also, the Committee for Public Justice, (anti-FBI) was founded about the same time by id. CPUSA member Lillian Hellman and a bunch of fellow travelers.