jury nullification technically is NOT legal, in that it violates the specific instructions of the court with respect to following the applicable law. HOWEVER, once a person is acquitted, that's it. The jurors have not committed a crime, but they HAVE violated their oath as jurors (in New York anyway) wherein they agree to follow the judge's instructions on the law. A distinction without a difference, perhaps, as the jurors can never be called to answer for their verdict, and any evidence of nullification is anecdotal rather than testimonial.
-A Judge Who Knows
Hypothetically;
If I sit on a jury deciding a persons guilt or innocense possessing say , a couple of joints, and I think it's a frivolous charge based on (I guess, I don't know), the law that says a joint is illegal possesion, I can, while deciding, voice my opinion that this particular law is stupid and 'we' could find the defendent not guilty on the fact that 'we' in this case determine the law illegal?
This was established and demonstarted by a Jury in London in the year 1670, the month of September, a case brought to trial on the first day of that month. That Jury ignored the Judicial direction as what it might find, and was imprisoned overnights without food and water in the Tower of London for so doing. Some were held in the Tower until November.
Still that courageous Jury stood fast to its own judgement. Finally -- after considerable public efforts their verdict stood. Not the verdict for which the Judge asked not the charge the baliff had orignally declared..
The Jury ruled that William Penn was guily only of "Speaking in Public" -- no crime that. They had recast the very charge -- of incitement to riot, and found according to Liberty and Truth.
That trial and ruling by the Jury is part of our common law, as we inherited it.
"jury nullification technically is NOT legal, in that it violates the specific instructions of the court with respect to following the applicable law. ...(T)he jurors have not committed a crime, but they HAVE violated their oath as jurors (in New York anyway) wherein they agree to follow the judge's instructions on the law."
I agree with that.
But there have been documented cases of jury nullification, and in some instances it was the noble thing to do (not in the OJ case, though, where the jury may have simply disregarded crucial evidence to form a conclusion that reasonable doubt existed).
But how can it be illegal to disregard instructions which are in themselves incorrect as well as illegal?