All jury instructions are based on the law. If they are not, they get overturned. The trial courts and the appeals courts have a big book of "standard jury charges" but they are all based on the law. Lawyers may (and usually do) request additional charges particularly applicable to the case, which they write themselves -- but again they have to cite the law.
Back when I was a judicial clerk, we spent a lot of time in the library making sure that the jury instructions tallied with the law. Occasionally the lawyers would try to sneak one by you, but they generally got caught - if not by us, by the other side.
Think of the instructions as a capsule summary of the applicable law, provided for the jury's convenience. The one time I sat on a jury (don't ask me why they took me!) the instructions were of GREAT help. Especially since it was an area of law I don't practice in.
With that said, where the jury holds absolute sway is on the FACTS. And applying the charged law to the facts. Plenty of wiggle room there for a jury of decent intelligence without overthrowing the law.
Ask me if I care. We have a jury system. Jury instructions are not part of the Constitution. They are usually a set of rules that the Attorneys and the Judge agree upon to give to the jury, but the jury is not bound by them. They are bound only by their oath to do justice. And they are not going to be punished if they violate that oath because they are drafted into the position and they are not paid. It is a community service and until we have professional jurors with criminal penalties for not following jury instructions, juries are free to convict the innocent and free the guilty. But you need 12 like minded individuals to convict the innocent, so it ain't likely to happen unless the jury is instructed to do something stupid, like disregard the defendant's confession that he murdered 20 people before he insisted he didn't murder the person he is on trial for murdering. I think I might ignore the jury instructions on that one.
Well, yes, but it's Admiralty Law, not the common law. That's what the gold fringe on the flags in the court room really mean. I'm not a big fan of waiving my rights, nor should you be.
A jury's acquittal in a criminal case is not subject to review or appeal. Jury deliberations are secret. If even one juror considers the law to be unjust or unreasonable, then it is that juror's right and duty to return a not-guilty verdict regardless of the judge's instructions or the letter of the law.
A trial by jury is the people's avenue for VETO of unjust law.
"The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy." - John Jay, First Supreme Court Justice of the United States [1789]"The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact." - Oliver Wendell Holmes [1902]
Perhaps the last juror doesn't feel that an e-mail account username and password qualifies as a "means of identification" under the letter of Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-14-150, because it is not a government-issued ID number, not biometric data, and is not a code which allows one to financially encumber the legitimate owner.
If that's the crux of the disagreement, than I think the holdout is correct.
Guys - that's dangerous territory.
All jury instructions are based on the law. If they are not, they get overturned. The trial courts and the appeals courts have a big book of "standard jury charges" but they are all based on the law. Lawyers may (and usually do) request additional charges particularly applicable to the case, which they write themselves -- but again they have to cite the law.
Nope, not dangerous territory ... it's the "bulwark of freedom" for this country -- the citizens on a jury making sure that no government, government official or unjust law or crooked judge or crooked system can railroad citizens into imprisonment.
See Post #66 ...
However isn’t it true that nullification of law is a jury authority well based in history which has been usurped through judges instructions over the years?
And just how many times did the instructions include the fact that there are US Supreme court decisions stating that the jury is the judge of both the facts and the LAW?