Juries are woefully uninformed in their rights to give a proper verdict in spite of what a judge instructs.
The Minneapolis Star and Tribune in a news paper article appearing in its November 30th 1984 edition, entitled: "What judges don't tell the juries" stated:A well informed juror will always be excluded from serving on a jury these days."At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, the jury's role as defense against political oppression was unquestioned in American jurisprudence. This nation survived until the 1850's when prosecutions under the Fugitive Slave Act were largely unsuccessful because juries refused to convict."
"Then judges began to erode the institution of free juries, leading to the absurd compromise that is the current state of the law. While our courts uniformly state juries have the power to return a verdict of not guilty whatever the facts, they routinely tell the jurors the opposite."
"Further, the courts will not allow the defendants or their counsel to inform the jurors of their true power. A lawyer who made...Hamilton's argument would face professional discipline and charges of contempt of court."
"By what logic should juries have the power to acquit a defendant but no right to know about the power? The court decisions that have suppressed the notion of jury nullification cannot resolve this paradox."
"More than logic has suffered. As originally conceived, juries were to be a kind of safety valve, a way to soften the bureaucratic rigidity of the judicial system by introducing the common sense of the community. If they are to function effectively as the 'conscience of the community,' jurors must be told that they have the power and the right to say no to a prosecution in order to achieve a greater good. To cut jurors off from this information is to undermine one of our most important institutions."
"Perhaps the community should educate itself. Then Citizens called for jury duty could teach the judge a needed lesson in civics." (emphasis mine)
"The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."
- John Jay, 1st Chief Justice
- United States supreme Court, 1789
"The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided."
- Harlan F. Stone, 12th Chief Justice
- U.S. supreme Court, 1941
"The pages of history shine on instance of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge..."
- U.S.vs Dougherty, 473 F 2nd 113, 1139, (1972)