"Until the middle of the 1800s, federal and state judges often instructed the juries they had the right to disregard the court’s view of the law. (Barkan, citing 52 Harvard Law Review, 682-616) Then northern jurors refused to convict abolitionists who had violated the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. In response judges began questioning jurors to find out if they were prejudiced against the government, dismissing any who were. In 1852 Lysander Spooner, a Massachusetts lawyer and champion of individual liberties, complained "that courts have repeatedly questioned jurors to ascertain whether they were prejudiced against the government. . . . The reason of this . . . was that ‘the Fugitive Slave Law, so called’ was so obnoxious to a large portion of the people, as to render a conviction under it hopeless, if the jurors were taken indiscriminately from among the people." Modern treatments of abolitionism praise these jury nullification verdicts for helping the anti-slavery cause – rather than condemn them for undermining the rule of law and the uniformity of justice."
(2)I have read all of the research on jury nullification but..... so what?. If it carried the power its proponents claim then any jury, in any venue, could declare any law as unconstitutional and the law would be forever nullified. That is not the case. The power of a jury is to acquit for ANY reason and it is only applicable to that single trial. Now there is an ethical question for the potential "nullifier" or "OJ Juror"...is it right to lie to get on a panel in order to make a political statement?