When I served on that jury last year, we jurors talked about what our job was even though it was only misdemeanor traffic court. In the end, we found the defendant guilty even though the letter of the law said that he was not culpable. Without going into great detail, the law said the person who caused the traffic accident should be held faultless if the person he hit did not have all their paperwork in order. In our case, the victim did not have current liability insurance coverage which meant that defendant who rear-ended the victim could be found not guilty. We thought this would be letting him off on a technicality, because her lack of liability insurance had nothing to do in real life with this other fellow totalling her car. Since it was clear to us that he caused the accident, we voted him guilty. This may be the opposite of a jury nullification, but ultimately this is the true job of a jury: to judge the facts of the case as well as the law in question.
The judge was totally unhelpful, and when asked for help said nothing but "read the law" that he had given us on a photocopied sheet of paper. Why on earth are juries treated this way? Maybe this was no Twelve Angry Men, but I still feel that we did our job. But when I read about cases like this US vs. Emerson or the fiasco that was the OJ trial, and I am left with the distinct impression that something is seriously wrong with how juries are employed.