Jury Nullification

Jury Nullification
Mike Callicrate
2006
 
The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, United States Supreme Court JusticeThe jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the facts in controversy. — John Jay, 1st Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

The pages of history shine on instances of the jury’s exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge — U.S. vs. Dougherty, 1972

It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge’s view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience. — John Adams

“If a juror accepts as the law that which the judge states, then that juror has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and right that once was the citizen’s safeguard of liberty.”
(1788) (2 Elliots Debates, 94, Bancroft, History of the Constitution, 267)

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