My two favorities! Of course, WRT jury nullification, it doesn't nullify the egregious law, only its application to the specific defendant. But I imagine if nullification happened often enough respecting an egregious law, it would effectively be rendered null and void.
But people do not understand their rights as jurors -- they get to determine, not only the facts of the case, but the facts of the law. Here in Massachusetts, judges will never explain this to you. On the contrary, the judge will tell you (as I was told when I was in a jury pool once upon a time) that, as jurors, you must determine the facts, but leave the determination of law up to the judge. They even played a slick video for us, taking pains to make precisely this point. (It was sickening.)
I have read that, in some courts, for a juror to so much as mention "jury nullification" invites a charge of contempt of court.
Thanks so much for your very informative post/essay!
Perhaps the American judges are trying to protect some power they believe belongs to them? As I read it, the Constitution puts the power - the determination of guilt/innocence before the law - in the jury, otherwise every trial would be a bench trial.
Having its origins in Medieval England, jury nullification was often used to combat the actions of corrupt or oppressive officials, and was primarily concerned with criminal law, although its use was instrumental in developing the idea that the truth was a proper defense to libel in a civil matter. It was also used to combat laws persecuting Quakers in the 1660s and thereabouts.
It has generally been admitted that jury nullification does not extend to determining the admissibility of evidence; does not include a right to make law, but only to determine existing law as found in the statutes; and, did not include the right to fix punishment for crimes (oddly enough, now a responsibility written into the law in some jurisdictions).
I like the idea because it confounds arrogant officials who are kept guessing about what might happen if they are thinking about corrupt acts, and because it might serve to occasionally abort an obvious injustice. The dark side of the concept includes its use through much of the Twentieth Century to deny justice to blacks in the South, when their predators were white.